There Is No Us And Them

November 25, 2009
By Connie Schultz
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About two weeks into The Plain Dealer‘s coverage of the Imperial Avenue murders in Cleveland, some women from more privileged neighborhoods began to complain about the coverage.

As managing editor, Debra Adams Simmons, told me, the theme has been essentially this: Stop putting these stories on Page One. They are not relevant to the majority of your readers.

Translation: They are not us.

“They” are poor black women who ended up dead and buried at the home of Anthony Sowell because of addictions, troubled pasts and lousy judgment. We are white suburban women who never would dream of becoming addicted or succumb to mental illness. And we certainly would never let ourselves be lured into a false sense of security by a man with ill intentions.

No elixir is more intoxicating than self-delusion. It’s so comforting to think life metes out justice according to one’s privilege and smarts. So dangerous, too.

Anthony Sowell and 169 other registered sex offenders live in ZIP code 44120. It is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Cleveland. Alas, it also claims a sizeable chunk of one of the most affluent, educated suburbs in the country: Shaker Heights.

I rented a house in Sowell’s ZIP code for 11 years.

We were, at most, a 10-minute drive apart. I drove through Sowell’s neighborhood countless times on my way to and from work. Most of that time, I saw residents doing what I did. They raked leaves and watered flowers, shouted at kids to stay away from the curb, sat on front stoops and talked to neighbors.

Then everything changed.

The foreclosure crisis was Cleveland’s Katrina, and nowhere is that more evident than in that neighborhood. Those who could escape the poverty did. Those who remain live the lives of the chronically bereaved.

In recent years, I started seeing the kind of women police now say were easy prey for the Imperial Avenue murderer: disoriented, hovering in doorways or weaving along sidewalks. Utterly defenseless.

Should we have foreseen these murders?

Let’s at least be honest about this: We are not shocked. We are horrified, and we are heartbroken, but only the disingenuous will claim total surprise that a nondescript house in a poor section of Cleveland could hide the bodies of women whom no one describes as mainstream.

Blame for these women runs rampant. Lots of talk about respect, as in: If they didn’t respect themselves, how could they expect anyone else to? And why would they go in the house of a convicted rapist? He was, after all, registered as an offender on the Internet.

I ask every woman who is certain that her world bears no resemblance to the lives of the Imperial Avenue victims to imagine one of the following scenarios:

* You are rushing at the end of the day and accidentally leave your cell phone at your office desk. “You can get it tomorrow,” a male colleague assures you with a smile. He escorts you to your rapid transit stop.

* It’s after 10 p.m., and you just realize the kids need milk for breakfast. “I’ll be right back,” you shout, hopping in the car for a quick run to the grocery. You park in the nearly empty lot and throw open the door before looking around.

* You agree to go out with your friend’s friend because he wrote such funny e-mails. You enjoy his company but make it clear the evening is over when he insists that a gentleman always walks his date to the door.

Each encounter ends with a rape.

Now let’s imagine the suburban version of inquisition:

Why didn’t you go back for your cell phone? Didn’t you always say that colleague was creepy? Did you even try to fight back? Why didn’t you scream? Didn’t you look around before you got out of the car? You did a background check on the guy before you agreed to date him, right? Right?

Predictable questions, maybe. But not one of them establishes a right for a woman to be attacked. There is no such right. Not ever.

And that is where the conversation about the Imperial Avenue murders must begin.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House, “Life Happens” and “... and His Lovely Wife.” She is a featured contributor in a recently released book by Bloomsbury, “The Speech: Race and Barack Obama’s ‘A More Perfect Union.’”

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