Posted on 11/07/2019 4:25:45 AM PST by Kaslin
Michelle Obama recently complained about "white flight" in her old Chicago neighborhood. By "white flight " she means that whites left her neighborhood as it became increasingly black. "Upstanding families like ours, who were doing everything we were supposed to do and better -- as we moved in, white folks moved out, because they were afraid of what our families represented," she said. "I always stop there when I talk about this out in the world because I want to remind white folks that y'all were running from us. This family, with all the values you read about: You ran from us. And you're still running."
My family was the second black family to move into my South Central neighborhood in Los Angeles. We moved there in 1959, when I was entering the second grade. By seventh grade, virtually all the whites in my neighborhood had moved out.
For one semester, I attended Washington High, a high school that still had a fairly large white student body, perhaps 50%, while a high school closer to my home was being built.
On my very first day, I was by myself eating my lunch. There was a white kid a few yards away eating his lunch, when three or four black kids approached him. One black guy reached into his pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief, placing it across the rail the white kid was leaning against. He told the white kid, "Pick up that handkerchief and shine my shoe." The stunned white kid said, "Excuse me?" The black kid repeated the demand, pointed to a clock on the wall, and said, "When the clock hits 1 o'clock and the bell goes off and you haven't shined my shoe, I'm gonna kick your a--." The white kid kept asking why, what did he do to warrant this abuse? The black kid replied, "Because I told you to."
The white kid refused. The bell rang. The black kid slammed his fist into the white kid's face. But the white kid knew some form of martial arts, so he assumed a fighting position and repeatedly struck the black kid, knocking him down. Then the black kid's friends jumped in and started pounding on the white kid. Soon several other blacks joined in and started hitting the white kid, too. The white kid started running, and a group of some 20 blacks ran after him.
This was my first day.
Throughout that semester, I observed several instances, thankfully not this dramatic, in which whites -- boys and girls -- were verbally abused and physically bullied. In one case, a big, muscular black kid walked through a crowded hall between class periods and struck white male students in the chest with his fist, pointedly allowing black kids to walk by undisturbed.
No doubt, there were instances of white versus black clashes in which white kids were the instigators. But I never observed any. How many white kids went home to their parents and complained about the taunts and the bullying? To what degree did this contribute to the "white flight" that Michelle Obama complained about and implied was completely due to anti-black racism?
Former Attorney General Eric Holder complained about the fact that black kids are suspended and expelled from school disproportionately more compared to their population in a given school. Holder attributed it to racism. But the disproportionate suspensions occur irrespective of the racial composition of the school board and irrespective of the race of the principal.
Michelle Obama also inadvertently offered another reason for "white flight." During the 2008 campaign, "60 Minutes" interviewed her and Barack Obama. Correspondent Steve Croft asked Michelle whether, given the possibility that Barack Obama could become the first black president, she feared for his safety. "I don't lose sleep over it," she replied, "because the realities are that ... as a black man ... Barack can get shot going to the gas station. ... So, you know, you can't make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen. We just weren't raised that way."
The white kid refused. The bell rang. The black kid slammed his fist into the white kid's face. But the white kid knew some form of martial arts, so he assumed a fighting position and repeatedly struck the black kid, knocking him down. Then the black kid's friends jumped in and started pounding on the white kid. Soon several other blacks joined in and started hitting the white kid, too. The white kid started running, and a group of some 20 blacks ran after him.
This was my first day.
Throughout that semester, I observed several instances, thankfully not this dramatic, in which whites -- boys and girls -- were verbally abused and physically bullied. In one case, a big, muscular black kid walked through a crowded hall between class periods and struck white male students in the chest with his fist, pointedly allowing black kids to walk by undisturbed.
No doubt, there were instances of white versus black clashes in which white kids were the instigators. But I never observed any. How many white kids went home to their parents and complained about the taunts and the bullying? To what degree did this contribute to the "white flight" that Michelle Obama complained about and implied was completely due to anti-black racism?
Former Attorney General Eric Holder complained about the fact that black kids are suspended and expelled from school disproportionately more compared to their population in a given school. Holder attributed it to racism. But the disproportionate suspensions occur irrespective of the racial composition of the school board and irrespective of the race of the principal.
Michelle Obama also inadvertently offered another reason for "white flight." During the 2008 campaign, "60 Minutes" interviewed her and Barack Obama. Correspondent Steve Croft asked Michelle whether, given the possibility that Barack Obama could become the first black president, she feared for his safety. "I don't lose sleep over it," she replied, "because the realities are that ... as a black man ... Barack can get shot going to the gas station. ... So, you know, you can't make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen. We just weren't raised that way."
There goes the neighborhood.
I went to HS in Wilmington, DE.
The vast majority of Blacks were terrible students, with terrible behavior.
You said it
I spent most of my working career in Silicon Valley.
There are two minorities who are easily visually distinguished from white Americans — blacks and asians. Somehow property values and school performance increase when asians move in. There is no white flight from asian neighborhoods.
It is not politically correct to notice this.
Leftists always do the things they don't want others to do.
In the mid 80s, there was one black family in our coastal Massachusetts town. I went to school with the kids. They heard the N word quite often but they had white friends and were never beaten up by whites. I know a guy here in Missouri who went to school in East St Louis for a few years in the mid 80s and was the only white kid. Ran for his life every day and got beat up quite often. The black teachers were almost as bad as the kids.
When evil people define the standards. Society becomes poisoned. It is past time for blacks to confront their own violent racism, but until they do they will be treated as probable violent racists untill proven otherwise by all sentient beings.
It’s a shame, and not fun to be judged by the herd mentality
But it happens to everyone despite skin color.
I judge all people a potential danger and treat them all like they are not on first meeting, things develop from there. This even includes Muslims, which are a creed not a race. A creed sworn to kill, rape or torture me.
I just prefer to not pull the pin on a grenade when I see it. Same as any man shrouded in pride, hatred and envy. Bad combo there no matter the package.
I went to a historically black school and being one of the few whites in a K through 12 environment, l learned how to fight to the point where I became a brawler and the attacks stopped. When or lose I drew blood so the chimps learned to leave me lone, in fact I made a lot of friends.
Their teenage kids seek out friends who "look like them", and invite them to the neighborhood.
Michelle obama has lived a very privileged life throughout her adult life. She has never been in a position of losing value of her home because of trash moving into her neighborhood. She doesn’t know of what she speaks.
Seems to be some black flight going on in Los Angeles. When the Mexicans and illegals starting moving into the hood, the blacks, a lot of them started moving to the inland empire, etc. The Mexicans, coming from Narcoland aren’t afraid of the hood and they are taking over, schools, hoods, etc. What goes around comes around......fool.
that was my life in baltimore city public middle school 1974-77...
not so much in high school.
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In many cases it wasn’t the people who moved to the neighborhood, it was the friends and relatives they brought with them that were the problem. Saw that myself. The Black family that moved in down the street was a nice middle class family, but sadly they had a number of friends from the hood that weren’t. And they became an issue real fast. The family tried to jettison some of them, but a few were family members. We moved pretty soon after their arrival. The block went down hill fast.
Way way back in the day we lived in a “changing” neighborhood when I was a kid, sometime in the 1-3 grade range and the black kids would block the sidewalk when I was riding my bike, stop me, and beat the crap out of me because....I was white. I guess. Sure couldn’t think of any other reason.
We didn’t live there long after it started changing, maybe 3 months but I remember a load of beatings to the point I stopped going outside. We’d of probably moved sooner but it was a financial thing.
There was nothing to be done. Cops wouldn’t touch it and it got ugly the first time my father tried to talk to their fathers. Don’t know details about the latter other than he came back all red faced and told my mother we had to move.
Probably more tribalism than racism but regardless there was no way we could have stayed.
“Life is a negotiation”
I like that!
Today, "white flight" is driven by the implicit understanding that blacks will always be given favorable treatment under the law and in the public discourse whenever there is a legal or political conflict between two people of different races. Tawana Brawley, George Zimmerman and Juicy Smellitt are just three examples of situations where this was borne out.
If you already know you will not be given a fair shake under the law when dealing with someone of another race, ethnicity or gender, it's only natural for you to minimize your dealings with that race, ethnicity or gender.
There's no doubt in my mind that CERTAIN blacks have a definite genetic advantage in many athletic domains. I use the word "certain" because there's a misconception that blacks in general enjoy this advantage, but that's not true. The reality is that blacks who trace their roots to West Africa are the ones who tend to dominate many of these sports.
Olympic sprinters are a perfect example of this. Look at all the world-class competitors in 100-meter and 200-meter sprints, and you'll find that -- regardless of nationality -- they are all blacks of West African origin (American, British, Canadian, Jamaican, etc.).
Conversely, you find that West African blacks are almost non-existent in distance running events -- which tend to be dominated in recent years by runners from East Africa that are taller, thinner and have less muscle mass in general.
Hmmmm. Everywhere they go turns into crap n crime. Why would anyone swith kids stick around and watch their biggest investments get destroyed? Not just whites, lady.
I was attending school in Houston TX at the time TX was ordered to integrate its schools. Before the order, our junior high school was about 75 percent white and 25 percent Mexican. One day a bus pulled up outside and let 6 blacks off, 3 boys and 3 girls. Within seconds of them getting off the bus Mexican boys and girls swampted them, and pounded the hell out of them. Whites just stood and watched. After that, cops would arrive daily to supervise the arrival of the blacks. But, after their rather hot arrival every day there were 1 or 2 less blacks. In the end two black boys continued to come for awhile. By the end of the year our school was still 75 percent white and 25 percent Mexican, and no blacks.
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