Neighborhood divisions reflected in tiffs carried onto online forums

YOUNGSTOWN – Neighborhood rivalries aren’t only being played out in the streets, schools and nightclubs, but in cyberspace as well.

“I guess the East Side never changed. Two dead in less than 24 hours, what a city.”

“Go back to the South Side and take your problems with you.”

The pages of The Vindicator’s forum boards are filled with badgering and bickering about crime, drugs, violence, school and race issues.

Youngstown residents are familiar with the old divides and animosity between each side of town and are finding new ways to divulge their utmost rage and disregard for what or whom they don’t like.

Mark Rheins, a resident of the South Side, said the town is separated on many fronts. He said there’s a division among income distribution and the human race as a whole.

The socio-economic effects of race and class divisions can create devastating blows to communities, neighborhoods and cities, which in turn generate a downward spiral forcing people and businesses out of the area, Janine Chi, an assistant sociology professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., said.

Allentown, a city more than 300 miles away, experiences some of the same bellyaches from divisions as Youngstown residents, but nothing Ryan Fay would classify as anything “serious.”

Fay, a student at Lehigh Carbon Community College and South Side resident of Allentown, said the city isn’t completely divided, although there is a small rivalry between East and South side residents.

But, he said, he doesn’t like being on the East Side of Allentown because the school boundaries create a small rivalry between the East and South sides.

“You’re at a bar and there’s a bunch of kids. Someone will probably say, ‘ah those East Siders, what are they doing over here?’ But it’s all in good fun; there’s no serious drama usually,” he said.

Ian Ximinies, also a resident of the South Side of Allentown, in contrast to Fay, said the city is very much divided.

“The residents pay attention to every little thing the college students do to keep them in check. Whereas on the East Side of Allentown, [there are] more stores, nightclubs, liquor stores and things of that nature that makes it look down. Also, more compact housing with people living on top of each other,” Ximinies said.

Michael Moore, communications coordinator for the mayor’s office in Allentown, said the city isn’t divided and Allentown is “a very diverse city,” but have distinctive neighborhoods due to geographical reasons.

Even though Moore doesn’t view Allentown as divided, he said crime can be ruled out as a factor that would divide the city.

“According to the latest FBI statistics,” Moore said, “violent crime is down 18 percent in the city. Property crimes fell 12 percent. Both categories are down for the second consecutive year.”

Allentown and Youngstown are similar, being that they were major steel producing cities, but they are different in the sense that some people may view Allentown as prospering and Youngstown still in the slumps.

Eboni Williams, Youngstown State University graduate and a South Side resident, said she sees each side of town as the same and not good or bad. She also said she wouldn’t say the people are divided, but rather their “lifestyles.”

“The other sides of town are the same whether they have a good reputation or bad. The south, east, and north [sides] are not totally bad, nor is the West [Side] a utopia,” she said.

“To the average law-abiding adult citizen, your side of residency is irrelevant. Young people also associate others with the side of the town they are from. They ‘rep’ their sides of town, but at this age they ‘rep’ everything from graduation dates to their favorite celebrity,” Williams said.

Rheins, on the other hand, said the whole human race is divided.

“The days have passed us where we are there for one another and show each other love and respect,” Rheins said. “The people in Youngstown are definitely divided, there’s no question about it. There are still some folks who are ignorant enough to keep the ‘side of town’ territorial nonsense going. However, it’s not as intense as it used to be.”

Chi said this division would be classified as residential segregation.

Americans like simplification. The terms good versus bad and seeing situations as black or white have dominated the way we see and talk about other people, Chi said.

“A lot of cities experience this divide across the U.S. [Many cities face] high-income versus low-income neighborhoods. Low-income people tend to be working class and high-income tend to be white,” Chi said.

Big cities like Los Angeles and Chicago have these problems, too, she said.

People don’t live with whom they like; it depends on structural factors such as bank loans and real estate; it’s not necessarily a person’s preference, Chi said.

“People interpret where you live as an individual choice, which can be a misconception. It’s not as simple as that.” Chi said. “We choose houses by what we can afford. People say it’s their own fault for moving there because it was their choice.”

Race and class are vital factors that play important roles in forming a neighborhood’s identity — they are intersecting, Chi said. But we have idealized notions of what a neighborhood is and what it is supposed to be.

Chi said anonymity and being in the comfort of one’s own home are reasons some people take their frustrations out about race, class and neighborhoods on forums and blogs.

A Vindy.com user suggests, “Why not declare the East Side and the upper South Side …a war zone? Call in the National Guard and monitor the areas just as they would war zones. At least the people could possibly feel protected. I mean, …this is unreal, sad [and] shameful.”

Chi said she personally is more interested in action and behavior than a blog because there is no contact, as she demonstrated two people talking face-to-face versus randomly posting comments on a blog.

“A blog involves no interaction. It’s selfish, egotistical and purging your own mind. The more credence we give to blogs the more it takes our attention away from policies. We focus on what Joe Schmo said at 3 a.m. It creates a hype,” Chi said.

While people are blogging, Chi said, more newsworthy issues are taking place that could be affecting the communities and neighborhoods we live in. She questions why some people even pay attention to blogs in the first place.

Allentown’s local newspaper, The Morning Call, has users that post on its online forum board reasons for the city’s divide, the main one being because of an influx of Hispanics from New York and New Jersey.

One online user views Allentown differently now than what it was 40 years ago because of the increase in Hispanics.

“Ya, now it’s a salsa-infested armpit!”

Emelyn Valez, a ninth-grader at William Allen High School in Allentown said that there are a lot of fights between the races at school.

Generally, she said, blacks and Latinos are told they don’t belong in the city, causing tension, resulting in fights among the students.

“People pick with you for no reason. You have to fight them until they leave you alone,” Valez said.

Linda Vientos, also a ninth-grader at William Allen, said there are fights between blacks and Dominicans in the schools. It’s not an issue of what side of town someone is from, but more about his or her culture and ethnicity.

When neighborhoods begin to fall apart and the people become divided, stable residents and businesses leave and there’s no incentive for anyone else to live there except the uneducated and unemployed. This can cause problems like drugs and high crime, Chi said.

“No one says, ‘I don’t want to live near a black family.’ They say, ‘I want to live in a better neighborhood.’ Who can fault them?” she said.

Despite this negative attitude that some Vindy.com online users seem to have about their town and the condition it’s in, other users still have hope.

“We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names and there are many different colors. But, they all have to live in the same box,” said online user who goes by “im sick of this hate.”