Saturday, October 24, 2009

A Tale of Two Cities

Everyone has seen the old Fritz Lang movie Metropolis.
But is this what has happened in America today?
Have most of our racial issues now been converted to class issues - even within each race itself?

I often read where one group of Blacks feel as though they are above the effects of racism because of their acquired wealth, status or social position.
But have they forgotten the lesson of Skip Gates?

I currently live in a neighborhood of custom homes and manicured lawns.
My neighborhood is 99.99% Black (One man married an Asian woman as his second wife).
The "poor" people in my neighborhood work at the local refineries with spouses that do the same (Each earning $100k+ yr.).
Everyone else is a business owner or a professional.

But across town, in the neighborhoods of my rental houses, the life of Blacks is vastly different.
This area is every stereotype of Blacks multiplied by ten.
If you think NOLA was bad - this area is much worse.
Sharpshooter homes are still common and decay is everywhere.
Even with the vast amounts spent on social programs - this area makes Detroit seem like Martha's Vineyard.

My neighborhood is over forty years old and has remained desirable even while maintaining it's Blackness.
My neighborhood was never White.
In fact, many whites assumed that the homes were given to the Blacks by some government program.
Many whites couldn't believe that Blacks in this area could afford homes that are better than much of the city.

But what are the differences between the two areas of this small town?
My neighborhood has few fences.
The older neighbors feel free to pick and can fruit from a neighbor's trees. (As long as the neighbor receives some of the preserves.).
My neighbors know each other and their families.
My neighbors usually have both parents in the home.
When a neighbor is working on a project at their home, my neighbors rarely fail to assist.
Being the only single guy on the block, I receive plates of food most days and most meals of every day.
My neighbors still feel no shame when correcting a neighbors child.
After hurricanes, we organize clean up and repair crews and check to ensure the safety of each neighbor's family and property.
My neighbors still enjoy conversations on other neighbors' porches. (The best meeting spot is in a neighbor's juke joint (really a small brick guest house that was built to prevent a man from cooking hog cracklin's in his wife's $85k kitchen))
Some mornings turn into "gun shows" where the men gather to see what skunk, rabbit, snake, armadillo or opossum some neighbor had been shooting at earlier. (Really, everyone is making sure no one is shooting at someone who may have been attempting to rob a home. These mornings, everyone ends up explaining that it was just some vermin and we end up showing off our newest weapons.)
In short - my neighbors are still neighborly.

But the hood in which my rentals are is very different.
Fences, dogs and guns are used to intimidate anyone who approaches a (usually rented) home.
People hide behind iron bars as night approaches.
Few people share - most charge for every little instance of assistance.
Most children are raised by grandmothers or single mothers who can barely take care of themselves.
Most adults fear the bad ass little kids who roam the streets at night.
The local hangout is the car wash or corner store, but these are usually frequented by dealers, prostitutes, beggars or bangers.
Gunshots are often heard and ignored as being somebody else's business.
Most consider their neighbors to be their biggest adversaries.

Both neighborhoods are Black.
Both neighborhoods are near high paying places of employment.
Both neighborhood's kids attend the same schools.
But why are the visible results so different?

10 comments:

  1. I think it's classism! I commented before that I think for the first time in the Black Race we are dealing with true class issues. Now while we are all in the same boat some are in the engine room while others play shuffle board.

    Although from the same origins we are now getting 4 generations up from poverty in some families. So what was once a struggle and sense of strength is now looked down upon like thank god we got out of that shit.

    I always volunteer drugs as a major source of instability but I also volunteer a concoction of poverty. Violence, poor schools, ignorant parents, poor diet and lastly a lack of intervention to correct the problem. So now we have Black people who live across the street from each other who see something completely different.

    I can't always use education because there are some dumb middle class kids who didn't go to college who don't fall into the poverty cycle. So alas we return to class and a neighborhood that reinforces stability that ensures their dumb kids don't turn to poverty!

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  2. I don't think these class issues are anything new, in fact I know they aren't. My grandparents lived in a neighborhood like the one you live.

    There have been class issues since the end of slavery. The difference is now we have so much media that affluent Blacks can no longer ignore poor Blacks.

    In the past you didn't see poor Blacks on every channel and there were just a few TV channels back in the day not hundreds like today.

    There was no Maury Povitch or Judge Joe Brown putting poor Blacks on display day after day.

    You didn't have thousands of bloggers highlighting the misdeeds of poor Blacks 24/7.

    So now we are forced to deal with poor Blacks because they are 1000 times more visible than affluent Blacks and middle-class Blacks.

    As well there are class issues in every community. The difference being that we are the only group of people who are judged by the least among us.

    There are millions of poor Whites but for the most part they are invisible. Middle-class Whites and affluent Whites are the public face of White America.

    So is the question why are the visible results so different or why are poor Blacks so visible and affluent Blacks so invisible.

    I ask you; if poor Blacks were invisible and not everywhere in the media would you still have the same questions?

    Why are we so obsessed with poor Blacks? Why is the media?

    Middle-class Blacks make up 75% of the Black population and yet it seems like poor Blacks are the majority.

    I guess my (long winded) point is that there is always going to be an under-class. That's what happens in a capitalist society. So why do we act as though there is something wrong with "those" people that live in ghettos rather than understanding the system in which we all live.

    Instead of theorizing about the Black pathologies that are at play in the ghetto maybe we should focus on capitalism and systematic racism as the reasons why there is such a difference between your community and the other.

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  3. [quote]I often read where one group of Blacks feel as though they are above the effects of racism because of their acquired wealth, status or social position.
    But have they forgotten the lesson of Skip Gates?[/quote]

    You are joking right?

    UBJ:
    A far better comparison that has more dramatic impact upon more Black people than what ONE BLACK MAN and ONE WHITE OFFICER who got into a "pissing match" is to focus on a tale of CRIME and the LACK OF RESPONSE between "Blacks living in White communities" versus "Blacks living in Black communities".

    Take the "Black Flight Progressives" who have migrated to majority White, conservative communities. They are able to do some for no other reason than the protections that civil rights laws have allowed them to do.

    UBJ - just allow one ignorant White person in the new community attack them and have it labeled as a racist "hate crime". A cascade of pressure would rain down upon the offender (and the law enforcement that controls the domain) to nip this in the bud.

    Now take that same Black person and put in in one of the majority Black communities that you speak of and ASSAULT HIM JUST THE SAME as the White person did. UBJ - this attack would not even make the paper.


    Thus in my opinion - more than what YOU can ask Black folks to "not get too comfortable with your illusions of having MADE IT". ........YOU need to look at what would otherwise be called "CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS" but for the fact that the Black person was attacked by an attacker who race did not qualify him as a CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATOR.


    THIS is the threat that far exceeds any concern that I have that some nearby White racist is going to kick in my front door.

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  4. [quote]In fact, many whites assumed that the homes were given to the Blacks by some government program.
    Many whites couldn't believe that Blacks in this area could afford homes that are better than much of the city.
    [/quote]

    UBJ - Why is WHAT WHITE PEOPLE THINK of so much concern to you?

    IF "Most Whites" believed that skilled Black craftsmen build up all of these homes from materials found in the nearby forrests does this make any MATERIAL difference as to what is happening WITHIN these communities?

    Our Political and Community Activism is so focused upon WHAT WHITE FOLKS THINK and/or getting the White folks who reside in the larger society to show that they VALUE the people living in the other community that you speak of. So little time is spent constructing institutions within these same communities by which the people themselves are made to VALUE THEMSELVES and their neighbors enough to not do certain things.

    In my high school physics class I learned that it was not scientifically proper to speak in terms of "hot and cold". The more accurate term is "heat" and "the absence of heat" as contained in a piece of matter.

    Likewise the term "wealth and poverty" needs a redefinition.

    "Those who have a system that produces fiscal resources in the context of their trade of goods with value" versus "those who either have no system of their own or who are positioned within a system in which the resources that they do have for trade are not sufficiently valued".

    Thus, in the place on the otherside of the tracks should be evaluated based upon the skills, qualifications and disciplines that are present among the people that would serve as a propulsion system upward.

    At the same time there is a point that we all must accept that their present situation is a direct result of them doing "all that is necessary to remain that way".

    At what point do you function as a "zoo keeper-like character"? You ask little of the "kept mammals" but instead raise funds among the "Friends Of The Zoological Gardens" who will apply funds to recreate the natural settings of the places of origin of the beings.

    Those kept beings largely only have to do what they are known to do, not being asked to play a central part in their own salvation or revolution.

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  5. Where there is abundance, one can let their guard down. However, where there is scarcity, there will always be envy, suspicion, etc.

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  6. @Monie - I agree that the poor will always be with us but like you said the way it's portrayed on TV has people thinking it's a epidemic.

    Now I personally think if we address it we can rid our race of poverty and ignorance. We like to think there is a certain percentage that is acceptable but that's with the human race not the Black race.

    Maybe like you said Black people are really on the TV and it's causing the naturally quiet Middle Upper Class to come out of their hiding places to complain!

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  7. @ Monie - Are Jews currently known for living in an excessive amount of Ghettos?
    Why have they been able to overcome their former state?
    Maybe their's is a model we should emulate.

    @ Max - Yeah... But why do so many seem satisfied with scarcity?

    @ CF - It matters because it effects the way the police respond to calls in my neighborhood.
    I once called the police only to have the officers leave when they discovered that it was a Black neighborhood.
    An hour later, the responding officers appologized and told me that the first officers were from a neighboring city, known as a Sundown Town, who hated Black people.

    Was the Skip Gates case anomolous? Sure - But many police officers still feel as though Blacks are not worth the effort.

    I'm not into the Zooism. I'm actually a frustrated guy who has made more failed attempts to remedy the situation than I'd care to remember.

    Many Blacks used to blame Segregation. Have we done better since?
    Then many blamed unequal funding. My town spends more per Black student, but they are still doing worse than the standards required for further education or employment.
    Many blamed opportunity. But have we made noticeable strides since AA?
    Many blamed hunger, old schools, a lack of tutoring.... But have we raised the average itellegence since free breakfast and lunch, new schools and after school tutoring?
    Many blamed YT. But what about areas that are controlled by Blacks?

    I don't blog claiming to have answers - only questions of what others have done that seems to have worked.

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  8. @UBJ

    Well first, there aren't 45 million Jews in America. If there had been their story would have been different.

    But many have us have done better than the Jews in America. It's only been 146 years since the end of Slavery and the vast majority of African Americans are middle class. The Jews never accomplished anything like that.

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  9. @FreeMan

    "Now I personally think if we address it we can rid our race of poverty and ignorance."

    I'm not sure all of our people will be free of poverty and ignorance at any point. But that's a worthy goal.

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  10. @ Monie - Really? Income, test scores, possitions of influence - who does better?

    The point of population could be judged either way.
    How could so few do so much?

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