Posted on 01/12/2014 11:07:45 AM PST by SeekAndFind
My first job out of college was working for a construction company in Detroit.
“We’re an all-black company and I need a clean-cut white boy,” my boss told me over drinks in a downtown bar when he hired me. “Customers in the suburbs don’t want to hire a black man.”
When a service call would come in, we would ask, “Does he sound white or black?” If it was the former, I would bid the job. If the latter, my boss would. Detroit is one of the most segregated metro areas in the nation, and for the first time I was getting what it felt like to be on the other side of that line. In contrast to the abstract verbal yoga students at the University of Michigan would perform when speaking about race, this was refreshing.
And terrifying. I couldn’t hide behind fancy words any longer.
I grew up in rural Michigan, 45 minutes away from any freeway. I’m the first male member of my family in three generations never to have worked in front of a lathe, and aside from one uncle, I’m the oldest with all of my fingers intact. The university had given me some grandiose ideas like “true solidarity with the oppressed,” and I figured “the oppressed” lived in Detroit, never mind the patrimony. I thought I was making a sacrifice. I thought moving here was staying home when everyone else was leaving the state. I thought I was going to change the world and had some vague notions of starting a school. I cringe at how naive I was. I first rented an apartment in the city, sight unseen, that didn’t have a kitchen sink, so I did my dishes in the bathtub.
Aside from bidding jobs, I spent my days like everyone else: sanding floors in cheap rentals for $8.50 an hour, which got me thinking: I could buy a house and fix it up myself. Not that I was sure how to go about buying, let alone renovating a house. It was just an inexplicit dream, some trick that would keep me from leaving like everyone else, make me a true Detroiter.
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST ( AND WATCH THE PHOTOS OF THE HOUSE AND HIS NEIGHBORHOOD )
A paragraph from the article:
“There was no way I could live in the house when I first bought it, so I moved out of Will’s to Forestdale, a verdant block in Poletown that was walking distance from my new home. Twenty-five years ago, a wild and virtuous teacher named Paul Weertz bought a house on Forestdale after his downtown home burned down. Through the years, he’s transformed the block into an arcadian oasis on Detroit’s east side, where old Poles and young white artists live next to black doctors and immigrant mothers from Hungary or Mexico. He raised his now-grown children there, convinced friends and colleagues to move in, and saved the block from crack houses, fire, and neglect. Nearly all the homes still stand, a rather incredible accomplishment considering much of the rest of the neighborhood looks like a mouth full of broken teeth.”
This could be an opportunity for FReepers to move in and fix up the place.
That happened to my friend’s brother in Detroit. He is a recluse but had to leave for a few hours once and his house was ransacked and vandalized.
Thankfully, he is in the process of moving down to Ga.
Chinese money rushing into U.S. residential real estate
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3110969/posts
He must want to play the Knockout Game.
His next article....is likely to have a slightly different tone...I’d imagine.
I don’t love any cities but once I got to know a few Detroiters it was hard not falling in love with their attitude. A whole city full of people who have Gone Galt. All those petty little laws go out the window in Detroit.
Its an urban wild west ideal for conservative pioneers.
I challenge anyone to find a freer large American city.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Again, he might be a “guilty conscience-ridden white boy” who has balls. You have a problem with that?
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
And now you can buy and carry guns! Maybe the single best first step back to civilization.
And now you can buy and carry guns! Maybe the single best first step back to civilization.
Wow! You are right about that. Blacks ran the city into the ground from 1974 - 2014. Now it’s Whitey McCracker-Honkey’s turn.
New mayor of Detroit, Mike Duggan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Duggan
Violent crime was down 14% last year and murder was down 7%. The police chief says that its largely the result of armed citizens.
I think there is a very interesting experiment available here. NY is going one way and Detroit is going the other and I think the results will become pretty obvious in a few years.
Have you seen this in weekend WSJ?
I found it very interesting
I think what we are seeing is the turning point for the city to the positive.
I’m sure if FReepers got together and purchased blocks of houses together that way they could all help keep an eye out for one another.
Thought so. Obviously they’ve been watching the guy. There’s a reason why most white girls who live downtown in our blue city have Rottweilers, pit Bulls, german shepherds for pets. All the ‘shadows’ come out at night..
Doesn't bother me. What are they gonna do with them? They can't move them to China.
Well, living and voting there, one would have a better influence on what goes on there.
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