Gated Communities

At the end of the road wandering back into the subdivision behind us, there’s a new gated community being built. There are only 2 homes so far, with three more in the works. I don’t know the history of the gated community, only that when one of our new neighbors stopped to visit, when he was telling us which house he lived in he said, “The one right before the gates. I don’t live inside the gates, oh, no, no.”

A few mornings ago I met an “inside the gates” neighbor.

I was on my morning walk, the loop inside the gate adds distance, so if they are open, in I go. Plus, the view from inside is beautiful, and the two homes that are built are gorgeous.

As I rounded the loop to head out, an SUV was pulling down the driveway of one of the homes. He stopped at the top of his driveway…and stepped out of his vehicle.

I thought, “He’s either getting out to introduce himself or to tell me to stay out.”

It was both.

David is a white guy, late 40’s/early 50’s, sunglasses perched on his forehead, and very nice. I’m sure he’s in a management position of some sort, and is surely a good person.

I’ll spare you the details, which were elaborate and kindly put, but it all comes down to, “This is a private part of the road. Don’t walk on it.”

“The gates are only open so we didn’t have to give the code out while the homes are being built.”

My interpretation: We don’t want the builders, contractors, or any other laborers to know how to enter the gates.

Oh, and once the home are built, the gates will be closed…always.

His reasoning was BS. Lots of discussion about “liability,” and big trucks and the mess of these houses going up.

I get it. They have their HOA and they want their privacy. They’ve paid for the road, etc., etc., etc.

We were both very polite, and if I run into him again…at the store, since I won’t be seeing him on the road in front of his home…I’m sure we’ll both be very pleasant.

Inside I was seething. Not because I care so much about walking inside the gates.

I was seething because the world is filled with gated communities.

This was the first time I’ve been labeled an “other.”

Some of the seething comes because it gave me a tiny feeling of what it is like to be excluded. As a well-educated, self-confident, cocky white woman, I felt comfortable pushing back, in a polite way, to what seemed to me to be a ludicrous, asinine request.

I wonder if David’s actions would have been different if I was black? Or a black male? Or a young black male in a hoody?

Some of the seething comes because I wonder what has happened in these people’s lives that they feel like living in a gated community is a good thing. What do they fear? Why has life taught them to fear? Buds said they probably watch Faux News, but that’s us acting on our stereotype of rich white people. That’s not fair either.

So, when I plan a neighborhood gathering in the Spring, do I tape their invitations on the fence?

Do I climb over the fence to tape them to their mailboxes?

Or, do I not include them, allowing them to live in the privacy they think they want, but excluding them from the joy and peace and laughter of shared community? Do I, in fact, make it so the gates are facing the other way? Blocking them out, rather than protecting them inside?

I don’t want to be that person either.

I wrote the above part of this post the morning of my interaction with David. Now I’ve been sitting on it for a few days to let my anger and resentment subside.

Then Buds and I went on a walk last night, and the gates were open.

We didn’t walk up into the sacred space, but I was fascinated to feel my own reaction. I wanted to engage in some sort of action that is unkind or annoying to the people who live inside the gates.

They have a speaker system outside the fence so they can push the code to get in. I want to mess with that.

I want to pee on the gate to mark our side of it. Or, probably have Buds pee on it, just for ease.

Obviously I’m still angry and annoyed. And I’ve only had this happen once. Imagine being treated like this every day. Repeatedly.

Here’s a gut-ripper from an article I read last night:

Miami Gardens police have arrested Sampson 62 times for one offense: trespassing.

Almost every citation was issued at the same place: the 207 Quickstop, a convenience store on 207th Street in Miami Gardens.

But Sampson isn’t loitering. He works as a clerk at the Quickstop.

So how can he be trespassing when he works there?

It’s a question the store’s owner, Alex Saleh, 36, has been asking for more than a year as he watched Sampson, his other employees and his customers, day after day, being stopped and frisked by Miami Gardens police. Most of them, like Sampson, are poor and black.

And, like Sampson, many of them have been cited for minor infractions, sometimes as often as three times in the same day.

Puts my tiny little annoyance at being denied an extra 200 steps of pavement into sharp relief.

Imagine being treated this way, with no power to fight back, day after day, after day.

Frankly, I cannot imagine it because it would never happen to me, or my children. My pale, pearlescent-skinned children.

So, I’m sending forgiveness out into the universe for David and those of his ilk who believe gates of his sort are okay. Those who fear having someone walking on the road in front of their homes, not because they’ve been threatened but because they fear a world where they might be threatened.

And then, later today, I’m going to church with like-minded folks who think the gates should always be open, for all people, of all colors, all educations, and all backgrounds. Because when it comes down to it, we are all neighbors.

That is the best revenge.

Wait, it isn’t revenge, it’s the way to change the world so revenge won’t be needed.