Shooting shuts down main Roslindale street this afternoon

don't most people walk around the neighborhood for a while before buying something as expensive as a house?

Since the haircutter was also white, I don't understand your question.

My first post was in response to this,
I just bought a home one block up on beech, nice to know i'm moving to such a great neighborhood :-(
Lets stop calling the 2 victims teens. People rarely get shot for no reason! What is the story behind the story? Who were they, where were they from? What did they say/do? If these 2 were the shooters or their friends retaliate instead of being the victims will we call them teens or gunmen? I guess I would be ok with using "teens" if we agree that teens, do & sell drugs, steal, rob & also kill. There isnt an anti yuppie movement, it is what it is in Rozzi. People usually realtors or others with money to gain create facades, sugarcoat the truth & change the names of places. Rozzi is home & I know what it is & is not.
I do remember the old days & it may not have been perfect either is having the Square full of uselless overpriced shops that locals dont use & rarely work in. I have walked over the bridge @ Kelly's liquor @ night with it full of teen thugs without 1 dirty look or remark. Lets see any of these new affluent neighbors who live right on dale street do that. They wont & cant because they dont belong, same as if rival kids from another neighborhood crossed looking for trouble.
See I am not a threat to them or threatened by them either. I am not there rich landlord who raised the rent or is turning the neighborhood into condos. I am not the yuppy that calls the police for every lil thing from loud cars or shooting hoops too late or hanging out with lack of elsewhere to go. I am not the shop owner that wont hire them.

Since the failure of Bussing & the schools we have second & third generation under educated bussing families. Some who work more jobs to pay for private schools or raised cost of living. Sure the kids are @ "better" schools or not but they are home alone more & all are traveling to & from scool on the T. This commuting of teenagers causes tension & conflict that is started to/from or at school & spills out into the home neighborhoods in the form of violence.

I never said & dont buy into that "Working Class" people are illiterate. Being able to read & write does not make you any less violent. I would say that violence has & is a part of blue collar neighborhoods more then in white collar suburbs. The problems in Roslindale stem from the children of the "Working Class". The kids whos parents have to work multiple jobs just to survive in the neighborhood that there family/friends have lived in for generations. This leaves kids to make there own way with drinking drugs, guns & violence in main stream hiphop culture as well as in neighborhood life. Violence is a tool for survival in the city & is part of life everywhere. I dont want people to think just because they bought an expensive house they are immune to it.

I have children of my own & havent stole candy money from kids for over 25 years. As with everywhere else the all mighty dollar wins out & I dont fault them from selling. The "newcomers" are temporary visitors who come to spruce the place up with marble countertops & stainless appliances. Then they start a family & move. When chunkcs of the city are changed from rentals to condos, what will happen when the area truely gets bad. What happens when the shooting starts & the for sale signs go up? Whow will buy the overpriced condos then? Will people flee & board up their 1 floor of a 3 decker like a storm is coming. Will they rent it out for $2500 to cover the bills?

The weather is getting nicer & there will be plenty more violence to come.

Suldog, this also jumps out at me, as a non-Christian. Many people use "Christian" to mean decent or moral or whatnot. I've had people tell me that something was a "very Christian thing to do" or describe someone who isn't religious as "honest, hardworking, very Christian person." In the literal sense, it's definitely a compliment to be compared to Christ, but I also do feel that it's narrow and leaves some people out. Like, are there not decent, honest, neighborly people of other faiths?

And while I'm sure people aren't considering this history when they use the term, Native Americans were forced to attend "Christian" boarding schools up until the '20s and '30s, in order to convert them and strip them of their language. The government at this time used "Christian" to mean "decent" and "educated" and "not a savage." They abducted these children to "make them Christian." (FYI, I'm not Native; I grew up in Washington near several nations and have Native relatives by marriage. Historical accounts as well as personal accounts I've heard from family and friends verify that this language was indeed used.) Personally, I recognize that "Christian" to mean "decent" is usually an oversight and comes from people who just haven't been exposed to other types of people. But as you can imagine, the concept is really offensive to a lot of Natives, because it was used very literally to abduct children and violate their rights.

http://1smootshort.blogspot.com

That's fair enough, but I'd say the answer to your question doesn't just come down to the two choices you offer.

Since this is how I might feel, I'll assume he meant a neighborhood where the majority of the people he talked to seemed to share the same religious beliefs and practices he holds, without necessarily meaning that he or they would look to exclude those who don't. In other words, the neighborhood - at present - is extremely comfortable for him.

Does it mean that a change in the neighborhood demographics would make him UNcomfortable? I would hope not. I just take it as a way of saying that, as presently constituted, he doesn't feel like his own values would be out of place and/or ridiculed.

Or perhaps it even comes down to something as simple as there being a house of worship on his street that he likes attending.

(Slightly off the topic, but perhaps pertinent: Just because someone self-identifies as "Christian" in a poll or on paperwork, that doesn't necessarily mean they practice the religion, or even practice it in the same way as someone else who self-identifies that way; just as "Jewish" doesn't necessarily mean religiously-observant or Orthodox, Reform, or Conservative, for instance. He may have meant that he specifically found some people who really observe the rites he follows and who he may wish to go to worship with on Sunday or whenever.)

Sorry - slightly long-winded. Thanks for the reasonable and polite response, and your turn now, if you wish :-)