Airport Blogging: Thoughts on Being a Taxi Cab Liberal

For a few months now, I've been telling other liberals that I'm a "taxi cab liberal". They've laughed, but I'm not sure what I said made sense.

When I moved to DC in 2001, it was popular to refer to rich liberals (who sometimes put their monetary interests ahead of their politics) as a "limosine liberal". This was a common slur in my graduate school, though that was ridiculous because most of us were broke. That was what made it offensive. Who wants to be thought of as a sell out when she's walking miles a day because she can't afford to take taxis? Who wants to be called rich when her daily food budget is ten bucks? Not me. It is part of liberal guilt -- we think we understand what it's like to be poor because for a few years we had a rough budget. Looking back, it's totally ridiculous. My parents would've sent me money in an instant if they'd known I was walking by myself all over DC and eating off the McDonald's value menu. That said, it was a matter of character to me -- I was paying my own way, and that was final.

Fast forward to the present. I am a grown up. Thanks to what I learned while in grad school, I know how to budget and to save. I own my own place. A few weeks ago, a DC based website posted about liberal tendencies in terms of lifestyle choices, and it had my name written all over it. One key qualification was living in a gentrifying area like Columbia Heights or U Street. Check.

I've lived in my borderline neighborhood for over a year. In that time, a woman has been raped in my condo building, I've been harassed by kids in the neighborhood on a near daily basis, including having things thrown at me or my head, I've been hit by a homeless man, a person has been stabbed multiple times on my block, and two teenage girls beat up a woman at 5 30 at night for no apparent reason. That's just in the 2 block vicinity of my building and doesn't include drive by's and riots against police that have happened within 6 blocks of my house, and the constant muggings.

It wasn't like this when I first moved in, but now it is bad. And so, I've adjusted my behavior. No longer feeling safe walking around my neighborhood, I take cabs home nearly every night. I have tremendous liberal guilt about opting out of the community, about giving up on it. And about wasting so much money on cabs when the metro is a block away. But no way am I risking it.

When I call myself a "taxi cab liberal", I mean that I don't want to be an example of the bad things that happen to white women in my neighborhood. I feel guilty about giving up the liberal plan of everyone getting along, of living together as a community. But I have to put my safety first.

I think this is going to become a major issue in DC. Already vigilante middle aged folks are trying to organize neighborhood watch groups. It is becoming a problem in many areas in DC beyond just U Street and Columbia Heights -- Adams Morgan, Logan Circle, and even Kalorama, to name a few. Liberals will say we need after school programs and conservatives will say we should lock every urban kid up. There is no solution without fundamental change, and one can hope that change will be a President Obama. But with the Election Day two weeks away, and with so many other problems, I have no hope this will get better anytime soon, even if Obama is elected. Mayor Fenty can't even fix this.

We've been told we should be more friendly with neighborhood teens, and say hello to them. That has got to be the most Pollyanna non solution I've ever heard.

So for now I take taxis home and avoid any interaction with people outside of my building.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry