Originally Posted by Virginia1
My perspective is a little different and I have seen it both ways. I am white and grew up as teenager in the 70's in a predominatly black town with a black stepfather in an all black neighborhood, attended a high school that was 80% black in the South. The two black neighborhoods I lived in were middle class black families whose parents were, postal workers, teachers, govt. workers, military, etc. I had to walk about 1 mile each day to the Junior High school, through a low income black neighborhood. (some said it was dangerous). The first few days I walked on my own with no reservations, (we moved from Germany on a military base, so ignorance was bliss as far as my awareness of what I was doing). After befriending the neighborhood kids, the ones that were going to the same school told me to wait for them and they would walk with me everyday to school......they knew, like I said, ignorance was bliss. My first concert was Parliment Funkadelic and Bootsy Collins after that. So I have been influenced by my friends taste in music and I have turned on my kids to the old school funk. I am 46 now and to this day I can go back to those neighborhoods and visit the parents of my friends and they welcome me with open arms and talk about old times. I guess to get to the point, Mr. 248, I don't know Southfield but I imagine the neighborhood I grew up in is similiar. I never, ever had a problem because I was white, in fact it was the neigborhood next to ours (all black also, Moses Malones neighborhood) that was the issue with our neighborhood, the hoodlums came over and usually caused problems, even large scale fights erupted at times. In fact I was told to go home when the fights did happen because my black friends knew I would get the brunt of it due to me sticking out like a sore thumb. My first wife was black and we caught more crap from black men then anyone else, all verbal nothing physical. So, all being said I have a little different perspective about all this and it has affected me in some ways. (by the way I am thinking of moving to Michigan, if job interview goes well). For instance to keep my options open I am looking at real estate down here in Virginia, I really like this rehabbed condo, but it sits in about a 4 block radius of low income African American folks, now I have gone through there at night, checked it out and I am still hestitant about buying it, because folks hanging on the corner late at night and them staring at me as I drive around the corner. To get back to 248, if the area was middle class black, I would have no problem buying it, and I would not call it the ghetto or ever refer it to that, simliar if it was hoodish white folks living there I would think the same about not buying and living there. Conclusion based on my experience it's......socio economic. Folks with careers and commons sense, some sort of self worth, folks who want a better life for there children, etc. can live together in harmony, I'll turn you on to some Rolling Stones and you can turn me on to a little Tupac. So Mr 248 I am sorry that you feel your upstanding neighborhood is being labeled and "lumped" in with being a ghetto because of the color of the neighborhood. Just wondering about Oprah, Colin Powell, Condaleeza Rice, Justice Thomas, Denzel, Micheal Jordan, Tiger Woods, Barack Obama, Sean Combs, Spike Lee, Jesse Jackson if they all lived in the same neighborhood, what would the perception be of that neighborhood. Socio economic. I miss the old neighborhood, I wasn't white, and they weren't black, we were the neighborhood kids, being raised by parents who kicked us in our butts if we didn't bring home the good grades, as Jamie Foxx stated, his grandmother told him......act like you got some sense boy, you got a brain use it.
|
Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with 370,000 other registered members. User profiles and some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your free account you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 13,000 posts/day about local topics and you will see fewer ads. Within the last few months our forum was cited in an article in 15 newspaper and in a story on AOL's homepage.
04-06-2008, 12:07 AM
If you move to Michigan beware there is seperatism that is very prevalent. I also believe Michigan will never prosper until this issue is addressed and put to rest. If you want diversity, unfortunately you will not find it here. Few and far between.
Linear Mode
