Race, class and antisemitism in Baltimore (Berlin: employment, living in, military)

[barante]

Time to revive this long-dormant thread.
Carl Nightingale's long-awaited book on global segregation is out. It begins with Baltimore's pioneering 1910 residential segregation law and then shows how segregation based on ethnicity, race and class has been with us for thousands of years. I am currently reading it. A bit academic but, hey, someone has to suffer.
Amazon.com: Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities (Historical Studies of Urban America) (9780226580746): Carl H. Nightingale: Books
Item: A professor at Loyola/New Orleans contacted me to announce that bis book on hypersegregation is in final editing stages. He also discusses Baltimore.
Item: A collection of Gilbert Sandler's columns from the Jewish Times has been repackaged and is now available in a slim volume that fairly oozes nostalgia. The WEAA talk host Marc Steiner defines nostalgia as remembering the past with the pain removed, and so it is with Sandler.
Item: Antero Pietila's book on race and real estate in Baltimore, Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City, is now in a fourth printing. Only in hardcover and Kindle. Plans for a paperback version this fall have been shelved. http://amzn.com/1566638437
Item: Amy Nathan's Round and Round Together is a fascinating read. It is about how Baltimore's Gwynn Oak Amusemant Park was desegregated after a decade-long campaign, the same day Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous speech. A very useful slim volume that retails for $12. http://amzn.com/1589880714

[Hamish Forbes]

^^ Yes, of course, the thread must be reopened if the professional race-hustlers are to have an outlet and access to an audience, not to mention book-buying customers. Moreover, every good open wound deserves its share of salt.

[dfredward]

I for one look forward to barante's posts and insights.

[barante]

Michael J. Lisicky, an oboist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, has become one of the nation's leading experts on department store trivia. He spoke tonight at the Baltimore City Historical Society and disclosed he is about to publish a new book that will spin stories beyond his bestseller, The Rise and Fall of Hutzlers. Specifically, he said it would deal with discrimination, a topic he treaded carefully in the Hutzlers book.
In brief, Baltimore's leading department stores banned blacks to the basement starting in 1910. Blacks could not try on any hats, clothes or gloves. Whatever they might purchase were branded as "final" sales on the receipts, i.e. nonreturnable. This practice continued until 1960. An occasional black customer might be seen on higher floors of department stores, but only if she/he carried a letter from employer certifying the servant was on a mission for the white family, Lisicky said.
Just to be accurate, discrimination is unlkely to be a major thrust of the new book. But the details he provided tonight seemed to surprise many in the audience, even though the audience was an older one consisting of many people who had patronized Baltimore department stores during segregation days. "That's just how we lived," said one lady.

[Hamish Forbes]

Originally Posted by barante

an oboist . . . publish a new book that will spin stories . . . he said it would deal with discrimination.

An amateur collecting anecdotes selected to confirm a preconceived notion and then spinning stories in order to sell a book is not the same thing as a properly trained scholar writing history, although the former happens all the time. Rather than focusing on white discrimination against Blacks in Baltimore, perhaps some amateur could collect anecdotes dealing with black-on-white crime in Baltimore, and spin some stories about that. To me, it would be equally repugnant.

[Oleg Bach]

Originally Posted by Hamish Forbes

An amateur collecting anecdotes selected to confirm a preconceived notion and then spinning stories in order to sell a book is not the same thing as a properly trained scholar writing history, although the former happens all the time. Rather than focusing on white discrimination against Blacks in Baltimore, perhaps some amateur could collect anecdotes dealing with black-on-white crime in Baltimore, and spin some stories about that. To me, it would be equally repugnant.

If it is repugnant, don't suggest it. Just having a look at this thread..It has a strange tone too it..it's surprising that people are still going on about antisemitism. You would think people would have figured out that no particular group rules the world..and that the whole thing is on auto-pilot. I myself love anecdotal tale telling- once you are old all you are is a book of stories anyway..having said nothing of any importance- I will now bow out- carry on....

[jonjj]

Originally Posted by barante

Michael J. Lisicky, an oboist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, has become one of the nation's leading experts on department store trivia. He spoke tonight at the Baltimore City Historical Society and disclosed he is about to publish a new book that will spin stories beyond his bestseller, The Rise and Fall of Hutzlers. Specifically, he said it would deal with discrimination, a topic he treaded carefully in the Hutzlers book.
In brief, Baltimore's leading department stores banned blacks to the basement starting in 1910. Blacks could not try on any hats, clothes or gloves. Whatever they might purchase were branded as "final" sales on the receipts, i.e. nonreturnable. This practice continued until 1960. An occasional black customer might be seen on higher floors of department stores, but only if she/he carried a letter from employer certifying the servant was on a mission for the white family, Lisicky said.
Just to be accurate, discrimination is unlkely to be a major thrust of the new book. But the details he provided tonight seemed to surprise many in the audience, even though the audience was an older one consisting of many people who had patronized Baltimore department stores during segregation days. "That's just how we lived," said one lady.

Not sure if you know the history of Diana Ross from Detroit. Before her singing career, she was the first Black Detroiter to work at Hudsons Department Store outside of the kitchen staff and elevator operators. That was in the 1960's; not too long ago. My point: discrimination existed everywhere. Baltimore does not hold the title to that. I am sure there are similar stories throughout the country. I sometimes think this information about what occured in Baltimore should be placed in a general thread regarding history and race-relations. It would be interesting to compare notes and see perspectives from throughout the country.

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

Originally Posted by jonjj

Not sure if you know the history of Diana Ross from Detroit. Before her singing career, she was the first Black Detroiter to work at Hudsons Department Store outside of the kitchen staff and elevator operators. That was in the 1960's; not too long ago. My point: discrimination existed everywhere. Baltimore does not hold the title to that. I am sure there are similar stories throughout the country. I sometimes think this information about what occured in Baltimore should be placed in a general thread regarding history and race-relations. It would be interesting to compare notes and see perspectives from throughout the country.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Old-Neighb...d+neighborhood

This is a great read.

[Hamish Forbes]

Originally Posted by jonjj

My point: discrimination existed everywhere. Baltimore does not hold the title to that. I am sure there are similar stories throughout the country.

Exactly! I think that this cottage industry that seems to attempt to slander white Baltimoreans as being especially immoral is disgraceful as well as incorrect. Moreover, many of the writers making these insinuations have no direct experience whatsoever with Baltimore of the 1940's-1960's; rather, it would seem to be kind of a hobby to dump on Baltimoreans of the era.

[Oleg Bach]

Originally Posted by HandsUpThumbsDown

Amazon.com: The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration, 1966-1999 (9780684834023): Ray Suarez: Books

This is a great read.

This might be a bit out - like out of the country- regarding race relations in Toronto. Our black and white issues are in their infancy. Twenty years ago there was no distrust between the two. After a couple of decades of unneeded governmental incentives to adjust so-called inequality (that was never a serious issue)- we now have a problem that did not exist anymore. The road to hell is most certainly paved with good intentions. Now we have the early stages of ghetto formation. All this was caused by so-called do-gooders who effected the black immigrants by providing public housing. Now we see gun violence and gang problems that did not exist but now suddenly do.

Other populations that are non-white blend in well. The new young black population for the most part are isolated from the general society and there is fear - loathing and contempt...that quietly goes back and forth between blacks and other races.

Most people are afraid to even make eye contact with black youth that enter into primarily white neighborhoods....The liberal mindset that attempted to instill "self esteem" in young blacks - had their plan back fire and I see blacks who are threatening and who have low self esteem. If Canadian society had let nature take it's course...things would be better and normal.


Liberal social policy back in the day granted money to black mothers with the stipulation that the father was not to reside in the home if they were collect what was then "mothers allowance"....



I swear this resentment of black fathers by our elite who had great influence over social policy caused the new problems that we are begining to see now.





Prior to this- Black families were doing just fine....without these programs based in a weird sort of benevolent prejudice...Now we have difficulties that were artificially created. It would have been better to allow the black immigrant population to evolve on it's own....instead of egg head liberals and hateful conservatives attempting to manipulate these human beings.