i spent shabbos in crown heights, with a lovely family. some things i observed:
1 - working in crown heights ofr a year has made the whole rebbe thing normal to me.
2 - people in crown heights are less likely to return a good shabbos" on the street from a stranger than people in flatbush. maybe een than in boro park!*

* this makes me feel slightly better about the fact that my students complain that "jewish people" don't respond when "black people" say hello. because its not jsut black people ;)

i;m not sure how to organisze the rest of these observation, so you'll have to wade through these ramblings if you care:

3. chabad is chasidish. this should be obvious, but here's what i mean. i mean that being with the family i was with, all very nice, was just as alienating as any chareid experience i;ve ever had, and in exactly the same way.

for some reason, the fact that chabad people tend to dress more modernly fooled me into thinking they are more modern. but those same women who wear too-trendy-for-williamsburg clothes still sit at the end of the table, still don't express opinions in discussions being led by men (confining themselves to talking amongst thje ladies about shatels, children, schools), still talk during zemiros, becasue appraently not singing = not caring about singing. it's so sad for me, because the music is so beautiful, and in a way that you don't get in most environemnts, because everyone is so earnest about it. in fairness, what can you do but learn to be elsewhere if you're not allowed to participate. consistently listening without singing is probably just as bad for your soul, and sadder, than tuning out.

4. lots of frum people are just plain afraid of black people. now, i did make sure i got someone to walk me home at night. you just never know what will happen, and i was coming from a not so jewish area. (my school secretary and at-work-surrogate-mom told me that between utica and nostrand 'they know, if they mess with one jewish person they gotta deal with all of them,' but still...) but at 2 pm on a saturday my hostess recommended that i walk down eastern parkway rather than president street to get to the botanical gardens, "even if you teach in an urban public school." (i didn;t tell her that i had actually walked exactly there before lunch) i mean, i saw the place. this is one semi-convincing proof, but it happens a lot that people are afraid of, eg, suburban bourgeois black kids who are clearly too rich to rob them. whatever, however racist i may have become this year, i still hate uninformed racism...