Masquerading in the Inner-City

Side-effects of a heterodox mindset

Photo by John Benitez on Unsplash

A societal underbelly whose flesh we ate and regurgitated over the grey of the inner city while wearing its flayed-off skin like some Lecter-esque visors of apathy.

Cinematic, perhaps, but quite the reality.

Part I — The Sociocultural Context

We were young men in a world reduced to a few block’s radius of ethnic diversity, edged with racism, gangs and clan feuds, tabbouleh, Pac tunes, and the odd hand grenade explosion or shooting.

Many of us grew up on what locals called “Arabgatan” (Arab street). It was an urban free-for-all of clashing cultures, including Iraqis, Iranians, Somalians, Kosovo-Albanians, Serbians, the odd native Swedes, and more. Still, amid this vibrant mix of historically geopolitical, religious, and nationalistic opposition, we formed brotherhoods based on class and sentiments.

We knew early on, from the looks of passersby, that we were the rotten apples of this concrete orchard. So we cherry-picked our truths and dwelled in the bud circle, coughing up remnants of our preadolescence.

Our dialect was composed of multiethnic code-switching and urban idioms. A subject in which we outshone our elders. Even today, at thirty-three, that same…