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Residents of View Park have a thinly veiled code for the signs of change they see in their upscale neighborhood: "joggers" ... "dog walkers."
"It's like an alien sighting," says Karen Martin, who grew up in this hilltop community framed by La Brea Avenue and Crenshaw Boulevard. "We never saw them before."
White people. With fluffy dogs. And fluorescent Spandex.
And for some longtime residents who cherish View Park as a symbol of African American success and a stronghold of black culture, that's unsettling.
Now they know how the white people felt when "they" started moving into once white communities such as Bed Stuy, Harlem, Newark, Roosevelt LI, and hundreds of other cities around the country. There goes the neighborhood. I love hypocrisy!
Whites are now moving back into places such as Harlem and Bedstuy. Harlem was originally a white suburb of Manhattan 150 years ago. THe problem with places like Harlem, bedstuy, Roosevelt LI is that these places are not affluent communities, and the folks moving into Bedstuy and Harlem are affluent whites who may have a voice over those who are less fortunate due to the lack of capital. The more capital one has regardless of race, the more voice the person can over other people.
There is no such thing as affluent blacks. Ask Obama, any Clinton or the media.
Nevertheless, those "affluent" blacks don't want less affluent blacks in their neighborhoods either. What they do want is to have their neighborhoods while less affluent blacks live in "hoods".
I swear it seems that the media only cares about blacks in this country nowadays. Black this black that. I honestly sometimes feel like I am living in Nigeria and not in a country with only 13% black people. Not only is the media trying to promote so much propaganda about how wonderful they are but they stick em in just about every freaking commercial (print ads and TV), they remake movies with blacks as the main characters, they promote race-mixing, they treat blacks as victims but unfortunately they are the main ones committing homicides in this country but they hide that fact. Something fishy is going on and it is brainwashing everyone to think blacks are the most special people on this earth. What a joke.
Not to worry, this is temporary, just until the Hispanics decide they've had enough and stack the deck the other way.
i dont care hiow many haters i attract, ive lived all over the country and been al over the world, the most racist are people of color. Ive lived it just about everywhere.
Your knife cuts in many directions...who are you slashing at?
It was a response to this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Concaine
Uh, black people where possible, are the most likely group to live in diverse communities. Don't be so quick to breathe a sigh of relief in thinking, "Ah, they're racist too".
If someone is saying that black people are not racist, inferring that white people are, that is a racist statement.
But I do not get into all of your brainwashed and brown shirt crap either.
Uh, black people where possible, are the most likely group to live in diverse communities. Don't be so quick to breathe a sigh of relief in thinking, "Ah, they're racist too".
If you read the article beyond the headline, you'd understand that affluent white folks will raise the house value of homes, tempting black home owners to sell out. The black folks are there originally because the house prices dropped when black people started to move in and white folks left.
What that leads to is homes that black folks are less able to purchase as the house prices rocket and the remaining black residents are likely to be 'forced out', as has happened in too many other places in the US. 'Forced out' as in not being made to feel welcome in their neighbourhood, not, not feeling at home because people with a different skin color moved next door.
Lets get this crystal clear; black people don't move out because an area became diverse. Wanting something to be true, doesn't mean you have to twist a story you either didn't read or just don't understand.
I'll take your statement and give you the inverse, and tell me if it isn't racist :
"White people don't want poor black folks moving into their neighborhood because it will cause their property values to plummet, not because they shun diversity. "
I'm responding to this post chiefly because it is a great example of how white people really do not understand most black folks mentality. I'm speaking from the perspective of an upper middle class black man who generally agrees with the black View Park/Baldwin Hills residents who don't want to see their neighborhood demographics change. I hope those that read this will not make a value judgment based upon what I say and will just accept it for what it is. As a disclaimer, I don't live in LA, never have, and probably never will.
What all the people saying that it is racist of them to not what to see their neighborhood turn from predominantly black to white don't understand is the whole concept of blackness and why its so important to black people. Blackness is a product of American history. Back in the day, and I'm talking the slave days, blacks were slaves (or former slaves) and whites were predominantly of British decent. In those days, to white people, blacks were lower than a white persons dog. After 250 years of this, black people as a group had some pretty low self esteem. That said, a culture developed alongside white culture that was rich and complex, although it was generally denigrated by whites. After the civil war, white people from all over Europe flooded the US and joined the already existing white culture (at least, the second generation did.) This caused the formerly British oriented white culture to become diversified and, in a sense, watered down. Meanwhile, black culture continued on as it always had, without a similar watering down effect. This phenomenon was magnified by segregation, which contrary to popular belief, occurred all over the country, not just in the south.
Flash forward to the 1950's. Most black people at that time were meek and deferential around white people, but when they were around other blacks, they were like completely different people. They could express their blackness without shame. It was a miserable existence when they were around white people out in society, but warm, and lively in the hood. We all know what happened next, when the civil rights movement happened and black people found their voice. Blackness, at this point, was 350 years in the making and for the first time ever was not something to be ashamed of in America. Blacks had always been a cohesive group, while whites were really a mishmash of British, Irish, German, French, Italian, Scandinavian and Slavic peoples who had traded their distinct cultures for a more generalized white culture that had no deep roots like the parallel black culture. That's why whiteness isn't really a thing for most white people, aside from the white pride crazies. It's neither good nor bad. It simply is what it is.
Contrary to popular belief, there have always been affluent black people, even during the worst of the segregation years. But because of segregation, those people lived in affluent sections of black neighborhoods. Their distinct culture was preserved by proximity to each other. Integration turned this dynamic on its head. Many affluent black people rushed to buy homes in areas that were formerly denied to them, looking for the same things well to do white people wanted. Good schools and a safe neighborhood. But this had an unintended consequence. Their children, growing up in a mostly white community, were likely to not be steeped in black culture. They were a generation apart. To their white peers, they were "my black friend", but to other black people who were not fortunate enough to get out of the hood, they weren't really black anymore (try to understand that if you're poor and black in the hood, your blackness is basically all you have, and you take it seriously.) I know this because I was one of those children. I cannot begin to describe how embarrassing it is to visit your cousins in the hood and not be able to talk like they talk, and act like they act. And at the same time, back at your white school, you're never really accepted. People are nice enough, but you still suffer racial slights on a regular basis, and you are still, for the most part, "the black friend." This is confusing and demoralizing and it hard to be truly happy unless you "sell-out" (this is an ugly term and I hate to use it but I lack a better way to say it) completely and just avoid other black people.
I don't begrudge my parents for living where we did. I got a great education and I'm much better off than most black people as a result. I have a great career and a good life. But I'm missing blackness. Now I'm 40 and have a young son and one on the way. I want them to have the advantages I had, but I also want them to have blackness in their lives. That's why places like View Park, Baldwin Hills and Prince Georges County, MD are so valued by the black middle and upper class. I would like my kids to grow up somewhere like that so that they can have the blackness that is so important to us, but will still get a good education, and will be around people who share your values of hard work and keeping the straight and narrow. The problem is, those places are rare, and if they are gentrified, they will not exist at all. If that happens, then blackness will only exist among the poor and uneducated, which would be, in my opinion, a shame. Because those kids will only see ballplayers and rappers as role models because they cannot accept "white acting" black people as role models no matter how rich they are. And meanwhile, the upper middle class kids will be another generation apart, who are not comfortable in their own skin.
Like I said, I don't if this is good or bad. But I do know that its not born of racism against white people. It's just that black culture is really important to black people, rich and poor, and they want to preserve it, and they want their children to hold their heads high, do well in life, and embrace their own culture. I hope this sheds a little light into black culture for those of you that consider their desire to preserve their neighborhood demographics racism.
I want them to have the advantages I had, but I also want them to have blackness in their lives. That's why places like View Park, Baldwin Hills and Prince Georges County, MD are so valued by the black middle and upper class. I would like my kids to grow up somewhere like that so that they can have the blackness that is so important to us, but will still get a good education, and will be around people who share your values of hard work and keeping the straight and narrow. The problem is, those places are rare, and if they are gentrified, they will not exist at all. If that happens, then blackness will only exist among the poor and uneducated, which would be, in my opinion, a shame. Because those kids will only see ballplayers and rappers as role models because they cannot accept "white acting" black people as role models no matter how rich they are. And meanwhile, the upper middle class kids will be another generation apart, who are not comfortable in their own skin.
100% agreed and I couldn't have said it better. It's not about racism. It's about connecting and preserving our culture and our ideas to help us grow as a people. Here in DC, I would have no problem living in Fairfax or Montgomery County, but I prefer PG County for many of the reasons you named.
Uh, black people where possible, are the most likely group to live in diverse communities. Don't be so quick to breathe a sigh of relief in thinking, "Ah, they're racist too".
If you read the article beyond the headline, you'd understand that affluent white folks will raise the house value of homes, tempting black home owners to sell out. The black folks are there originally because the house prices dropped when black people started to move in and white folks left.
What that leads to is homes that black folks are less able to purchase as the house prices rocket and the remaining black residents are likely to be 'forced out', as has happened in too many other places in the US. 'Forced out' as in not being made to feel welcome in their neighbourhood, not, not feeling at home because people with a different skin color moved next door.
Lets get this crystal clear; black people don't move out because an area became diverse. Wanting something to be true, doesn't mean you have to twist a story you either didn't read or just don't understand.
That's because blacks are on average poor. They live in diverse communities because they have to and cannot, most of the time, afford to live anywhere else.
As it is, I don't really think many whites will rue the day they are not allowed to live in a black community.
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