NY Times Is Very Concerned Over The Housing Apartheid In Big Cities
May 17, 2015 – 7:48 am
Interestingly, the NY Times Editorial Board forgets to mention which political Party is currently in charge of most Big Cities, and has been for most of the time since the 1960’s.
Housing Apartheid, American Style
[ Guess Democrats must like apartheid. ]
The riots that erupted in Baltimore last month were reminiscent of those that consumed cities all over the country during the 1960s. This rage and unrest was thoroughly explained five decades ago by President Lyndon Johnson’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner Commission. The commission’s report was released in 1968 — the year that the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. touched off riots in 125 cities — and contains the most candid indictment of racism and segregation seen in such a document, before or since.
The commission told white Americans what black citizens already knew: that the country was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.” It linked the devastating riots that consumed Detroit and Newark in 1967 to residential segregation that had been sustained and made worse by federal policies that concentrated poor black citizens in ghettos. It also said that discrimination and segregation had become a threat to “the future of every American.”
Say, I wonder if anyone took photos of people looting toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, and sneakers back in those riots from the 60’s?
As part of the remedy, the commission called on the government to outlaw housing discrimination in both the sale and rental markets and to “reorient” federal policy so that housing for low- and moderate-income families would be built in integrated, mixed-income neighborhoods, where residents would have better access to jobs and decent schools.
They go on to point out that laws were passed, such as the Fair Housing Act, which outlawed any of those discrimination. Of course, history has shown that when The Government builds housing projects in “mixed-income” neighborhoods, they pretty much become low to virtually no income neighborhoods, with rising levels of crime, violence, drug use and drug dealing, urban blight sets in, housing values and education standards/achievement plummet, and those who can escape do. Witness “Detroit”. And “Baltimore”.
A growing body of evidence suggests that America would be a different country today had the government taken its responsibility seriously. For example, a Harvard study released earlier this month found that young children whose families had been given housing vouchers that allowed them to move to better neighborhoods were more likely to attend college — and to attend better colleges — than those whose families had not received the vouchers. The voucher group also had significantly higher incomes as adults.
I thought liberals hated vouchers? Oh, right, only when it comes to educational choice (see: Teacher’s unions). Of course, what we’ve often seen with the vouchers programs is that the users tend to bring the same crime, violence, poor educational standards, a failure to maintain the homes, etc, to the new neighborhoods (see: Atlanta).
Really, though, this is a big whine about things that happened decades ago, without mentioning who, exactly, has been in charge of these cities, in order to perpetuate a racial meme, whipping people up, rather than bringing people together. Also, as a way to Blamestorm current affairs on The Past, giving an excuse for the lawless and violent behavior.
Even so, this is no excuse to riot. Something we see all too often, and something that seems to be happening more and more. It’s the mob mentality, and the ultimate result of creating a moocher class. You may not like the term, but you can’t dispute it. It is what it is, and it is what we are seeing
The Obama administration has proposed new fair housing enforcement rules, which should be finalized soon, that make states, cities and housing agencies more accountable for furthering fair housing.
But for these rules to be meaningful, the federal government will have to restructure its own programs so that more affordable housing is built in low-poverty, high opportunity neighborhoods. Federal officials must also be willing to do what they have generally been afraid to do in the past — withhold money from communities that perpetuate housing apartheid.
Given what we now know about the pervasive harm that flows from segregation, the country needs to get on with this crucial mission.
So, Obama has failed? Huh.
Interestingly, when those whose ancestors fled the increasingly poor social values in (liberal) big cities move back and create pockets of increased social, economic, and housing capital, we hear about the evils of “gentrification” (see: downtown Detroit). Perhaps the NY Times can tell us why the existing low income housing areas are utter failures, with unbelievably low social, economic, and housing capital? What the Times, and Democrats in general, want to do is export those low values out to the suburbs (especially see: Atlanta, Detroit, which had riots over their voucher programs), rather than fixing the problems in these areas, creating social, economic, and housing capital. They tolerate, even create, the poor quality of life in these areas, and continue to perpetuate these poor conditions with more and more poorly designed programs.
And that’s how we end up with the Baltimore riots, where people loot drug and shoe stores, torch cars, homes, and community centers, throw rocks and stuff at police, drag people out to the street and beat them, and the government not only stands around, but actively encourages this behavior.
http://www.thepiratescove.us/2015/05/17/ny-times-is-very-concerned-over-the-housing-apartheid-in-big-cities/
Comment by Dana
2015-05-17 12:12:52
In a way, a very politically incorrect way, The New York Times has a point: the segregation we see in neighborhoods has led to an inner-city black subculture which is harmful to the people living in it.
The biggest part of the problem is the cultural meme that working hard and staying in school is somehow “ acting white,” something that encourages black teenaged males to drop out of school at alarming rates. That, by itself, the aggregate of decisions being taken by minors, drives down aggregate black achievement. A smaller percentage of black males being graduated from high school means a smaller percentage of black men who can find decent jobs.
You noted in another article that Harvard has imposed some sort of Affirmative Action program which makes it more difficult for Asian applicants to be accepted; that points out the success of Asian students, who are following their own cultural norms of working harder and getting better grades in school. (The same point can be made concerning American Jews.)
Culture matters, in that it sets the expectations of behavior for the group, and while there are always outliers, the achievement of the cultural group rises, and falls, based upon how beneficial the cultural norms are. For so many black Americans, the cultural norms are not beneficial, but harmful.
This was recognized in the sixties, with the push for enforced integration. No one was willing to say it, explicitly, but the underlying assumption was that common exposure of blacks to a more successful white culture would make black students more successful. Put in today’s terms, they wanted black students to “act white.” Of course, only a nobody but someone like me is willing to say that explicitly.
Comment by Dana
2015-05-17 15:38:39
Jeffrey laughably wrote:
Who’s stopping you from discussing Black culture? As long as you are being factual no one is likely to criticize you. And if they do, so what? Are you afraid the Blacks will shut down your blog? Census data, FBI data, are all available to help you. Blacks are poorer, commit proportionately more crime, have less stable families etc. Most of us progressives are more than happy to discuss factual information.
Our host is younger than I am, and he has a real job in the real world; he can be accused of being a raaaaaacist and possibly lose his job and his career if he tells the truth.
Me? Even though I am still working, I can retire anytime I wish, so I’ve a lot more protection than does Mr Teach.
The problem is that when you say, “Most of us progressives are more than happy to discuss factual information,” you are saying something which might be true about you, but for the vast, vast majority of the left I’ve met, it isn’t true, because as soon as you say something that can be construed as saying that the problems of the black community are even slightly the fault of the black community, most of the left start screaming that you are just being a racist, trying to shut down the discussion. Why? Because — in my not-so-humble opinion — telling the truth shatters the liberal mindset about these things, and destroys the rationale for the liberal programs which have been used, spectacularly unsuccessfully, to combat the problems.
The problems of the black community cannot be solved from outside of the black community. The problems are internal and fundamental, and, as I stated earlier, are primarily based on a hostility to education.
The real solution for this? It’s politically very incorrect, but it’s the only workable solution: the solution is based on the behavior of black teenaged girls.
Let’s be honest: the primary motivation for 99+% of teenaged boys, black and white alike, is sex. Once we hit puberty, getting laid is our primary concern! And too many black girls are rewarding the bad boys, the thug wannabes with sex! Black girls have to realize just how bad it is for them, personally, to screw the thugs and the gangstas and the other badly behaving black guys, and stop giving them pussy! They need to realize that if they are going to be sexually active — a problem in itself if they are too young and unmarried — that they should be so only with the black men who are solid and responsible and trying to make something of themselves.
Do blacks “commit proportionately more crime?” Yup, sure do! And why? Because the black community enables that, by tolerating such behavior, and by the girls rewarding the thugs with sex. Stop that one bad part of the culture, and everything else would wind up getting solved along with it.
But, naturally, I’m a horrible sexist for saying that, huh?
Comment by Dana
2015-05-17 17:05:24
Jeffrey wrote:
The biggest part of the problem is the cultural meme that working hard and staying in school is somehow “acting white,” something that encourages black teenaged males to drop out of school at alarming rates.
Are you certain that the “biggest part of the problem” is fear of working hard or acting white?
You mischaracterized: it is the combination of working hard to do well in school.
But, yes, I am certain that that is the biggest part of the problem, because it is the first part of the problem. Once someone has dropped out of school, a bad decision taken when the dropouts are still minors, everything else follows. A couple generations ago, the high school dropout still had a fair chance to get a decent, blue collar job, but today, many jobs that shouldn’t really require a high school diploma nevertheless do, because employers are using that as a winnowing tool, one which automatically excludes those undisciplined enough to finish school. It’s a bit of a blunt tool, not discriminating the reasons for dropping out, but it’s still there, and still being used. Even the Army, which used to help recruits get their GEDs, no longer accepts GEDs, and requires real high school diplomas for new recruits.
Comment by Dana
2015-05-17 17:26:01
Jeffrey noted:
Poverty stricken meth addicted Americans living in trailer parks across America are white. Would their superior culture rub off on Black kids? Or is it the middle classness of suburban whites you’re talking about? Might that be related to more than just pigment?
The architects of forced busing never really took that into account, I don’t believe: whites in poverty certainly existed — and I’m from Kentucky, and grew up in poverty, though not quite as bad a poverty as some places in eastern Kentucky — but they were largely ignored in the calculations, if calculations they can be called. The architects of liberal policies have all been extremely ego-centric, been very much unable to understand the behavior of people who were not like them. They would never use welfare as a system to avoid work permanently, they would be continually looking to better themselves, because that was what they had been doing all along; the poor people were never part of government or the policy formulations. It never occurred to them that enabling people to survive not having work, in poverty but still surviving, would ever lead to a substantial number of people agreeing to the Faustian bargain of agreeing to remain in a survivable poverty in exchange for not having to work, but it did.
Whites have been susceptible to that as well, but in practice, it has worked out that the black community has been more susceptible. |
