Should I move?

I am starting to to have a bad attitude about where I live: the neighborhood and my apartment. Late Saturday night at 1am we heard what we believed were 6 loud, crisp and clear gunshots. They were so loud that we assumed they had to have taken place in front of our building or in the alley and park right next to us. 5 cop cars showed up, but I don't know what the result was. There was no report of this incident on the police blotter in the NY Daily News. A friend of mine who works for the NYC crime lab told me if she hears of anything she will let me know. I find the incident unsettling. Not only does this affirm the negative stereotype of Harlem as being unsafe, but I feel uncomfortable now about the people who hang out on our stoop and enter our building when we leave. I live in a family building. There are many generations of one family living in different apartments so many of the young people hanging out in front of the building are friends of the teenagers who live here. But the neighborhood is changing. And I feel the tension of that when I'm on the street. Clearly as evidenced by the police blotters I read crime happens everywhere in this city, but not feeling completely safe in my neighborhood is not a feeling I like. I never had this problem when I lived 4 avenues due east of here in another part of Harlem. When I moved in a woman of color saw me unloading the U-Haul and walked up to it and started screaming at me (literally) about how terrible white people are. Why she was yelling at me I don't understand. I'm a minority and a woman of color. I hoped at the time that wasn't foreshadowing for my 3 month stint here.

Some friends are encouraging me to move out after the incident this weekend. I haven't really considered it until now. It would involve breaking the sublet commitment I made to my roommates...although they failed to have me sign any legal paperwork so there is nothing binding. I have never lived in a situation where violence happened near me (or maybe it did and I just never knew about it). I don't understand how my Caucasian roommates do not feel the racial tension of the changing demographics of this area. While entering the subway last week a man of color told a Caucasian woman that she was racist. The woman didn't seem to have had any interaction with this guy, but it seemed like something she had done clearly offended him.