— By Megan Allison |
This blog enjoys the irony of entrenched discriminatory conventions in our self-proclaimed bastion of progressivism (hypocrite city!)
Sharon at Vegansaurus brings us this gem. check out Amici’s Pizza’s “racist map of delivery intolerance.”
I mean DANG.
Comments (20)
hahahaha i was just coming here to post that! because DANG.
at first i saw the “no delivery after dark” for the tenderloin and i thought, “well, i guess i can understand that. must have had some robberies or something.”
THEN i noticed the glaring whole where the western addition projects reside, and i thought DANG.
glaring HOLE. wow.
As a former pizza delivery guy, you will get jacked in those parts of the city and get your shit wrecked. Go to Amici’s and eat in you lazy hipsters.
Agreed. What the hell type of pizza delivery guy wants to risk his wallet, or life, to overcome your, or anyone else’s ideals on racism? I sure as hell wouldn’t.
You nay-sayers volunteering for delivery?
Damn, I live in the slums on Alamo Square a block away Painted Ladies and NOPA. Sure is dangerous area for Amici to deliver.
Amici’s changed their delivery policies last year after their delivery drivers were robbed and pistol whipped multiple times, sometimes leading to hospitalization.
The regular customers who live in the neighborhoods that lost service know this because Amici’s was very forthright (and unhappy) about the changes and their cause.
But you’re right, that shit is *hilarious*.
Same thing at the pizza places in Point Richmond, won’t go into the Iron Triangle in Richmond. The map on the wall shows downtown Richmond as “Before dark” and the Iron Triangle as “Never!”
Well, hey, if this is so racist, let’s organize a nighttime stroll through one of those “do not enter” zones. Bring your expensive cameras, everyone!
So, who’s with me! Oh, what’s that? Nobody? Oh.
mattymatt - i’m in! i think that’s actually a good idea. the more people who regularly walk down a “scary” street, the less scary it becomes. i wouldn’t necessarily recommend walking down with all your expensive shit (i don’t do that already so won’t be an issue for me) but getting out into less savory neighborhoods is how the streets become safer. I feel like capp street is a little safer because i walk down it with my dog every night. it’s naive to think these neighborhoods will get less dangerous overnight but in the long run, it’s better for everyone when the streets belong to all of us. PSA END SCENE! and i apologize for how many times i used the words streets.
Since you asked, I spent three months in 2008 working with youth in the Iron Triangle, putting together a short documentary about the joys as well as issues of growing up in their neighborhood. We used Sony HVR Z1Us, which are pretty expensive. We only stopped because of funding issues.
Most of the shooting I do now is in Bayview Hunter’s Point. If you really want to see what it’s like you’re welcome to come sometime.
I used to live next to Valencia Gardens and I loved the Escape from New York no fly zone on our block.
shit dude i wouldnt deliver to the sunset either, that shit is wack! besides amici’s sucks and is the worst pizza in town. its a conspiracy
I want to refine the point of this a little bit.
Pizza guys (much like cab drivers) are much easier/obvious targets for armed robbery, so if random jacking is going to happen, it’s more likely to happen to them with their wads of cash & unattended cars. I’ll acknowledge that easily; I worked for a long time as a dispatcher at my dad’s cab company, and we had similar problems around certain public housing projects that feature dead-end streets, too. The design and layout of most projects is the biggest contributor to some of the fucked up shit that goes on in there, especially when they break up the natural street pattern (as at Eddy & Buchanan, or 26th & Treat, or Double Rock.) Recommended reading: http://www.amazon.com/Death-Life-Great-American-Cities/dp/067974195X
So, I do think Amici’s and other pizza places are justified in doing what they need to do to keep drivers safe, even if it totally sucks that there are plenty of decent people living in proximity to blackout zones who would peacefully exchange money for pizza. This isn’t really a knock on them (we took the terminology from the Vegansaurus guest poster, which I believe was intended to be pretty tongue in cheek , even if it’s not the most tasteful.)
That said, I found the irony to be in the map’s gerrymandered gaps, a near-perfect graphical representation of pernicious, long-standing stereotypes of certain neighborhoods that are in truth, more diverse than the tired “projects = black people = violence” attitudes that do persist widely in a city that, hypocritically, takes every opportunity to bask in the glow of liberalism.
Laura is right; using the streets makes them safer, if for no other reason than it builds your own sense of awareness. The Bayview is a residential neighborhood that looks just like the Sunset or Silver Terrace, and has one of the highest homeownership rates in the city. In it, you will find some (gasp!) black people, along with Vietnamese, whites, gays, Mexicans, etc, etc. It borders on industrial, projects, other residential, and some surprisingly beautiful open space, and when you know your way around it, it ceases to be “scary” to walk around; just unmanageably large and sprawling.
Mugging and jacking happen all the time, in every city around the world, in every neighborhood. It usually happens to people who don’t look secure and aware of their surroundings, and sometimes it’s just bad luck. (Pizza delivery guys special vulnerability notwithstanding.)
It’s not so much about Amici’s, it’s the huge segment of the population who carries a version of this map in their heads, having no firsthand experience with most neighborhoods outside the few they traverse, paying high rent and eating expensive food and blogging about how gorgeous and awesome SF is, except for the icky parts. That’s what rankles.
But I can get a pizza at night, at Baker Beach.
You gotta be kidding me guys…
Your statement!!!
I think you you should revoke your statement… Ok so what you saying because you feel unsafe within these areas as a white caucassion is htat the threat comes form the black community!!! My word man, I hang out there alot mate and alot of my frineds here are from many creeds!!! Don’t believe the hype mate for only your mind becomes the enemy. You insite fear you create it. The pizza people are only looking otu for themselves through experience not through racist intentions. You ever thought about the meaning of words……. How about those programs you watch on television… PROGRAMMING nice mate you have been.
Check out Malcolm Gladwell and some of his ideas on racism, might be a bit more interesting to read than the pizza menu!!!
Slightly closer study of the map, geography, and crime:
http://dogpatchliberationfront.org/2010/01/racist-pizza.html
This article is far more racist than what you think the pizza places intentions are!!! Your ignorance amuses me..
I worked in the delivery business in my younger years, and I can tell you that this kind of stuff probably has nothing to do with race. It is simply that certain neighborhoods are too dangerous and pose too much of a risk of the driver getting robbed. It makes no difference if the potential robbers are white or black. It is simply smart business to keep the drivers and the money they are carrying safe.
I speak from experience, since my car was broken into once while I was on a delivery, and after that we had to stop delivering to that neighborhood. It didn’t have the slightest thing to do with race, since both blacks and whites worked at my store, and both blacks and whites lived in that neighborhood.
So, is it a coincidence that this was the one of the more impoverished neighborhoods in the area? Of course not, since poverty and crime are always strongly correlated.
The most racism I have ever personally witnessed was in southwest Ohio, where I grew up. There were hardly any black people in my town (only one in my high school graduating class), and the racism was staggering. Hatred and ignorance like you can’t even imagine. In the next town over, just across the county line (into John Boehner’s district), there were NO black people at all, and when a black family tried to move in there, the people of the town burned their house down.
Ever wonder why the Democrats look like America, and the Republicans look like the Third Reich? It’s no mystery.
OK, fast forward 5 years and much of the TL and Western Addition have been gentrified but now Amicis has taken the next step to discontinue delivery altogether from these areas. You are way more likely to get jacked or mugged in the Mission than anywhere in the TL (unless you are buying or selling drugs) but folks maintain a false sense of security there for whatever reason. My money’s still on racism.