Dear Anonymous:

My last post has been nastily commented on twice by 'anonymous.' I encourage dialogue, whether it be positive or negative, but at least have the courage to state your name and take ownership for your words.

Anonymous' first eloquent comment:

Yeah, how dare Fresh Direct choose not to send their delivery guys into a war zone? Racists, all of them! Quit searching for racism where it doesn't exist. When people stop being criminal scum, maybe they too can reap some of the benefits of civilized society.

Hmm. "Criminal scum." Is he/she referring to the non-Mynt Bed-Stuy residents? This prompted me to compare the NYPD crime statistics for my neighbourhood as opposed to the Greenwich Village neighbourhood in Manhattan (assuming, of course Anonymous does not consider that area a "war zone.") The report covering 11/19/07 - 11/25/07 shows that the crime complaints to date for 2007 (murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny,) for the 6th precinct in Greenwich Village was 1,626 while the 81st precinct in my neighbourhood of Bed-Stuy had only 1,325 complaints.

While on NY Times Real Estate, the crime index (The crime index is a score that represents the combined risks of rape, murder, assault, robbery, burglary, larceny and vehicle theft compared to a national average of 100. For instance, a score of 200 indicates twice the national average) for Greenwich Village is 165 compared to Bed-Stuy/Bushwick's 111.

However, the majority of the crime complaints (1065) in GV were for Grand Larceny (when the value of the property stolen is over $1000). Only 312 in B-S/BW. I guess that means we don't have anything worth breaking and entering for. After all, the median household net worth in GV is $40,102 as opposed to $24,299 in B-S/BW.

As a bonus, a few more statistics from the NY Times. Percentage of Caucasians in Greenwich Village is 80%, Black 5%; percentage of Caucasians in Bed-Stuy/Bushwick is 19%, Black 55%. Perhaps all this could be construed that more white residents equals more crime.

A neighbour and a housemate, shocked by the NYPD numbers, both pointed out that these are the reported crimes, and since the don't snitch rule is big in Bed-Stuy, who knows how many crimes actually occur around here.

And then again, maybe the fact that Bed-Stuy/Bushwick wins out in all the other crime categories only proves Anonymous correct, that we are all criminal scum and he/she and the yuppie spaceship should just fly on out of here before something very bad happens.

On the flip side, I just discovered this post from 2 years ago entitled "I just got mugged by my Fresh Direct Delivery Guy." Interesting. Incidentally, this delivery guy was white. Maybe the fact that they don't deliver here is a good thing.