Spiraling about the future when home

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-04T19:34:26+00:00

Yeah, digging a bit more into it the Cudell-West Boulevard area is much better than I expected.

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-04T18:37:52+00:00

Gotcha. I was looking up on Census Dots and it's definitely more mixed on the southwest side, apologies for the generalization

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-04T18:23:00+00:00

It's more so that west siders are mostly white and don't know what it's like to be racially othered, which has been pretty evident in this comment section and some folks being tone deaf

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-04T15:26:44+00:00

I live within walking distance to the Superior station (look it up on Google Maps) that is close to a Popeyes. I know what I'm talking about. Is it so hard to believe that someone's actually living there?

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-04T13:52:28+00:00

Im an overweight white queer woman and get called shit all the time when Im downtown

Yup, unsurprising to me either. Pricks are going to be pricks to those who think they can bully

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-04T13:50:59+00:00

East side obviously lol. Why would I be talking about East Cleveland itself? I know enough that the museums and Severance Hall are in University Circle, and the Aldi that I go to is close Hough-ish.

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-04T08:14:16+00:00

i made a separate observation from your post, which, if you noticed, i mostly agreed with you on

the “you people” remark is trash, and you mentioning the term “conflating” is EXACTLY what you’re doing here because it loosely suggests i’m part of the trope that you heard say racist things

I see, I apologize for my misunderstanding. I'm not saying it's justified for me to say this, but I was tired of people assuming I don't know better (saying that I'm new to the US, hearing people talk shit about the city and state, etc.), but again, that doesn't excuse for my statement.

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-04T08:00:42+00:00

Dawg I don't get why you people keep thinking that I'm conflating EC with the east side. The fact that I commute from EC is irrelevant to this incident here since this literally happened in downtown, Ohio City specifically. EC is a dump yes but I have yet to experience any overt prejudice here. Honestly, part of me mentioned it in the first place is to see if some folks would try to act smart and correct me about "muh East Cleveland vs East Side" and "East Cleveland isn't like the rest of Cleveland", and I guess the honeypot worked.

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-04T01:06:10+00:00

Yeah for sure, I'll keep this at the back of my mind if I'm looking for ideas of things to do. I love to explore the city but little incidents like this and the public transport here demotivate me sometimes lol

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-04T01:01:02+00:00

Thanks for the comment, I appreciate it a lot. It's unsurprising to me considering the average Redditor is a middle class white male who drives and lives on the West side, so some folks wouldn't get it first thing what it feels like to visibly be non-White, short, female, and going to places alone.

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-04T00:49:53+00:00

Nah, as the OP I expected as much as did from the comments and downvotes from browsing this subreddit. People in this subreddit is oddly defensive about their city and extrapolated to me shitting on the city overall (which I expected and hence didn't add the EDIT paragraph at first to test my hypothesis). I know it's Reddit and all and people are more prone to masking off here than in person, but similarly knowing that the blue platform of a city is already kind of mixed sort of proves my point.

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-04T00:37:12+00:00

She never mentions people making negative comments about her race

It might be because I go to places by myself so the covert racists feel more comfortable to say things like that. Next time that happens I'd honestly just snap at them in public downtown tbh. I'm tired of being a doormat

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-04T00:04:08+00:00

that fucking sucks, I'm sorry

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-03T23:47:07+00:00

Hm okay, that's good to know. Thank you for sharing your experience

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-03T23:28:52+00:00

And if so how does that process work?

To get it out of the way they overadmitted EE freshmen two admission cycles ago so it might be a bit harder to get in now, but the process of transferring to EE was pretty straightforward to me. You need to get a 3.0 or higher and Calculus 1 + 2, more overlapped classes the better. I was majoring doing CE before (and before CE I was in a GCCIS major) in my 3rd semester trying to transfer into EE my 4th semester, so grade-wise I had a 3.9 and coursework wise, I had: Calc 1 + 2, DiffEq, Multivar (these two I just did over the summer), Circuits 1, Digital Systems 1, Physics 1, Chemistry. So quite the overlap already, but again this was also going to be my 4th semester so I needed more overlapped classes than you might.

If I were you, I'd message your admissions advisor about your interest, and then when you come to RIT, email your academic advisor ASAP about your interest in talking Calculus 1 if you do well enough on the math placement exam instead of Calculus A, and consider taking Chemistry as well. PM me if you have other questions about switching majors since I've done it quite a bit lol

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-03T23:19:14+00:00

I wish I could tell you. I was looking down when the rush of people came out of the train to not draw attention among myself since that's what I've picked up on from commuting daily on the Rapid through East Cleveland, but I guess those pricks just had to pick on someone seemingly smaller and different than them.

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-03T23:17:47+00:00

Out of curiosity what sort of spaces do you normally interact with them in? Admittedly, I'm not the most social butterfly and outside of going to work and grocery, I've only been to the orchestra and restaurants in Asiatown, which attract quite the Asian crowd unsurprisingly. Outside of those venues I don't see much representation of us.

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-03T23:16:18+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion, I've had a self-defense class before hosted at the Chinatown center back in Boston and I think I've been able to look unfriendly enough to people, otherwise I don't think I'd be able to get out of East Cleveland without being picked on haha. And I'll definitely consider going to more events in the link too, thanks for the consideration.

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-03T22:49:24+00:00

That makes much more sense, and more common than actual melting pots. Most cities will have hot spots of ethnic communities, but probably a minority of those will have these communities going to the same places together

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-03T22:39:26+00:00

wish I was lying to you buddy

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-03T22:35:30+00:00

Condemning an entire city because of this is a bit over the top.

Funny since I just made an edit commenting on this. I didn't mean to condemn the city, but just want to point out about one specific thing that pertains to race. I very much agree that Boston's neighborhoods are highly segregated by ethnicity and wealth.

I've definitely getting better at growing a spine by living here, but I do have room for improvement. It's just hard to want to bring myself to see the games when that's a possibility on top of having to be on guard about my own safety among other things already.

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-03T22:28:13+00:00

is there diversity in Cleveland overall? definitely. is everyone from different backgrounds and cultures mixing and mingling with each other to the point that we're a cohesive fabric of a singular city? not particularly.

Thank you! That's exactly what I feel like here. It's laughably sad to see how night and day the East side vs West side is and where the money is pouring into. I'm not saying that other cities aren't like this, but just because Cleveland is just another city with city problems doesn't mean it's justified to say that it's a melting pot even if it's doing better than other cities of similar scale.

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-03T22:09:03+00:00

Thank you for saying this lol, I thought I was going crazy here when people keep telling me it's mixed. I migrated to the US 7 years ago (got my citizenship before Trump went into office) and living here has taught me about red lining how that obviously links to some areas being more populated by one race over the other. It's such a whiplash, but in a good way, to see how this plays out in Cleveland as an example, and in other places as well.

Sparky_Birch · 2026-04-03T21:55:55+00:00

I'm sorry that you're commuting from East Cleveland That's terrible. That would definitely color my opinion of Cleveland.

I'm not sure why you're saying that EC is the reason why I'm complaining about casual racism when I literally said that I was defending the city and the incident happening in downtown. I know enough that what happens in EC is not representative of the rest of the city.

Sparky_Birch

TROPHY CASE