In summary, the residents of Antioch,CA are pissed off with the influx of poor Negroes moving into town with Section 8 housing vouchers bringing with them "loud parties, mean pit bulls, blaring car radios, prostitution, drug dealing and muggings of schoolchildren."
In other words, the same old stuff that comes with all neighborhoods where the vast majority of the population resembles the cast of a Snoop Dogg video.
To be expected, the aggrieved have called for, and received, a greater measure of police patrolling aimed toward keeping a damper on the Annoying and Federally Subsidized Community.
Now, the subsidized nuisances are striking back with a lawsuit for police harassment,intimidation, or whatever... but I'm pretty sure racism will be charged as well.
What this all comes down to is the one thing it is not politically correct to proclaim, although the evidence for it is overwhelming: Bad neighbors live in bad neighborhoods for a self-evident reason. No amount of subsidy to help poor people escape poverty slums will change the behaviors and social mores that brought them to the slums in the first place.
Giving them free money to 'escape' just spreads their crap around into other neighborhoods where the citizens have already earned a certain level of lifestyle through their own merits.
You got to love this quote from the article:
Karen Coleman, a mother of three who came here five years ago from a blighted neighborhood in nearby Pittsburg. "We are trying to raise our kids like everyone else. But they don't want us here."
No, Mrs. Coleman. With the loud parties,pit bulls, blaring car stereos,and a government check, you are not trying to raise your kids 'like everyone else'.
But at least you're right about one thing: They don't want you there. And justifiably so.
2 comments:
"And of course I continue to object to you saying folks in the slums developed and ought "to be judged for the system they are in. Certainly as they grow up one would hope that they would intake alternative messages from the media (or somewhere), but once there is one generation established in a negative social norm, the subsequent generations cannot be held completely responsible for their "choices" ... "
this is bullshit,kr.
by this logic, you cant lock up drug dealers who grew up in drug infested neighbrhoods and homes. (which you just said you were '100%' OK with).
the people who populate the neighborhood are those who created the neighborhood, and prepetuate its conditions.
"Having those kids in alternative neighborhoods is EXACTLY the kind of thing they need to receive real-life exposure to alternative thinking and choices."
this is akin to saying black kids can only learn to read if they are sitting next to white kids (the logic behind forced bussing).
as for exposing them to other choices: maybe if their parents turn off the MTV and make them wacth something else...
and, now that I can respond (thanks ;) )
no, gino, I said they cannot be held "completely" responsible--killing people, selling drugs, blah blah blah are pretty clearly damaging to the people around you no matter how bad an environment you grew up in ... anyone can figure this out. It's all the more subtle life assumptions that underly most of our daily existence, that would be the things they are less likely to even begin to notice _could_ be changed
and no, I'm not saying they can only learn to read if they are by white people (by the way I have no idea what is the non-African-American racial mix in the area in question, so the "white people" is definitely a projection from you onto what I said) ... I'm saying it is generally easier if the kids are exposed more directly to alternative ideas, for them to see, understand, and consider those ideas ... and I think it is good for the kids in those 'good' neighborhoods to see what the ideas they grow up with are and aren't, as well.
You don't get to grump that the parents should make them change the channel on the TV when the parents are choosing to do something much more directly effective about changing their kids' lives and you are essentially telling them they have no right to make that choice ... ??? I completely don't catch how you pull those two branches of your thought together ...
your ball ;).
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