Posted on 09/30/2006 1:10:10 PM PDT by neverdem
Across the country, the income gap between blacks and whites remains wide, and nowhere more so than in Manhattan. But just a river away, a very different story is unfolding.
In Queens, the median income among black households, nearing $52,000 a year, has surpassed that of whites in 2005, an analysis of new census data shows. No other county in the country with a population over 65,000 can make that claim. The gains among blacks in Queens, the city’s quintessential middle-class borough, were driven largely by the growth of two-parent families and the successes of immigrants from the West Indies. Many live in tidy homes in verdant enclaves like Cambria Heights, Rosedale and Laurelton, just west of the Cross Island Parkway and the border with Nassau County.
David Veron, a 45-year-old lawyer, is one of them. He estimates that...
--snip--
Despite the economic progress among blacks in Queens, income gaps still endure within the borough’s black community, where immigrants, mostly from the Caribbean, are generally doing better than American-born blacks.
--snip--
“Racism and the lack of opportunity created a big gap and kind of put us at a deeper disadvantage,” said Steven Dennison, an American-born black resident of Springfield Gardens.
--snip--
“When immigrants come here, they’re not accustomed to social programs,” he said, “and when they see opportunities they had no access to — tuition or academic or practical training — they are God-sent, and they use those programs to build themselves and move forward.”
Immigrants helped propel the gains among blacks. The median income of foreign-born black households was $61,151, compared with $45,864 for American-born blacks. The disparity was even more pronounced among black married couples.
The median for married black immigrants was $84,338, nearly as much as for native-born white couples. For married American-born blacks, it was $70,324.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
A clear reason for reparations.
I bet the same can be said about Harlem.
Harlem, way smaller than Queens, has a very different housing stock and much higher density, including lots of public housing.
What will race-hustlers like Sharpton do if the black middle-class continues to increase? Get real jobs? Or, continue to exploit the black underclass?
LI ping
Exactly. Blacks are succeeding?
Uh oh, this is not good news for the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons of the world. What will be their function if a thriving Black middle-class becomes more prevalent?
Why, they won't need the services of Mr. Sharpton and Mr. Jackson any longer.
Harlem today has a weird, weird make-up...
He has a real job as a talking head and candidate for something, no?
Or, continue to exploit the black underclass?
How can Sharpton & Co. stop the BS?
Tenements/trashy apartment buildings/public housing will remain as islands of undesirability, as they do on the Upper West Side.
A lot of the old retail establishments have closed, which is a real loss (please, don't bring up Sylvia's -- the place was always over-rated). Basically Harlem won't be Harlem anymore...
Wait. How is that possible? Wouldn't the racism that keeps American-born blacks behind work the same way on foreign-born blacks? Hmmmm?
(Actually, Thomas Sowell addressed this very thing years ago, in Ethnic America).
That's very true...but NY has *always* seen this kind of transformation...the Jews and the Irish and the Italians all had enclaves that blossomed and faded...why should Harlem's ethnicity be any different?
Work Loaf for the government... city, state or federal.
Everything should stay exactly as it is/was! Chinatown shouldn't have crossed Canal. I should still be able to hear an Irish brogue in the Bronx and get a decent knish in Flatbush!
p.s.
That knish shouldn't cost more than a quarter!
And while I'm at it -- what the hell happened to Nedicks and why can't I get a decent egg cream anymore? The world has gone mad!
In the late 1800s, Harlem was an all white community of middle and upper middle class whites, or varying ethnicities.
It wasn't until the beginnings of the 20th century that blacks moved there and it wasn't until WW II, that Puerto Ricans moved into a part of it.
Harlem has been in the midst of a white influx and a massive gentrification for about a decade or so, now.
Yes, N.Y.C. has ALWAYS been in the midst of some kind of strum&drang, with once VERY fashionable areas turning into slums and slums turning into posh places. It's the natural history of the city!
But did they have to kill off the egg creams?
The article actually reports: Of the more than 800,000 households in Queens, according to the Census Bureau’s 2005 American Community Survey, about 39 percent are white, 23 percent are Hispanic, 18 percent are Asian, and 17 percent are black.
Interesting phenom. It's not that there are only 2 whites left in Queens, but that most of the more ambitious whites have long since realized they were in Queens, and left for Westchester and beyond, to be replaced by some of the more ambitious black West Indies and West African immigrants, for whom Queens is a step up.
When was the last time you were in Harlem? Harlem is doing very, very well these days.
My wife's father grew up in Harlem, when it was upper middle class and largely Jewish. Of course that was before and during the First World War, before the block busters arrived.
As conservatives have been saying for some time, the primary "barriers" to minority achievement are mental ones, and the data here tend to support that.
I know the secret and make the best damned egg cream you ever tasted! Yes, I have jars of U-BET in my pantry and use freshly made Seltzer.
Harlem's history has been muddied by blacks and liberal historians, so that most people have no idea that it wasn't always a black enclave.
You've hit the nail right on the head... "Cultural difference." Long ago, I worked at a large chain drugstore, and there were a number of blacks working there. Of them, 3 were from the caribean or indies. You could tell those 3 were "different," even just by looking at them. They carried themselves differently, were better dressed (and not just than the other blacks, but all the employees in the store, myself included), and you could easily understand what they said when they spoke, even with heavy accents. They were polite and hard working. One whom I got to know quite well was in his mid-twenties at the time, holding down 2 full time jobs, and going to night school: Fist to get his GED, and eventually to go to college.
That level of motivation and dedication will guarentee success.
Mark
I have but one word for you, "Katz's"!!!
It's all in how you hold the spoon!
It is not the old faded romances or the kinetic energy, but the food that I miss most about New York.
Me too! Here in KC, there's the "New York Bakery" which has pretty good corned beef (at $18/pound!), but nowhere near as good as in NYC, and they don't have knishes! There, you have a choice! Baked or fried: Potato, spinach, meat, or kasha... Heck, you can get them at baseball games! At least in KC, I can get packaged Nathan's Franks, so that's saying something. And we've got some pretty good chinese and italian restaurants: Still, nothing like a really good NY Jewish or Italian deli and bakery, or some of those little dives in Chinatown or little Italy! NUTS! Right now I'd kill for a really good canolli!
Mark
The population (legal) of Queens is somewhere north of 2,000,000. If you include illegals, which abound there, the sky's the limit.
bump
Canter's in the Fairfax isn't bad, if you're in LA.
Egg creams are a lost art. There is new food though -- who would have suspected Jamaican beef patties would gain a foot hold?
Them and pastelli's (sp?)
Food in NYC is special. It's what immigrants bring with them. Combination of pride and wanting to succeed in a new country.
I have a whole spiel about it...
Believe me, I know. 68 Mott, 7 Division, veal and spaghetti at The Luna, Vincent's at 3AM, Juniors cheesecake in B'klyn, pastrami at Katz's or that deli by the Bronx courthouse, meat patties at the Hot Pot in Harlem or up in Kingsbridge, pizza at New Park on Crossbay Blvd.
I'm going back to Fun City for a visit next month and will prolly gain a few!!!
George Jefferson is movin' on up, while Archie is still stuck with Meathead. Meat Head.
"what will race hustlers like sharpton do..."
He will still play the race card--only it will be about poor native blacks, pitting them against immigrants who will get off their backsides and work instead of having their hands out to the taxpayers. I believe the article said something about values--maybe having two parents to raise kids? That will really frustrate sharpton.
Excellent, fresh by the slice! Coal fired ovens?
Bush's fault!
Does this mean whites need affirmative action in Queens?
For coal fired ovens, you go to Patsy's in Harlem!!
Whats a egg cream?
I'll give ya a hint. No cream and no egg. :)
But you can't get Dr.Brown's Cel-Ray tonic in a glass bottle anymore; not even in N.Y.C, and when it's in a can, it tastes like can, :-(
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