Replies

The most important factor in the rise of North Carolina was the development of cheap air conditioning. That has far more to do with it than Lyndon Johnson.

THAT is an out-of-the-box interpretation of history that rings very true to me.

I am intimately familiar with the Durham, NC (now of fashionable lofts) lauded in this piece. Here is a sad but honest fact: That community should be on fire with growth. It has wealthy and prestigous Duke University at its hip core. It has a sea of high tech research and industry all around it. It is part of a larger urban matrix which is also highly advantaged.

But Durham has a problem. It has a large black population juiced on guns, drugs, and hip-hop culture. The black leadership is largely corrupt and every community project that they touch becomes a magnet for ineptitude and graft. They are indulged by the very liberal university community that is determined to be "diverse."

The violent street cime in Durham is appalling. Teen gang-bangers are continually in the news with their killings.

In the best of all worlds, Durham's black culture should be a strength. Durham has traditionally been a center of black music and other black cultural achievements, although, to be blunt about it, those achievements look better celebrated today by a liberal community than the historical reality.

Real racism (no the modern subtle continual charge of “disrespect”), real racism, bigotry, segregation, disenfranchisement, etc., these things are a huge stain on the South and communities like Durham. Truly they had to be overcome before a bright future became even a possibility. The white people in Durham are over it. The black community is sick and cripples the town. You hear about the lofts in the tobacco factories and all. But the professional families moving into this area mostly want nothing to do with the Durham school system and its diversity.

"Durham has traditionally been a center of black music and other black cultural achievements"

Business, too. One of the larger buildings downtown was built by NC Mutual Insurance, which is one of the largest and oldest black-owned companies in the United States.

But the professional families moving into this area mostly want nothing to do with the Durham school system and its diversity.

that's true everywhere except for crusaders

Very cogent post. It's as if the black community had been 'drugged' with liberalism. It tore the black community apart. What we see now are the results.