The Shit about Shit
White Entitlement and Progressive Suburbia
I have had it with this shit. I’m not talking metaphorical shit or the crap that comes out of Sarah Huckabee Sander’s mouth. I’m talking straight up shit. The stuff that comes out of a dog’s behind and lands on my lawn. Yeah. That kind of shit.
I am going to admit this straight up. I am about to write about First World, upper middle class, suburban drama. I’m not talking about Trump’s hate today. (Don’t you need a break for at least one post?) I’m talking about white upper middle class privilege in the suburbs and how it can drive a black woman to venting on Medium.
When the crap hit the fan
I was scrolling through the Nextdoor app on a warmish February day. Anyone who uses this app will tell you that it can devolve quickly into a gripe fest. But, as a person of color in a predominantly white community, I often see white privilege threading its way through posts and tying them neatly together.
I am not talking about the neighbors on Nextdoor who use the app as a way to track black people walking around the neighborhood (e.g., Did anyone see that suspicious black person driving on my street? Oh, that was my plumber. He was supposed to be here. Whew!)
I am talking about the white privilege that people allow to seep through their posts without realizing it. To them, the issue has nothing to do with race. To me, the responses often do.
So, I was scrolling through the list of complaints and requests. They usually go something like this:
“Why won’t town leadership use Instagram?”
“Does anyone have a nanny who needs extra hours?”
“What was that loud noise that sounded like a gun shot at 5 a.m.?” (Usually, this is someone’s foolish child setting off fireworks. I don’t live in a neighborhood where white folks throw themselves on the ground because of white gangland drivebys.)
Then, I saw it. An African-American friend of mine posted a poll on Nextdoor. She wrote: “I asked a guy to not allow his dog to poop on my front yard. He looked at me like I was a weirdo. Your opinions?” Our choices were “yes,” “no,” and “yes, if there is a strip of grass between your sidewalk & the street OR if you don’t have a sidewalk at all.”
I expected to see 90% “no” because I’ve witnessed too many people lose their shit (if you will) over the noise pollution on their property caused by a neighbor’s leaf blower. But only two-thirds of the people polled thought that it was not okay.
The rest gave a long list of reasons defending their sense of entitlement: picking it up is okay, dog gets away from me, right to poop on the first foot of anyone’s property, some people don’t have lawns so they must use someone else’s, homeowners had the burden of putting up signs against pooping, I don’t care so you can’t care, etc. In essence, why were mean uptight people hating on dog owners?
Huh? No one was hating on dogs or their doggy parents. How were we the bad guys because we did not want someone to use our lawns as a doggy toilet? Heck, some neighbors even reported repeatedly cleaning up oozing bags of poop left in their trash/recycling bins on their properties! (I can’t even.)
I immediately wanted to post about the woman who regularly allowed her dog to walk over 12 feet onto my property to poop and urinate near my bushes right under my living room window. (She didn’t scoop.) I wanted to complain about the man who keeps bringing his Water Dog to my lawn, letting it poop, and walking away even when I frantically bang on the window to try to get him to pick it up. (He hasn’t.)
But, I refrained. I didn’t want to be seen as the “angry black woman” in the neighborhood. I know that this woman inspires fear, condescension, and dismissiveness. If I have concerns with my daughter’s teacher one day, I don’t want them disregarded or negated because my community only sees me as the angry black woman. I have to pick my battles.
It’s safe to display anger against Trump and the hate-filled crowds that he emboldens. However, if I show my anger or even displeasure about seemingly nonpolitical white privilege in my own front yard, this can be dangerous.
I also realized that many of the people who defended their right to let their dogs poop on private property could not hear me. They felt entitled to do what they wanted on other people’s properties. Someone else who decided to check that entitlement with a “no” is the problem. The sense of entitlement never is. So, I said nothing.
Then, a neighbor recently revived the post. I couldn’t hold it any longer. Maybe it was the summer heat melting away layers of my black preservation instincts, but I argued against the idea that my lawn was their lawn. I didn’t fault the dogs. I blamed the doggy parents.
I also didn’t give a pass to people who picked up much of the turd, but left smears of poop on my grass. If you don’t pay my bills, you don’t have a right to let your dog poop or urinate on my lawn. Period.
But, as I suspected they would, some Nextdoor neighbors went back to justifying their behavior.
This crap makes no sense to me
I can only understand these crappy arguments if I apply white privilege.
True. Most of those who agreed with me in the neighborhood poll are white. Some are dog owners who argue that they curb their dogs at the street and never allow them to soil someone else’s private property. (Remember. Not all white people exhibit white privilege on the same issues and in the same ways.) Yes. People of color own dogs. Some may be fine with other dogs pooping on their properties. Some may even allow their dogs to poop freely.
But these arguments do not address my main point. White privilege resides at the heart of the premise that some doggy parents think they are entitled to let their dogs poop wherever they want. And, those of us who do not want crap on our lawns are wrong and have to defend ourselves.
You see, I simply do not understand why any private citizens think that they can tell me how I should feel about poop on my lawn. Or, why they think they can freely walk or allow their dogs to walk onto anyone else’s property.
I have lived in my town or its sister town since I was four. I am local. This said, no part of me would feel comfortable doing anything on someone else’s lawn. I certainly would not walk up someone’s driveway, open her trashcan, and leave my poop behind. This is where the entitlement really rests.
I am a black woman in America. I do not feel entitled to anything. White society has spent hundreds of years telling my people this. I have to earn everything tenfold. I have to fight for it.
I am not entitled to healthcare. I am not entitled to quality, equal education. I am not entitled to equal pay as compared to white men or even white women. I am not entitled to vote. Under slavery, my ancestors were not entitled to stay with their families. Today, if I was born in another country, the law could easily take my family away. No matter what the law may say at a given moment, people of color know that our rights can change at the whim of a Justice, Senator, or President.
So, I am extremely careful about what I do and how I behave. I know that what should have been simple interactions with the police led to black people dying. I do not want someone to call the police on me for doing something innocuous. I don’t want to lose my life for stepping onto someone’s lawn.
Yes. The Black Lives Matter movement and other advocates have pushed police shootings more into the mainstream media. Many police departments cannot mask these shootings as they once did. Black families aren’t the only ones discussing these shootings while giving their children The Talk at the kitchen table. But this does not mean that black people aren’t still dying with people forgetting their names.
While some white allies have marched alongside me to protest this violence, some white people call the police on black people because an 8 year-old girl sells water in front of her apartment building, a 12 year old boy is mowing the lawn, a family tries to use its community pool, or a state representative tries to meet her constituents. We won’t even get into needing coffee at Starbucks.
These occurrences are not episodic. They are the way many people of color live their lives.
I’ve participated in a lot of town meetings. It is clear that some of us experience our town differently. I remember being at one meeting when a number of my white neighbors complained that we did not have a strong enough police presence. They never saw the police around. I was surprised.
From my experience, I have the most secure town. I always see police cars when I’m walking with my mother and my daughter. I make a point of waving or nodding because I want them to know that I am part of this community.
I then realized that I rarely saw the police when my (white) husband joined us. Now, when I see the police on every walk, I assume that there may have been a call about a 5' 3" middle-aged black woman walking with a stroller and a senior citizen.
I know that my own privilege of being able to live in the middle class does not mean that fearful white people forget my blackness. So, when I walk with my daughter and she needs a bottle, I don’t sit on someone’s steps and feed her. I make her wait until I get to the public park or a friend’s house.
When she gets that funny look on her face that says poop is coming, I sprint home. I can’t let her poop on someone’s lawn to save her from sitting in a poopy diaper— even if I pick up the poop. I don’t allow her to sit on someone else’s grass. I don’t want someone to call the police when I’m with my daughter. I have to be aware at all times.
So, how do I explain to those who adamantly defend their “right” to let their dogs poop on someone else’s property that their position reeks of arrogance, privilege, and entitlement to me? How do I explain that their worldview is far outside of my experience? (Heck, I fear going onto a stranger’s property just to bring the mail that was accidentally delivered to my house.) How do I get them to see their privilege without becoming the “angry black woman” in their eyes? I just don’t know.
Some complain on Nextdoor that we should move on. There are more important things to deal with in these horrific times. True. Very true.
But, maybe because of our constant battles with entitled MAGA believers, I find myself not wanting to let this slide. I can’t handle any more entitlement in my face — especially on my property.
So, this crap gets me angry because it’s another stop sign in my face saying that I am not equal. Some of the same people, who may fear my presence on a public street, feel like they have the right to do whatever they want on my property. When my daughter gets antsy in her stroller, I can’t let her practice walking on that alleged “public” first foot of another’s property because I fear someone calling the police. However, a doggy parent feels like she can let her dog urinate there without any worries.
No matter how many complaints are written or signs are posted. These people will continue to do what they want because they feel like it is their right. I can’t feel secure in my Constitutional rights in this country because they are routinely under attack. Yet, these people feel comfortable claiming my property. It says a lot, doesn’t it?
A few days ago, I parked in my driveway to finish up a call before I opened my garage. A white woman with short blondish graying hair sashayed down the street in a stunning white summer outfit. Her flared silk culottes billowed around her legs as she strolled down my street with her leash in one hand and a cell phone in the other.
She didn’t see me.
So, she did what my security cameras pick up each week. She let her dog poop on my lawn. I opened my car door to start to ask her to stop, but she dashed off as soon as she saw me. Her cell phone remained attached to her ear and her dog trailed behind her. I walked over to where she had been standing. There they were: three moist, brown, and stinky “rocks” sitting on my lawn.
Are you shitting me?!
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