White flight from SW side (Chicago, Berwyn: low income, sale, safe area)

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by Chi-town Native

Just remember that the Irish were brought to Chicago to dig the canal ditches because they were considered expendable, less valuable and less skilled than African slaves from the South.

Slaves had nothing to do with it as Illinois was a free state---nobody was bringing slaves here to do anything except for the occasional body servant travelling with his southern owner, you know, like Dred Scott.

The Irish weren't "brought" anywhere, they came looking for work and found it.

[PokerPlayer1]

Originally Posted by Manigault

Getting beat up because you look goofy can involve a victim of the same race or a different race. I myself was probably on the receiving end of one of those beatings. But that don't make it a racially motivated hate crime.

Oh hogwash. In the context of the Leonard Smith versus "Goofy Looking White Boy" debate, you know there is a massive double-standard here.
If white thugs attack a black kid for being a "stupid looking negroid", 99 of 100 people who support the notion of "hate crimes" to begin with would say that's an example of one.

Of course, when black kids beat up a "goofy looking white boy" (and don't for a minute seriously try to make the case that in this context, blacks defining him by his race is any different than white thugs calling Leonard Smith a "n*gger"), well, then, we need to be more "understanding" and suddenly, reason goes into a state of suspended animation and folks are willing to concoct bizarre, logically tenuous rationales as to why the standard we apply for white on black "hate crimes" doesn't apply whenever it's black on white. Step away from the University, the theoretical and the academic and come down to the real world.

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

Slaves had nothing to do with it as Illinois was a free state---nobody was bringing slaves here to do anything except for the occasional body servant travelling with his southern owner, you know, like Dred Scott.

The Irish weren't "brought" anywhere, they came looking for work and found it.

"brought" was the wrong word (although the conditions prompting the Irish emigration IMO qualify as "force"), but Irish were most certainly courted to do work nobody else would do for near-slave wages. What was the original payment, something like $1 a week and a pint of whiskey a day?

I believe I did confuse a general saying about the low-value accorded to Irish immigrants with Chicago, specifically - you likely know this tom, but for anyone else interested this is as concise a history as I've seen:

Irish American: Information from Answers.com

[meatpuff]

Originally Posted by PokerPlayer1

No way in hell I would ever buy there and let downtown get a decent, legal poker game going and I'll have nothing more to do with the place.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

Originally Posted by PokerPlayer1

LOL!
Your knowledge of what Hegewisch and East Side were 10 years ago compared to today isn't exactly an accurate; very much the sort of opinion held by someone who occasionally visits, but has no idea what the neighborhood really is, particularly compared to what it was.
...
Since you're a Wikipedia man (LOL!)

Please be mature and attack what I say instead of me personally. If you believe the median income data listed on Wikipedia, supposedly from the 2000 Census, are incorrect, please post the correct data.

Originally Posted by PokerPlayer1

you will notice that the claim is made re: the racial dynamics have changed markedly since the last census, which is totally true based on what I've seen.

Can you explain what you mean, that the standard of living went off a cliff ten years ago because of racial dynamics?

Originally Posted by PokerPlayer1

I agree that Hegewisch isn't an outright horrible place to live at present- it's actually a good, short term deal if you're somehow obliged to technically live in the city yet want a more suburban feel- but it's qualitative standard of living has declined markedly and its future is a total short.

Yeah, I would agree. Wouldn't buy there right now, but that sentiment is exactly what makes houses cheap enough that an average joe can afford to buy one. You actually can't get into a much nicer neighborhood anywhere (near) south at that price point.

[Avengerfire]

Hello.

Most of the Irish (as well as amounts of others such as Scots,Welsh, and Germans along with a smaller amount of English) were brought to the New World (From the time of "discovery" until the mid-1800's) as indentured servants and on a smaller level straight up slaves. (Mostly the Irish slaves were in the Caribbean.) How do you think all of those people from Barbados,Jamaica,Montserrat, and other islands have Irish or Scotch last names?

If anyone here does not know what the definition of an indentured servant is they need to look it up.

[Chi-town Native]

The earliest ancestor I can track out of Ireland is buried on Jamaica, approx 1650 or so.

[PokerPlayer1]

Originally Posted by meatpuff

I'm not sure what you mean here.


Please be mature and attack what I say instead of me personally. If you believe the median income data listed on Wikipedia, supposedly from the 2000 Census, are incorrect, please post the correct data.


Can you explain what you mean, that the standard of living went off a cliff ten years ago because of racial dynamics?


Yeah, I would agree. Wouldn't buy there right now, but that sentiment is exactly what makes houses cheap enough that an average joe can afford to buy one. You actually can't get into a much nicer neighborhood anywhere (near) south at that price point.

Please don't do that thing where you parse posts down into sentence-by-sentence quid-pro-quo replies. It's very "internet circa 1999" and has since been widely recognized as being totally counter-productive to dialog.

My citing Wikipedia wasn't to refute your claim about median income- although I don't know if the median income figures are census based or not. If they are, that means they're ten years old and I imagine they will change for the worse once the next census data is taken and released.

Regarding the standard of living declining due to racial dynamics, do you really need me to explain that? All that's going to happen is we enter the intellectual blender where the discussion is pointlessly whirled around, mixing root causes with practical outcomes, correlation v. causation, etc, etc. I mean, I know a couple people who insist that drastic white-to-non-white racial shifts in city neighborhoods have minimal impact "in theory", but I have yet to meet anyone who embraces those "theories".

What happened is that Hegewisch and East Side- largely white and safe- became largely Hispanic with an increasing black presence. As a result, various standard-of-living "things" that are associated with 'influxing' blacks and Hispanics (who tend to represent lower income levels as a matter of default rather than anomaly) started to occur in Hegewisch. Blight, crime, a general decline in overall safety- things started happening that never happened before, like a cop getting shot, regularly seeing drug dealers on the Pudgys end of town, a blue light camera... and whether it's a result of nature or nurture, whether socioeconomics are the motivator or not, yet again, the same tried and true tale is playing itself out in Hegewisch, where non-white people move in, white people move out and the standard of living starts to decline in almost every qualitative and quantitative way.

Again, I will reiterate. East Side- yeah, there are worse places, but it's kinda bad. Hegewisch is definitely not "bad" yet, but "yet" is the operative term. Compared to what it once was, it's much, much worse, but not yet totally "bad". I'd have no problem renting there, but I definitely wouldn't buy there.

[Manigault]

Originally Posted by PokerPlayer1

Oh hogwash. In the context of the Leonard Smith versus "Goofy Looking White Boy" debate, you know there is a massive double-standard here. If white thugs attack a black kid for being a "stupid looking negroid", 99 of 100 people who support the notion of "hate crimes" to begin with would say that's an example of one.

First off, the kid's name is Lenard Clark. Secondly, I have known many black kids beaten by black thugs who thought they looked goofy. Most crime does not cross racial or ethnic lines. I don't know if 99% of those who believe in hate crimes would make anything of anything so I am not willing to play the race card.

Thirdly, if you know anything about street fights, the protagonists call each other all sorts of names, in an attempt to hurt, (See Maugham, Of Human Bondage) which is why I gave ol' 'Cosmo Kramer' a pass. People just lose it in the moment, but it don't make them racists. And you missed my point: Not every fight between people of different races is a racial incident. Explain to me how that is 'hogwash'.

A lot of people are going to think and say a lot of things. Thinking the worst about people means the racial divide will never be healed.

Originally Posted by PokerPlayer1

Step away from the University, the theoretical and the academic and come down to the real world.

I've seen (and been in) street fights for decades, way back into the sixties. I was last in one about six months ago, and not at the university. That would put me in the heart of the practical, not the theoretical. Constant whining about 'double standard' is playing the victim card, an activity a lot of folks like to lay on ol' Jesse.

Let's move on.

[ajolotl]

It does stretch the imagination to envision Manigault in a "street fight".

[PokerPlayer1]

Thirdly, if you know anything about street fights, the protagonists call each other all sorts of names, in an attempt to hurt, (See Maugham, Of Human Bondage) which is why I gave ol' 'Cosmo Kramer' a pass. People just lose it in the moment, but it don't make them racists. And you missed my point: Not every fight between people of different races is a racial incident. Explain to me how that is 'hogwash'.

I totally agree that people say things 'in the heat of the moment' that don't necessarily typify who they are overall- and a fight is definitely a 'heat of the moment' sort of deal. Still, when a group of kids from one race target a kid from another race and beat said kid based on a racial predicate (goofy looking white boy), that doesn't exactly capture the phenomenon in question.

If I'm at a bar and a black dude starts hitting on my girlfriend, I tell him to back off, he dares me to make him and I say something to the effect of "You're about to get your n*gger ass put down...", I think that might be an example of the sort of thing you're talking about. It's based on the heat of the moment and nothing else.

It's different, though, if I were to go to the park with ten white friends, hang out for a few hours, watch as a few dozen white kids pass by, then, the first black kid who passes, jump him while calling him a "stupid looking n*gger.."

In that situation (which is far closer to "stupid looking white boy" than the phenomenon you're attempting to cite and hopefully deflect the undeniable racial connection) , I can't say "WELL, IT WAS JUST THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT! RACE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!"
The position you take is rationalization at it's absolute ugliest.

As far as people pointing out a double standard here, that would be because ther eis a very legitimate double standard that exists and "stupid looking white boy" v Lenard Smith is probably one of the best illustrators of it.