Another day in hell

Yesterday, I survived another day in the woke urban hellscape that is New York City.

I started my day in my new home (one year now) of Sunset Park, Brooklyn. It’s a diverse community of 130,000 with many immigrants: 41% Latino, 25% Asian, and 28% White. The median household income is $86,380, with a 21% poverty rate; the median rent is $2,000. Homeowners make up 32% of households, which is about average for the city.

I took the subway to teach, about 8 miles away. 40 minutes door-to-door on the D express. The ride was crowded, but I managed to score a seat when people got off at Atlantic Ave. No fuss, no issues. I like the view as we travel over the Manhattan Bridge (and I can squeeze in a couple of tweets before we go back underground).

Two classes yesterday: one on 9/11 and the other on current political movements. In the 2nd class, we covered wokism and Trumpism. The students were engaged, with a range of views, although we had no vocal conservatives (my main conservative was home sick; she sent an apologetic email, nice kid). One kid defended a woke POV, but a Mexican-American guy argued white men got attacked too often. A kid who I think is trans pointed out that lefties have their own conspiratorial beliefs; he gave the example of wearing masks when there was no need, and we discussed the politicization of reactions to COVID. We also discussed why Trump may have made gains among Asian and Latino voters, and I shared this fun map showing the shifts in 2024’s vote.

(New York still went 68% for Harris, but Trump’s 30% share was a 7-point gain over the 23% he got in 2020. He got more votes in almost every election district. My own local district was 85% for Biden in 2020 but only 73% for Harris in 2024.)

After class, I jumped on an electric Citi Bike to whisk downtown for a late lunch with a progressive buddy. Citi Bikes have added hugely to my quality of life. So much fun to just grab a bike (I pay for an annual membership) and zip to where I’m going faster than the subway could take me and with more exciting scenery. We ate at Dudley's in the Lower East Side (one block from the Tenement Museum). I had the chopped salad (meh) and roasted Brussels sprouts (very tasty!), and we talked about politics, trans controversies, and the woes of traveling to the beach (his husband's family is pro beach vacations; neither of us is a beach person). We weren't on the same page on every issue, but there wasn't anything we couldn't talk about.

While we chatted, we sat outside in the beautiful spring weather and watched the pretty women (me) and pretty men (him) walk by. It was lovely. Our waitress told us she was from Colombia. We didn't ask to see her papers.

(Ok, it wasn't perfect. A young woman sitting down next to us carelessly let her purse tip over my Diet Coke, which spilled onto one pant leg. Annoying but no big deal. She apologized, and the soda was replaced.)

A quick subway ride home (the B and the N) and a brief stop at my bodega (it really does exist!) before finally getting home to my spacious by NYC standards (750 sq ft) apartment. This morning, the windows are open and I'm getting a gentle breeze and listening to the soothing sounds of chirping birds. A bit farther away, I can hear construction of some sort (they’re remodeling a gas station), which is less soothing, but tolerable.

I survived.

My odds remain good. The city’s murder rate continues to decline. New York had 113 homicides at this point last year, only 80 so far this year. My own police precinct, the 72nd, has had no murders this year (we had 3 for all of last year). New York is one of the safest cities in the United States.

None of this is me saying New York City has no problems. Disorder is too present, and we have too many homeless people on the streets. As I was saying goodbye to my buddy, I was also keeping an eye on a homeless couple drifting past behind him. They were probably harmless, but you keep an eye out. It would be better for all of us if they had somewhere safe to be.

And I’m also not saying that crazy progressive ideas don’t still exist. I saw that video of the stupid Yale kids forming a human chain for Gaza. But whatever “woke” is, there’s less of it in the air and in my classrooms than there was just a few years ago. Even my students whom I’d call ‘woke,’ are more open to other ways of seeing the world, which wasn’t as much the case back in 2020.

All I’m trying to tell y’all is the craziness you see on Twitter isn’t the reality that I live every day.