Posted on 07/06/2012 8:21:02 AM PDT by MNDude
I am curious, how were race relations before LBJ's great society? Would you have walked, relatively safe, down the streets of Harlem back in 1960?
I don’t know about Harlem, but pre 1967 you felt very safe in Detroit. Believe it or not.
Actually, if you watch “documentary style” movies of the black experience before the Great Society, you will notice a relatively intact black family and much more of a “can do” attitude than today.
But it’s not really rocket science. Also, the stats are all out there. There was simply not the same hatred against whites.
That said, there were still plenty of whites that hated blacks. The KKK was still fairly strong, though I speak from my studies as opposed to personal experience. I never lived in an area where the KKK was all that big, or even apparent.
My Dad (RIP) went to an integrated high school in Cleveland, graduated in 1932. He always said race was not an issue.
Everybody was poor during the Depression.
We can go just 30 years ago to find better race relations. In 1983 I used to party with my Mexican roommate at Federal and 38th. He was a Mexican serving in our military to earn his citizenship. We used to go there on weekends and it was a great party place. Everyone was friendly, no gangs, violence was maybe a fistfight, and people partied all over the place. It was obviously safe for whites and I never felt threatened. Today, even the cops think twice before going there at night. I had to go there a few years ago in broad daylight on a Saturday and it wasn’t fun. It is Mexican gang controlled and the majority of violence is from there.
That was a different world. I was a white Public Health Nurse in a totally black district of Baltimore city in 1969 and ‘70. My mentor and supervisor and co-workers were mostly black, and were very well qualified nurses. I was totally safe, and so was my beautiful LeMans convertible, as I made my home visits.
My clients were poor and lower middle class - men had jobs then. Johnson’s money to the cities broke up too many intact families and destroyed incentives to work and study. I could go on, but you just asked about safety. Heroin was the street drug, and addicts would rob their mother if they were desperate, but there was not the same racial animosity as has continued for too many “victims” today.
Wasn't that a HUGE success?
Raised the black illegitimacy rate from 15 to 75%.
now we wonder why society has problems
As a mid-sixties white teenager, things were very relaxed in my urban/suburban area. I can remember the first time I heard ‘nigger’ used about a black person. Man, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Even when things began to go south in the late 60s, there were two people whose safety was guaranteed: the District Health Nurse and the weekly life insurance collection man.
Now the young thugs have no respect for anyone (and they're not buying life insurance for their families), so nobody is safe.
Read the opening chapter in Thomas Sowell’s book Black Rednecks and White Liberals. He lays it all out very clearly. The black community and race relations all went to hell at the hands of the liberals and their programs that started in the 60s.
The whole “black culture” grew out of the democrats need for division. Prior to that, blacks and whites lived very much the same. Sure there has always been racism but blacks and whites could spot it and avoid going where they weren’t welcome.
Forced desegregation has been really bad for America. That’s not to say that I think segregation is good only that forcing contact creates tension.
The Great Society was a textbook example of liberals ineptitude about understanding human nature. It is summed up in this by Bill Whittle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dwz_Z62e0s
Who thought up the idea of housing the poor, by the thousands, in a tightly condensed area? And while we’re at it, lets do everything we can to ensure the fathers are absent and women will be rewarded for bearing more bastards. Is anyone really that stupid? It had to be intentional.
“you will notice a relatively intact black family and much more of a “can do” attitude than today.”
Actually, blacks were already under the gun for their out of wedlock child bearing. If I recall correctly the 1950’s report stated that number was already 33% by then.
“There was simply not the same hatred against whites.”
There was. They simply didn’t have the avenues to express it. Tapping that hatred was easy to during the building of the Great Society and it continues today. The white KKK is small potatoes compared to the Black KKK of today.
You could go into black areas in the day time; i.e. to the museum. Blacks had their own schools. Restrictive covenants were allowed which helped make neighborhoods safe.
In short, whites governed and it was generally peaceful. We never really thought much about blacks. My mother was horrified when I saw my first black.(I was about five.) I looked at the lady and said "Mommy that lady is dirty" Mom remembered that all her life. She had to apologize to the lady.
I’m pretty-sure Chicago wasn’t seeing a daily murder and several daily woundings.
It was a lot safer even in small southern towns. However, racism was common. And that was bad.
I recently watched The Pruitt-Igoe Myth on Netflix. I believe there is much to take away from watching it.
Like if you were black and traveling anywhere in the South for any reason and you wanted lunch or a glass of water and you had to go look for the ons Negro establishment???
Please.
Lady Bird said the Great Society was a failure.
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