Why is Detroit About 80% African American? (Troy, Highland Park: moving, manufacturing, rail)

[ForStarters]

Originally Posted by Maxine3

Thankfully, those people are dying off or are actively shunned by the community.
Huh?

People who cling to the prejudices that left the region ultra-segregated are dying off (figuratively) and are shunned by the majority who do not share their racist beliefs. True story.

[Maxine3]

Originally Posted by ForStarters

People who cling to the prejudices that left the region ultra-segregated are dying off (figuratively) and are shunned by the majority who do not share their racist beliefs. True story.

That's what it is, just a story.

[ForStarters]

Originally Posted by Maxine3

That's what it is, just a story.

Wow. The race war is over. The segregationists lost a long time ago because their ideas are pure evil. I really hope you don't believe that racial segregation should be continued. If you do, then you likely fall into that rogue fraction of society dying off or being shunned.

[Maxine3]

"The race war is over."
How do you figure that?
Take a poll.

[Retroit]

I vote "yes".

[Tricia819]

Originally Posted by Frankawitz

Watch this video and you'll understand why Detroit is 80% black and 3% white and 17% other races


YouTube - Response to Obama, 7: Liberals and the fall of Detroit maybe then you'll see why the whites moved out toa school system where their kids would get the Education to make it in the World, why is it Detroit schools are so screwed up, Cause the Teachers only care about one thing, "A PAY CHECK"
Well now that Cheeks Kilpatrick is going back to Congress, Do you think anything will ever change for the better? It ain't gonna happen with these type of Elected Officals. Real Shady I would ask for a RECOUNT. Don't Trust anyone with the name Kilpatrick.

LOL...yeah cause the pay is so great. Sorry, as a teacher DPS is the LAST place I would apply for job.

[us66]

Of course the teachers care most about their paychecks. They're not going to teach for free. I don't think the Detroit schools are hopeless because of dilapidated buildings, low teacher salaries, or low spending per student, although it is amazing to see how many suburban trash bags say "Property of Detroit Public Schools" on them. I don't think any of these are the problem. Children used to learn in all sorts of deplorable conditions in one room schoolhouses. Abraham Lincoln did not graduate from Troy High and look at how well he did with his studies. If I remember his biography correctly, his family couldn't even afford paper. I think the real problem is what parents expect from a school and from their children. Parents who can barely be bothered to send their children to school, parents who can't bother to send them with a breakfast or a lunch (even when they get the food for free through food stamps), parents who use the school as a free babysitter, parents who aren't hopping mad that their children graduate nearly functionally illiterate. These are real problems. We could spend a billion dollars and build nice schools in the inner city and double teacher pay and I don't think we would get much of an appreciable result.

[Soosh22]

Originally Posted by BurtsBees

Another cry about racism, Indentured Servant? Blacks chose to live amongst themselves. Look at Africa, they've always lived in the lower class. Blacks who are in the middle and upper class chose to get an education and a good paying job like everyone else. Act normal, get treated normal.

BurtsBees: these 'facts' all sound like excuses for racism to me. Are you able to quote a study from which you got your information or to relate the personal experiences you've had that illustrate the above?

The thing you said that is particularly offensive to me personally (for the record, I'm boringly white) is "chose to get...a good paying job like everyone else." I would like to know why it is a reasonable statement to say that 'everyone' can get a good job. If that is true then why has the unemployment rate shot up into the stratosphere?

Also, what is 'normal'? I believe it is different for everyone. Since some people have such a narrow view of what it is, very few people fit into that category for them. For many narrow-minded individuals, only a white, heterosexual, able-bodied, Christian male is 'normal.' Based on your comments above, my thought is that you are one of those with a narrow view of what 'normal' is. Am I wrong?

[newport1885]

Its unfortunate that a lot of blacks still feel excluded from mainstream metro detroit. I never see a lot of residents go to the red wings, tigers game. Or working at higher positions downtown. Detroit will never prosper without the "REAL DETROIT" circulating big money in their city.

[313 TUxedo]

First and foremost, for about half a century (ca. 1925-75), African-Americans were drawn to Detroit (as well as St. Louis, Cleveland, and the industrial suburbs around Chicago) for good-paying jobs and a degree of social acceptance that, though far from equal or perfect, was far better that what they had in the "Jim Crow" South of the past (which is quite different from today's South!). A devastating flood in 1927 that displaced huge numbers of African-Americans from along the Mississippi River was also a major factor.

Of course, a population in development has less income than the landed gentry, so African-Americans clustered in older neighborhoods well inside Detroit.

As this population grew, its "footprint" within Detroit grew, as the wartime and postwar economic booms provided higher income, which saw both an increase in population and the spending power to buy into better neighborhoods further from downtown.

What was different about Detroit was that after about 1960, there was no "black side of town", so the population expanded in all directions, not just one side of town. Detroit did not annex any new territory after 1926 and its borders got set (contrast to Columbus, which used its water system as a prod to get new development to join the city, or sun belt cities, where "extraterritorial jurisdiction" laws made it easy to stop suburban development or unilaterally annex new land).

Right about 1965, a critical mass was achieved, whereas African-Americans would eventually gain majority and thus political power. The 1967 riot, Hon. Coleman Young and busing would only speed up the process, as well as an increase in crime (crime skyrocketed in the late 1960's among all races in the late 1960's and early 1970's- Detroit homicides increased fourfold between 1964 and 1974).

Gripes related to other comments on this thread:
I too often hear about Detroit's population going from about 1.8 million in 1950 to about .8 million today, and it is always cited as Detroit being abandoned since 1950. This is deceptive.
In 1950, Detroit's population had been growing fast for decades. It was America's boom town. As a result of this sudden growth, and because families tended to be large back then (before Enovid), the city was full of kids, black and white, so it was not common for a house to have six or seven entries on the 1950 census form. Ten years later, the older kids have likely moved out, and only four or five people may have lived in the same house. By 1970, semi-retired parents and no kids - only 2 people in the household.
Result: Detroit's population was destined to fall to about 1.25 million even in the best of economic and sociological circumstances. Only annexation and/or the taking of occupied private homes to be razed and replaced with dense apartments (both politically impossible) could have stopped this part of the population fall. In 1966, the truer measure of urban blight - abandoned dwellings - were few and far between. The number of households had not measurably decreased (since 1967, especially in the mid-1970s, the late 1980s and in this century, we have had true urban blight).
The same effect has reduced the population of many suburbs. The Grosse Pointes lost population between 1970 and 1990, though property values increased greatly and the Pointes were still very desirable in 1990. Same went for such suburbs as Warren and Livonia. We will see population falling in the outer suburbs in the near future, for the same reason.

Also, why are the teachers the only people to blame for the education problems in Detroit? Maybe there are some bad/lazy teachers (as there are doctors, police, salesmen, forum posters....), but just what kind of teacher can succeed with students who don't show up to school half the time? Who come to class high on weed? Who fall asleep in class because they were up all night? When their basic education is missing because mom is working two minimum-wage shifts and dad is not around? And do all this without textbooks?