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A Hundred Percent of Nothing
Townhall.com ^ | December 19, 2012 | Walter E Williams

Posted on 12/19/2012 12:03:52 AM PST by Kaslin

JoAnn Watson, Detroit city council member, said, "Our people in an overwhelming way supported the re-election of this president, and there ought to be a quid pro quo." In other words, President Obama should send the nearly bankrupted city of Detroit millions in taxpayer bailout money. But there's a painful lesson to be learned from decades of political hustling and counsel by intellectuals and urban experts.

In 1960, Detroit's population was 1.6 million. Blacks were 29 percent, and whites were 70 percent. Today, Detroit's population has fallen precipitously to 707,000, of which blacks are 84 percent and whites 8 percent. Much of the city's decline began with the election of Coleman Young, Detroit's first black mayor and mayor for five terms, who engaged in political favoritism to blacks and tax policies against higher income mostly white people. Young's successors, Dennis Archer and Kwame Kilpatrick, followed his Third World tyrant policies, but neither had his verbal vulgarity. Kilpatrick (2002-2008) went to jail and is on trial today on charges of corruption. Mayor David Bing is making an effort to revive Detroit. His problem is that he's not God.

Policies that ran whites and other more affluent people out of Detroit might have been Young's and his successors' strategy. After all, why not get rid of people who aren't going to vote for you anyway? The problem is that getting rid of these people left Detroit with a lower tax base, fewer jobs and fewer consumers. Fewer whites might be good for the careers of black politicians, but it's not in the best interests of ordinary blacks. Blacks have political control of Detroit, but the relevant question is whether some control of something is better than 100 percent control of nothing. By most measures, Detroit is one of the nation's most tragic cities, and it's mostly self-imposed.

Detroit topped Forbes magazine's 2010 list of America's Most Dangerous Cities. That year there were 345 homicides, but that's going to be topped with this year's 365 homicides so far. Most homicide victims in Detroit and elsewhere are black, and 95 percent of the time their murderers are black. But far more important to black leaders and white liberals than blacks murdering blacks are charges of police misconduct and racial profiling.

Detroit's predominantly black public schools are close to being the worst in the nation, perhaps with the exception of those of Washington, D.C. Only 4 percent of Detroit's eighth-graders scored proficient or above on the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test, sometimes called "The Nation's Report Card." Thirty-six percent scored basic, and 57 percent below basic. "Below basic" is when a student is unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at their grade level. "Basic" indicates only partial mastery.

Unbeknownst to most black parents is the fact that most black students who manage to graduate from high school cannot read and compute any better than whites four years younger and still in junior high school. Here's a question for you: If we put a group of 100 students of any race having an eighth-grade level of proficiency and another group of 100 students of any race with a 12th-grade level of proficiency in college, is it reasonable to expect the first group to perform as well as the second? On top of that, is it reasonable to expect a student of any race to be able to make up 12 years of fraudulent K-12 education in the space of four or five years of college?

Detroit's social pathology is seen in other cities with large black populations such as Philadelphia, Newark, Baltimore and Chicago. These are cities where blacks have for years dominated the political machinery in the forms of mayors, police chiefs, superintendents of schools and city councilmen, plus they've been Democrats. It's safe to conclude that the focus on political power doesn't do much for ordinary blacks.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: africanamerican; college; democrats; detroit; standardizedtests

1 posted on 12/19/2012 12:04:02 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

They need to bulldoze Detroit and forget about it.


2 posted on 12/19/2012 12:08:59 AM PST by MestaMachine (It's the !!!!TREASON!!!!, stupid!)
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To: Kaslin

Watson isn’t saying anything that isn’t being said by every corrupt Black pol and voter in the entire nation; that is, “We all voted for you, to the extent of nearly one hundred percent, in the expectation that you’d be a Brutha and give us Whitey’s money.”

And the nation’s Blacks call us Whites racists.

The political system has become a joke, with all our politicians selling out to the highest bidder.


3 posted on 12/19/2012 12:16:22 AM PST by Jack Hammer
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To: Kaslin

Evan Sayet lays it quite well in his pamplet...

The KinderGarden of Eden; How the Modern Liberal thinks..
Permanent infantile logic.. he is spot on and over the target..
Liberals heads will explode after reading it.

http://evansayet.com/blog/


4 posted on 12/19/2012 12:19:11 AM PST by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole..)
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To: Kaslin
Detroit's predominantly black public schools are close to being the worst in the nation, perhaps with the exception of those of Washington, D.C.

Don't know about Detroit but the DC teachers are some of the highest paid in the nation. I can only imagine what passes for education in those places.

5 posted on 12/19/2012 1:58:11 AM PST by palmer (Obama = Carter + affirmative action)
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To: palmer

Teachers are paid at the 95th percentile; spending per student at the 93rd percentile; students perform at the 3rd percentile.


6 posted on 12/19/2012 2:29:07 AM PST by Mikey_1962 (Obama: The Affirmative Action President.)
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To: MestaMachine
Detroit's population has fallen precipitously to 707,000, of which blacks are 84 percent and whites 8 percent.

Dunno about anyone else here but I'd call those 8 percent "Danger Seekers".

7 posted on 12/19/2012 3:16:51 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: Gaffer

You’d think with all the government welfare flowing into that city that it would be in a lot better shape. One wonders if the demographics has anything to do with it’s current condition..../s


8 posted on 12/19/2012 3:41:10 AM PST by jsanders2001
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To: Kaslin

HOORAY Walter! Music to read this thread by...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXLwBieNzpE


9 posted on 12/19/2012 6:09:27 AM PST by PGalt
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To: Kaslin

.


10 posted on 12/19/2012 6:23:06 AM PST by sauropod (I will not comply)
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