Was New York City Worse 20-25 Years Ago?

 
David in TN to N.S.,

This was an email exchange we had nearly four years ago. With the current subway and other assaults in New York, I thought you might want to see it again.
 

In a message dated 7/9/2011 7:01:50 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, David in TN writes:

Nicholas,

This afternoon, I rewatched the Bernhard Goetz Biography Channel interview. The program pointed out that New York City is a much safer place than it was 20-25 years ago.

My question is: Were there more racial attacks of the kind we see today back in the pre-Internet days? The Internet makes it possible to find news items and pass them on.
 

N.S. to David in TN, on Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 6:20 PM:

David,

No.

I can't say whether there are more or less "wilding" attacks now, and the official murder rate is about 70% lower than it was then, but during my 26 years here, casual racist assaults have gotten steadily worse. Black women, including those with cops in the family, will now go to supermarkets in white neighborhoods with the sole intention of jumping white shoppers, knowing that nothing will happen to them. (They won't even act like they're shopping. They'll just set up in an aisle, arrange children, adults, and empty shopping carts so as to make it impossible to pass, and wait for a victim.) Indeed, people will support them, and "respectable" black women they don't know will immediately pop up to give false reports to the police (a crime) on their behalf. Black street thugs will likewise terrorize whites, knowing that the police will not arrest them, short of them killing someone. Dealing with the NYPD in such situations is surreal, as sergeants and lieutenants (I'm including whites here) lie about the law, and about what one just experienced, in order to side with the black malefactor.

On May 9, after the second time in one year that NYPD supervisors lied like that to my face and my kid's, I yelled at a white lieutenant, "Thanks for an object lesson for me and my son!"

I don't have to badmouth the NYPD. After my son's experiences with me, he has contempt for officers of all colors. However, just like his old man, he is polite in individual dealings (ditto for dealing with blacks). But like me, in both cases, he expects nothing.

As we left that station house following that last episode, I told him, "As soon as you're old enough, you have to move to a state where you have the right to carry a weapon."

A lot of people will say that that's a crazy thing to say to an 11-year-old, and I would never have planned it, but my son has seen things that no 11-year-old should see, like his old man getting jumped while shopping, and then getting arrested.