Rebecca Traister Quote

Letisha also misses New York, and what it offered her as a single mother, even at the same time that it made it impossible for her to stay. In New York, everybody on the corner knew who I was, she said. Oh, that’s the brown woman with the baby and the dog. This sense of community was comforting, and felt safe, even in the neighborhoods that she understood to be unsafe. One of her apartments, Letisha recalled, was right next to a shady bodega, but she said, Never once did I feel unsafe in there. She said she was never harassed on the street, often felt like the shop owners who sat outside on sidewalks served as an informal neighborhood watch, and felt comfortable enough with her neighbors, in each of her New York apartments, that she could ask for help getting groceries and a stroller up the stairs. She sometimes even left Lola in a store with neighbors while she ran across the street to pick up her laundry. The attitude was: She’s one of us and we take care of our own, she said. I never felt like I was going to be in any danger. But you can’t control the shootings, and I wouldn’t go to block parties. In her Virginia apartment complex, Letisha said, none of her neighbors acknowledge each other. For