Not that we ever socialized with our neighbors, except maybe on Halloween when we were ringing doorbells asking for candy. Our lives were in the city, but we lived in the suburbs. My mother said you're right, that was a very segregated neighborhood, and I didn't feel safe there either. She said: if someone came up to the door, I would've thought one of two things: either you're here to rape me, or to kill me.

And this stunned me, because she'd lived there in privilege for 30 years. It was a choice. But she'd hated it.

At the time of this conversation, I pointed out to my mother that these were nice row houses where people lived, some of them for generations; many of them owned their houses, and entire neighborhoods like this were being torn down to make way for luxury condos like the one my mother and father had bought. Where she was about to move. I said: don't you think that's horrible? And she agreed: yes, it's horrible, it's not right.

So I tried to make a leap, and said maybe when you move in, you should figure out a way to do something in the neighborhood to help the people who were being displaced, maybe you could volunteer somewhere and provide free social work services. I knew she wasn't going to change her mind and decide not to move there or anything, but I figured maybe she could do some small useful thing for someone with less privilege.

My mother answered quickly: oh I could never do that.