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I am a white woman living in an overwhelmingly white, low-crime neighborhood. My homeowners’ association pays off-duty members of the local Police Department to patrol the neighborhood, even though there is broad agreement among Black community leaders that the department has a race problem.

I have become increasingly uncomfortable paying for this patrol. I want everyone in my neighborhood, regardless of what they look like or whether they live here or are just passing through, to be safe. If I don’t want to give money (beyond my tax dollars) to this Police Department, can I decline to pay that portion of my homeowners’ dues?

— Kwame Anthony Appiah in Should My Neighborhood Be Paying an Off-Duty Officer For Security?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

91 COMMENTS

  1. That’s an easy fix. Move to a high crime, predominantly black neighborhood.

    • Would someone PLEASE shoot up this woman’s neighborhood so she feels more equal……
      What was that number for the Dial-A-Driveby Hot Line???? Oh, here it is…..1-800-DRIVEBY….
      FAX….1-800-SHOOTME
      Per AT&T, most dialed numbers in Libturd villages.

      • Don’t kid yourself, she wants “safety” intrinsically (it’s at the core of women), as do all her neighbors.

        None of them are really going to take one for the team.

        What better way though to profess your adherence to their cult-ish religion (Leftism), than by openly calling one’s very safety into question.

        • She wants the security but doesn’t want to pay for it. Just increase her taxes to cover the shortfall.

      • Amazing how an unidentified, hopelessly apologetic, milquetoast, overly medicated comic book white woman depicted in a shadowy woe is me stock photo can bring shades of bigotry out of fools who fell for such preposterous, concocted lines of crap. It started out dumb and ended up even dumber…Pathetic.

        • Oh this is less weird than I am used to hearing especially as I listen to the white liberals make excuses moving out as anything darker than italian moves in.

    • Talk about “first world problems”.

      There are billions who would be willing to accept such a level of safety without a guilty conscience

    • Aaron,

      There are some highly intelligent people who do the same thing.

      Her shortcoming is not due to stupidity in the sense of being uneducated or having a low I.Q. Rather, her shortcoming is due to allowing emotion to rule her life.

      All the education and intelligence in the world is irrelevant if emotion has the final say on matters.

    • Rincoln….or maybe Lincoln????…..although I suspect, really not sure of her color…..regardless, betting not it is not MAROON. Definitely a MORON. Which ones, what sequence, and how many of those little letters actually do matter, often communicating more than the writer intends…… 🙂 🙂 🙂

  5. You want everyone in your neighborhood to be safe, but you don’t want police patrols?
    That is one mixed up woman.

    Sure, don’t pay for the patrols. In exchange, the police will not respond if there is any call for police to your address.

    • If only one could opt out like that. I certainly would. My version of justice is a hell of a lot better than the government’s.

  6. This is the attitude that’s ruining states like ME, NH and VT. Effectively: “we have it too good so lets ruin it for everyone.”

    They should get a place in Camden for six months. That’ll alleviate their bullshit manufactured liberal guilt.

    • Having moved to upstate NY from the Philly footprint I can offer anecdotal support for the efficacy of your proposal. Camden is not as bad as it once was though, better off using either North Philly, central Wilmington or maybe Newark NJ for that crime cluster.

  7. Another liberal white racist with overwhelming racist guilt. Take her to down the flats at midnite and drop her off on a street corner so she can confess her sins to the local gang members.

  8. I spent a lot of time in Texas and I can tell you this: you’d be better off not paying your taxes, or alimony, or child support – or even your sacred truck payment – than forsaking your holy HOA dues. An HOA leader in Texas has more power than you can imagine, and can literally and instantly ruin your life with impunity – their word against yours. These people will slap a mechanics lien on your home so fast your head will spin. Just go ahead and try to sell, or re-fi with these Karens on your back. Why do they have so much power? For just the reason that was mentioned above: property values. Texas will do ANYTHING to keep property values high. Because this is how the state makes most of its tax dollars. Not sure how it is where this lady lives, but in “conservative” Texas You will find out just how fast conservatism and freedom will fly right out the window if you try to take a stand. HOA’s? Never again.

      • Dude,
        I agree completely; I can’t stand them, and have spent my whole life (many Navy moves) avoiding HOAs like the plague. That said, I think they serve useful purpose(s).

        On one hand, of course, they fulfill Karens’ sadomasochistic need to micromanage and to be micromanaged. While I don’t expect that to resonate with many freedom-loving Americans, it actually helps us all.

        Human nature is human nature, and Karens gonna Karen. By allowing them to exercise their Petty Tyrant Syndrome solely on each other by voluntary association, it provides a “relief valve” that forestalls the much-worse alternative: leaving no other outlet for their dystopian vision than fiercely lobbying entire municipalities to enact HOA-like legislation that applies to all of us, with actual criminal consequences added to the financial difficulties non-governmental HOAs can inflict.

        • Don’t want to break this to you Umm…,

          The Karen’s have broken out, the “relief valve” blew and their “dystopian vision” has gone National, if not nearly global.

          I applaud your analysis, now check the news, they are out beyond the HOA perimeter.

        • Axe,
          I’m not saying it’s perfect, but why do so many of us (here and elsewhere) hate the idea of living in a HOA? There is no other possible explanation than the fact that living in a HOA is very different from living outside one.

          City living is (and always has been, and almost has to be) about micromanagement, and several states are basically colonies of their major cities. Conversely, there are still MANY places in small towns and suburbs (the main location of HOAs) that are very unlike HOAs. The unincorporated community where I have my workshop has some of the most Karenish gated communities anywhere, some regular suburban development, and large areas that are Wild West or even redneck.

      • I live in such an area, and have been in my same house many years. You know what I did when I first moved in?…I planted all the (now large) trees on my property myself as saplings. They’re exempt from the regulations because they’re considered my own “property”, so I trim them as I please and can cut them down at any time if I ever wanted to. All my neighbors have to request permission and hire arborists to do theirs, lol.

        • Oh lol! I got mine, so the hell with my neighbors, says Haz the Coward. Typical thinking from a selfish and spineless punk. Ditch this clown instantly.

        • …says the midget troll who never takes his own advice.

          I dare you to ditch me. No, really…please…just ditch me and disappear.

    • Mortimer Beetroot Plimpton,

      Sad reality tidbit: something like 80% of all homes/properties in the United States are subject to a homeowners’ association.

      Best of luck finding a home or property that is free of a homeowners’ association. And even if you do find a home/property that is free of a homeowners’ association, you still have township zoning restrictions to observe.

      Of course, stop paying your property taxes and learn the hard way whether or not you actually own your property.

      Our quaint notion of freedom that so many people have in their heads is an illusion.

      • You could always go just beyond the suburbs and have the best of all worlds. My property is zoned agricultural. There aren’t many restrictions on it.

        • Dude,

          I live just beyond the suburbs where farms, forests, and fields (appropriately zoned agricultural) dominate the landscape.

          Nevertheless, my small neighborhood of about 60 homes on one-acre lots built in the 1970s has a homeowners’ association. A somewhat similar adjacent small neighborhood built in 2007 also has a homeowners’ association.

          Unless you can afford a large piece of land (almost always at least 10-acres), you cannot get an agriculturally zoned property. Unfortunately, even a modest home built in the 1960s (and maintained) on 10-acres around here is going to cost upwards of $400,000 if not more. The simple reality is that people of modest means are largely unable to purchase homes without significant use restrictions (whether due to city codes, township zoning, or homeowners’ associations).

        • Although zoning didn’t restrict what I could build, my deed did. It was restricted against mobile homes. I didn’t have much money, so I built a simple garage apartment with *gasp* exposed block. My neighbor’s daddy who sold me the property called me up to tell me that was worse than a mobile home. He showed up to complain to the framers one day, and they told him they thought I was going to build several of these on the property (zoning allowed for this) and rent them out to Mexicans. 😂 He was pissed.

      • In 2020, the Realtor Magazine said 73.9 million Americans reside in a community with a homeowners association.
        That’s out of 330 million.
        Are you sure about that 80% statistic?

    • Actually, the MUDs there can be worse than the HOA. MUD board hires kinfolks to do expensive overpriced maintenance work on utilities and homeowners pay annual MUD fees of $4,000 to $8,000 or more.

    • “conservative”

      the reason people are confused by “conservative” behavior is because the word is misunderstood. “conservative” thought practice has always included families, friends, neighbors, strangers, neighborhoods, churches, towns, communities, and entire states – but the modern internet right frequently understands “conservative” (and “patriot” and “rights” and “constitutional”) to refer only the individual isolated self completely detached from and without any reference or relation to anyone else. so these people find HOA’s to be “not conservative” – but they are.

    • Amen Dude. Glad to see someone point out the Cult. Because I looked into cults and cultish behavior completely of my own volition and for completely unrelated reasons, and these people hit damn near 100% of the established criteria. It’s freakish.

  10. No one is “safe”…mebbe you should off yourself like those capital keystone er cops who were traumatized by those so-called insurrectionists! Or give yer $ to poor gangbangers.

  11. This is the lefty version of wearing a hair shirt or whipping yourself with a knotted cord in response to sin.

    If she wants everyone to be safe, she should buy a gun and encourage her neighbors to do the same.

  12. This person moved there because it was a safe place to live. How does s/he think it became that way?
    Typical progressive mentality, moving to a place far better than where you were then wanting turn into the place you fled.

  13. Why does she believe “black community leaders” deserve a say in how her White neighborhood protects itself?

    • because she has no sense of herself, of god, of objective right and wrong, or of her place in it.

      so someone else moved into that vacuum and provided her with an ancient ready-made moral framework that harms her and benefits themselves.

  14. This person needs to go volunteer Memphis or Chicago and see how much (or how) a white women is appreciated.

  15. Beware the “Stupid” Pandemic! There is no vax for it, and masks are useless. All you can do is avoid those who are infected.

    • GunnyGene,

      I am as skeptical as anyone. What evidence do you have that all of the vaccines are ineffective?

      I have a very healthy close friend who received one of the vaccines a few months ago. She just contracted COVID-19 from an event this last weekend. The extent of her illness was a low-grade fever, feeling very tired, and sleeping an extra four hours or so. This lasted at most two days and she is apparently back to 100%. Contrast that with my very healthy immediate family members who are not vaccinated and contracted COVID-19 two weeks ago: it was horrific with the worst symptoms lasting at least five days, moderate symptoms lasting five days, and ongoing recovery well past two weeks of onset of symptoms. Countless other people are experiencing virtually identical illnesses (or lack thereof).

      The most pertinent questions are:

      1) Do the vaccines significantly improve patient illness/outcome compared to unvaccinated people? (I believe the answer is yes overall.)

      2) Do the vaccines cause significant health problems (or even death) in the short term and/or the long term? (I am not sure about the short term–I am hearing conflicting information. No one knows if the vaccines will cause serious health problems long term.)

      Sadly, we are now in an era where widespread institutions and entities will do whatever it takes to advance their agendas, even if that involves openly deceiving us, lying to us, or harming/killing thousands/millions of people. Said institutions and entities have and will continue to do it with respect to civilian disarmament–and they have and will continue to do it with respect to “public health” policy.

      • uncommon_sense, GunnyGene was talking about people infected with stupidity, not covid. It seems you are also a victim

        • Facepalm !!!

          Looks like my morning caffeine dose was inadequate.

          In my defense I am coming off of 11 to 12 days of very stressful round-the-clock critical home care (including two life-saving interventions) of immediate family members who had nasty cases of COVID-19–and I have not had a day off in something like a month. (Plus, my last vacation was two years ago.) I epitomize the refrain of the Jackson Browne song Running on Empty.

      • Your friend could have had the exact same result without having been vaccinated. Same goes for your family member if they had been vaccinated. Last report put the Pfizer vaccine at 39% effectiveness against hospitalization for the delta variant. It started out at 95% when the delta version first popped up then dropped to 86% a month or so later. Interesting that they coached their words when the vaccines were announced so people assumed they were immune. I have seen reports there is already another variation.

    • Uncommon. What all this indicates is that people have lost faith in our .gov and institutions. Doubting vaccines. Doubting the pandemic.

      It means that people simply cannot trust or believe in their so called ‘leaders’.

      What happens to a society when it has reached that point?

      • What all this indicates is that people have lost faith in our .gov and institutions. Doubting vaccines.

        The converse of your statement is true, and I find it extremely ironic.

        Not only do the Left and the MSM (excuse the redundancy) love nothing more than a cumbersome, hyperregulated bureaucratic process as a matter of general principle, they spent 2020 shitting on Pres. Trump for shortcutting the specific treatment approval process for the COVID vaccine.

        Now that their guy is in office, building his brand with vaccines developed entirely on his predecessor’s watch, they have elevated faith in the vaccine to an article of religious dogma. Everyone with the least bit of skepticism (i.e. everyone who would be reassured by the vaccine proceeding through the normal course of the Left’s usually-beloved FDA approval process) is a heretic / fringe nutcase, to be cancelled immediately.

        • Well actually, Trump didn’t “short cut” “the specific treatment approval process for the COVID vaccine.”

          On paper and in hyperbole he did, but actually it wasn’t going to happen when he wanted to in his “short cut” ideas. The drug companies simply could not get it out in time to meet his “deadlines” or prepare for an “approval” process.

        • He may have set / boasted about some unrealistic goals that the developers could not meet. That doesn’t change the facts that:

          -The approval process for brand-new major treatments is usually excruciatingly long.

          -The COVID vaccines’ approval process was much shorter than normal.

          -The media took every opportunity to drum up fear by accusing Pres. Trump of shortcutting the process (whether he did or not).

          -Post-inauguration, they did a 180 and now marginalize everyone who has any doubts or questions about the products of the shortened approval process.

        • Jack,

          I am not at all convinced that your characterization is accurate because astronomical gains were at stake.

          If the pharmaceutical companies had made a vaccine available (or announced its imminent availability coming in a few weeks) prior to the November 2020 general election, it would have virtually assured Trump’s victory. The flip side: if a vaccine was still on an uncertain and distant horizon as of election day, that would be a serious blow to Trump’s prospects of winning the election (even without vote tampering/fraud).

          Of course we know how that played out. Everything magically fell into place just a day or two after the 2020 general election which enabled the pharmaceutical companies to announce (just a few days after the election) that they would be distributing vaccines near the middle of December.

          Draw your own conclusions.

      • “What happens to a society when it has reached that point?”

        it is happily seized by the people who pretended to be citizens “just like you” and who all coordinated behind the scenes to instigate and push the loss of faith.

      • jwm,

        “What happens to a society when it has reached that point?”

        Best case: everything keeps chunking along pretty much the same as it always has.

        Bad case: there is a lot of chaos, thrashing, and anarchy–and society moves on in a significantly weakened condition.

        Worst case: there is extreme chaos and anarchy and evil people use deceit and/or force to take-over.

      • JWM, I think we all know what happens. The only question is how far inertia will carry us. The Democrats will try to continue to bribe their folks to keep themselves in power with confiscatory taxes and deficit spending, they don’t care that inflation will eat the dollar till it is worthless. The Feds by way of the CDC are now willing to defy a US Supreme Court ruling that only came out last month, with this eviction moritorium, how is the Court going to enforce that?

        • “how is the Court going to enforce that?”

          it won’t. “because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” john adams

    • Spot on Jack, she wants “safety” intrinsically, as do all her neighbors.

      None of them are really going to take one for the team.

      What better way though to profess your adherence to their cult-ish religion (Leftism), than by openly calling one’s very safety into question.

    • my first reaction, as well….but never underestimate their capacity for saying something stupid

  18. It is precisely because of thinking like this that creates New York’s problems and those very same problems everywhere else.

  19. Media: “You need to feel guilty that you’re are a white person living in a safe neighborhood with off-duty cops proving security for the neighborhood.”

    Person: “Really? Why?”

    Media: ” ’cause the Black community leaders thinks their local police department is racist.”

    Person: “But across the country a lot of black (and asian, and hispanic, and american indian, and white) community leaders think their local police departments are racist.”

    Media: “Yes, but the difference is you live in a safe neighborhood.”

    Person: “Well, yeah I do. So? Are those black (and asian, and hispanic, and american indian, and white) community leaders going to provide me safe neighborhood?”

    Media: “You need to feel guilty that you’re are a white person living in a safe neighborhood with off-duty cops proving security for the neighborhood.”

  20. I would assume, looking at the numbers, the statistics, the thing that scientists and poll takers do, I would believe that it’s not, not only the neighborhoods, but, but , but the whole state of new York that may in danger. Cement is like a rock, it’s made of rocks I believe, correct me if I’m wrong, powdered rock, rock mixed with water. Rocks are heavy, heavier then water. New York has a lot of cement , cement buildings, on it. It’s my concern, well it’s my concern. and this is germaine, that New York will become so heavy, heavy with cement, cement is a rock, rocks are heavier then water, that , that, New York is an island, isnt it?, yes , its called long island, and island like guam , its my concern , is it will become so, so overbur, so top, top heavy, with cement it will, will, capsize.

    • Cement is made from calcium, silicon, aluminum, iron and other ingredients. Common materials used to manufacture cement include limestone, shells, and chalk or marl combined with shale, clay, slate, blast furnace slag, silica sand, and iron ore.

      (note: Marl, AKA, marlstone is a carbonate-rich mud or mudstone which contains variable amounts of clays and silt.)

      • Good lord man, I think it’s best we let Senator Hank Johnson think cement is just powdered rock. He gets started on blast furnaces and clam shells, whew, Pelosi ain’t got that much time left.

        • For sure, don’t tell him there’s a difference between cement and concrete. That’ll really send him ‘round the bend…

        • what’s wrong with you guys? he’s channeling representative hank johnson and his concern for guam tipping over. it’s on youtube.

  21. Don’t worry your twisted fantasy of being a victim of racial crime will happen soon then you’ll know it doesn’t feel better.
    As for me I worked hard for what I’ve got and have no feelings of guilt except maybe eating too much ice cream

    • This. I come from humble beginnings (poor folks, a generation removed from sharecroppers, blue collar/no collar), paid my way through school with no loans, grants or aid, worked hard and saved and moved out of the suburbs and into the boonies, 100 acres of woods, fields, streams and ponds surrounded by thousands of uninhabited acres of forrest that I’m slowly buying up. Closest town population 382. It’s safe because I make it safe, my wife does, too. I have zero guilt about it because I know most folks in this country can do the same if they want to, it’s out there if you’re willing to drive. I started with nothing, couldn’t afford to move out of the ‘burbs for a long time, and then one day I could. Now it’s doubled in value and I ain’t going anywhere. Kids and grandkids bought out that way, too, less than a mile away. They’re working hard to pay for there’s and will inherit mine.
      God bless Tennessee!

  22. Appiah isn’t just your average, normie letter-writer. He’s a wealthy black Brit who has prospered greatly from our horrible, racist Western civilization. He’s not a descendant of US slaves. He has never experienced a day of oppression in his life. He’s a high-brow, respected “philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist” who now wants to bite the hand that feeds him, because it’s trendy to do so.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Anthony_Appiah

    Ship him to Ghana.

    • Correction: I see now that Appiah is the columnist, not the letter-writer, but he still promotes the black victimization narrative in his reply. He really needs to move to Ghana to be free of White privilege.

  23. I grew up poor, and lived in a crime ridden neighborhood, we had black crime, white crime and Latino crime. I witnessed a bank robbery, with two people getting shot when I was 11 years old. I went to school, then high school and college. Got a decent job, and moved to the low crime suburbs. Living in poverty and committing crime are lifestyle choices in America. Liberals who have NEVER experienced armed robbery, burglary, stolen cars, arson, brutal street beatings, and random shootings/stabbings will never ever understand why the police are a necessity and people move away from urban areas. Moreover, they need a serious reality check.

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