Posted on 07/23/2007 4:21:37 PM PDT by goldstategop
Forty years ago today, several days of race riots began in Detroit.
On July 23, 1967, Black Panthers and assorted other Black extremists (with White hippies and far-leftists backing and encouraging them) eventually wrote their political epitaphs with it (though their movement unfortunately died a long, slow death--far past its time, if there ever was a time). But they robbed and killed Detroit--and a significant portion of Black America with it.
Black Panthers and their radical allies, supported by a thousands of Black Detroiters, rioted for days, starting fires and destroying the city. They wanted more power in the city. They wanted a Black Mayor, a Black police chief, a Black city council.
Scenes from the Detroit Race Riots of 1967 . . .
Detroit Black Panthers
Today, they have all those things. And they have nothing. They won the riots, they lost the war.
As my Dad says, when the riots began, Gentile, White Detroiters ran out to buy bullets. Jews ran out to buy guns (way too late). But eventually, they all ran out--and away--from Detroit. Today, more than nine out of ten Detroiters are Black. And even Blacks are leaving the Detroit morass faster than Roger Bannister. The city is losing population by the tens of thousands, every year. Black Americans, like White Americans, don't want to live in the crime, failed schools, and other living conditions brought to you by the Detroit riots. Crime under Detroit's Black police chiefs (the city has had several) is at an all-time high, and Detroit Public Schools, under its Black superintendents and school boards (there have been several of those, too), are at their worst, with record high drop-out rates and numbers of illiterate graduates.
When Black radicals started the riots, they achieved their goal of driving out White Detroiters, but their separatism only isolated them. Unlike every other inner city in America, Detroit is not a tourist destination. It's not a place where suburbanites generally clamor to go to nightclubs and restaurants. It's simply too dangerous.
The violence and destruction of the riots never really went away, just the press coverage of it. Such prominent figures as the son of former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer and the daughter of Detroit Tigers/Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch have been mugged.
During the Superbowl, with thousands of FBI and Homeland Security agents roaming around, there were two murders in the vicinity of the temporary bars and restaurants dotting the main drag of Woodward Avenue. I say "temporary" because that's what they were. Despite all the moving around of cranes to make it look like something--anything!--positive was going on in the city, Detroit Superbowl Committee personnel had to lease out shops, restaurants, and bars on 7-day leases. Any more than that, and they couldn't convince anyone to do business on the normally abandoned streets.
Crime is rampant, the city can't attract a major business, and the banana republicans on the city council junta are busy passing resolutions to name a tunnel after John Conyers, declaring Dubai a sister city of Detroit, and maintaining Sanctuary City status for illegal aliens. Monica Conyers (wife of the radical Congressman) is symbolic of the city council. Drunk and in fist fights at bars, she's a mess. And so is her legislative body and the city it governs.
With a pimp daddy mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, who dresses like a Gangsta and is involved in scandal after scandal, the city is the laughing stock. But, hey, the Mayor made an appearance on "Living Large," a now-cancelled national hip-hop show. Thank you very little. Kilpatrick, whom I like to call Kwame the Kingpin, was suspected in the drivebuy shooting of "Strawberry," a stripper who allegedly performed in the Mayoral Manoogian Mansion for "His Honor." He used his 21-bodyguard posse of police officers to serve as his personal harem-recruiter and to ferret him to and from different girlfriends.
These are the people who betrayed Blacks in Detroit, not the Whites who took White flight (followed by Black flight) from the city and gave them free reign to "run" the city . . . and fail magnificently. And, yet, they still blame even this on the White man.
Is it any surprise with "leadership" like this that the city is a ruin much used by Director Michael Bay as a set for movies. With the city a ghost town, even at lunchtime, he has a cornucopia of empty, decrepit, vandalized buildings--once grand palaces of business and industry--to choose from. And he doesn't have to deal with much traffic--by foot or car--interrupting his shoots.
Instead, Detroit is a burnt out shell. It is the only inner city in America that has not undergone a revival, a gentrification (even Cleveland--the former "Mistake on the Lake" was reborn). While some of that can be attributed to recent, never-ending downturns in the auto industry, this is a phenomenon that has metastasized throughout the city, even when Ford, GM, and Chrysler were at their height. Now, that they, too, are on the unreclaimable decline, it only helps solidiy Detroit's rigor mortis.
Drive down the Lodge Freeway, the main artery from Detroit's Northwest suburbs into the city, and you will see burnt out house after burnt out house dotting the freeway. All of them are in Detroit, and all of them--in their burnt out "splendor"--have sat vacant and ashen for years.
Ten years ago, when I was sworn in to practice before U.S. District Court, my father took me to lunch. We walked down the streets of downtown Detroit on a beautiful spring day, but there was hardly a soul as far as the eye could see. Ten years later, nothing has changed. It's only gotten worse.
Detroit is in the worst condition of any major city in America, except perhaps New Orleans, and that took a hurricane, an act of G-d. Three weeks ago, A&P-owned Farmer Jack--the last national supermarket in Detroit, the last large national retailer in the city--closed its doors and said Sayonara to the environs South of Eight Mile.
This is the legacy of the Detroit riots. And despite all the Detroit newspaper and media hype that those days are over, their legacy has only just begun.
To the last Black Panther leaving Detroit: Don't forget to turn out the lights. And start your usual fires, in their place.
Osama Bin Laden has a better chance of getting elected President than Detroit has of arising from the dead.
As Mark Twain might say, reports of its rebirth have been highly exaggerated.
Same can be said of the Portuguese, Brazilians, and Ecuadorians who moved into Newark's East Ward. One can whine all they want about Latin American immigration, but its what kept my dad's old nabe from becoming like the rest of Newark (which resembles Detroit).
Yeah, I’ll support Rudy for mayor of Detroit. Revitalizing Detroit would do a lot of good for the entire state.
Whatever happened with all that hype about the Renaissance Center? Did it end up being a big flop? Weren't they going to bring in a bunch of casinos to "save" the city? Did that ever even happen?
Detroit = Black Panthers= Hillary Clinton. There’s a connection that smells bad here!
Libertarianism is alive and well in Detroit. As soon as it sinks-in, the individual moves to the suburbs.
LBJ played politics with these riots. Then Gov. George Romney asked for federal troops since it was out of control of even the national guard. Since Romney was being talked up as a presidential contender, LBJ made a big deal of acting like it was not necessary but since a Governor requested troops, the President had no choice but to send them. This gave heart to the rioters (Marxist thugs) thinking LBJ was on their side (sound familiar? ala Durbin, Hillary, Kerry, Kennedy, Murtha, Pelosi, Reid et al sympathizing and giving aide and comfort to Islamofacists and the expense of our civilization - just for politics!)
Debbie has summed it up flawlessly.
The dirty secret is “racism” in Detroit is Black on White.
Survival instinct is what drove other race components out (whites included) and keeps them out.
Go Tigers!
Lions, Tigers, Pistons, Red Wings...sheesh, you'd think they never left!
Me, too. It isn’t because of the riots.
The rioters didn’t want a black mayor, etc. They wanted to loot and cause mayhem, just as the rioters did in LA after Rodne King riots.
I remember the Chaldeans (the ones who operated the gas stations and convenience stores, mostly) as being especially fearless. Their typical attitude was, “so what if you think my prices are highway robbery—someone tries to rob me two or three times a week.”
As I have said on several other threads, my father, who grew up in Newark (another casualty of the Long Hot Summer of 1967), worked in the Auto Industry as an executive for almost 40 years. He told me that, despite having grown up in Newark, and having lived in Mexico City, there was no place that reminded him more of hell on earth than Detroit. He told me that, outside of the hotels, the downtown area had ZERO restaurants for entertaining, and the Big Three always hosted their visiting clients out of the city anyway. He had three friends who took jobs there, only to move within two years, because even as nice as places like Bloomfield Hills and Troy can appear, they still have the stigma of being part of metro Detroit.
If you report a break in, you won't get any response from the local police who are understaffed, underpaid and overworked. I have had beggars come up to me and literally ask for cash to go get high, no story of being stranded, or a pledge to turn ones life around. But an honest ask for a birthday high (the man in question claimed it was his birthday and wanted money because his friend would hook him up).
If you want to go to a city that looks like a Hurricane swept through it, its Detroit.
I have a couple of cousins who ran away over there and I visited a few times. I remember that as being a very beautiful area in the '70's.
My dad speaks of times when he was dating my mother (40s/50s) where the city was the "hub" of entertainment and excitement. They drove 1.5-2hrs to enjoy it.
Whatever happened with all that hype about the Renaissance Center? Did it end up being a big flop? Weren't they going to bring in a bunch of casinos to "save" the city? Did that ever even happen?.
Families save cities. Race-war zones are not family friendly.
The Ren center is there as are the casinos and a beautiful ball park but buildings don’t really do much aside from give Detroit a nice skyline. There are a lot of empty buildings in downtown Detroit but they call it “renovation”.
“Blacks are more racist than whites.”
- Larry Elder, “The Ten things You Can’t Say In America”
The glorious BEARS always ate the Lion’s for lunch on Turkey day...
You were trying to be funny, but how true you are. Detroit is the number one Islamic city in America, and that is not by accident. They have recognized the vacuum that has been generated in one of America’s largest cities, and have filled it. When the Islamic Jihad starts in this country, it will be launched from Detroit...
It’s not just Detroit dying.
On my road in rural Michigan, there are only two households working, myself included. The remainder are on SS, retired, or on welfare SS disability. Two houses are vacant and two are for sale.
On the parallel road, three households are on welfare, three are on SS or retired and two houses are vacant and up for sale.
The largest Michigan export are graduates leaving the state looking for better opportunities. Michigan is #1 in United moving vans leaving. It’s also the only state to post a negative economic growth last year, with the exception of LA, whose economic bad luck was hurricane-induced.
Michigan has the highest unemployment in the nation. Some rural counties had 20% or better unemployment this past winter. I’m predicting 40% this winter.
You can buy a nice three bedroom, two bath home in many Michigan locales for the price of a new car.
We also have a communist governor who is doing to the state what the black socialists are doing to Detroit. If you want to see what America would look like under the female communist Hillary, Michigan is that picture.
I really don’t care about Detroit.....
but who has pics of Debbie? C’mon
Debbie is hot!
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