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I believe he is from New York City (as a businessman) but I would have to double check that. He made his comments in Madison, Wisconsin and apparently he's suggesting the new Bucks arena entertainment complex would help the inner-city of Milwaukee.
I'm sure some jobs would be made available for non-skilled inner city blacks (whom I think he is referring to). But I'm not entirely ignorant of economics. Milwaukee like many other post-industrial cities has seen a rise in service jobs. These jobs tend to be a lot lower paying than the former booming manufacturing jobs which gave many blacks in Milwaukee middle-class incomes, homes, and lifestyle.
But I guess by his comments he's never been to Chicago or Atlanta and is unaware the town he is speaking (Madison, Wisconsin) in has been ranked in one study as number 9 out of the top 10 least diverse cities in the United States.
Furthermore, he fails to point out Milwaukee is run by Democrats. The US as a whole is run by the two party dictatorship and consequently some cities are run by Democrats while other are run by Republicans. So, by his own indirect admission he personally has never experienced a city run by Republicans as racist, segregated, and as utterly antiquated as that of Democrat and liberal run Milwaukee.
If by the way he is concerned about the unofficial policy of stop and frisk put in place by this current Chief of Police in Milwaukee, I would inform him that the dude appears to have gotten the idea from New York City. But then New Yorker's are like that Jesus passage in the Bible where he talks about those with beans in their eyes only seeing the splinter in others eyes.
Current Democrats running Milwaukee will likely agree (failing to think critically) with this buffoon. And then go back to doing the same thing they've always done but expecting different results. Reminds me of the white politician that rose to high levels of Canadian national government all the while believing that aliens are walking around on earth, abducting humans, and holding galactic conventions complaining about earthlings committing environmental destruction. But in Milwaukee or New York it would be hard for me to get a job picking up trash. But some how plenty of ignorant white men can rise to lead large private or governmental organizations.
I would challenge this guy's assertion about Milwaukee being so radically "antiquated." Sure, Milwaukee is not Toronto or London or Berlin but for a midsized city recovering from mass manufacturing loss it's not so socially and creatively dead as he seems to suggest. Especially when you consider it against most the cities of the world in comparable population size--and most cities happen to be in developing nations. I've more than once gone to the roof top party down town with live music, DJ's, and laser light shows beamed on the wall. Full bar on the roof top too. On top of the Milwaukee Atheletic Club. Or does every person in a city have to sky dive out of a plane onto a roof top party for the city to to qualify as "not being antiquated"?
Chicago deserves its reputation as a segregated city. But it is also an extremely diverse city. And the difference between those terms — which are often misused and misunderstood — says a lot about how millions of American city dwellers live. It is all too common to live in a city with a wide variety of ethnic and racial groups — including Chicago, New York, and Baltimore — and yet remain isolated from those groups in a racially homogenous neighborhood.
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The contrast to Chicago is a city like Lincoln, Nebraska. By one statistical measure of racial segregation called the index of dissimilarity, Lincoln counts as being highly racially integrated — it’s more integrated than New York, according to this statistic! But what does that integration look like? Here’s Cable’s map again:
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To be clear, New York and Chicago are still more diverse than cities like Lincoln, even at the neighborhood level. But as the numbers show, they are segregated because they underachieve their potential to have racially diverse neighborhoods.
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The integration-segregation index is determined by how far above or below a city is from the regression line. Cities below the line are especially segregated. Chicago, which has a -19 score, is the most segregated city in the country. It’s followed by Atlanta, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Washington and Baltimore.
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So while Chicago really is something of an extraordinary case, Baltimore isn’t an outlier, exactly. Most cities east of the Rocky Mountains with substantial black populations are quite segregated. There’s not a lot to distinguish Baltimore from Cleveland, Memphis, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Philadelphia or St. Louis.
The County of Milwaukee is hyper-segregated. Easily visible too. Unlike the county for which the City of Atlanta is in. But the City of Milwaukee is not "hyper-segregated" and is pretty much like any other city in the United States. Milwaukee is more "antiquated" like New York City in its racial segregation than either of the two are like the prosperous and enlightened Charlotte, North Carolina.
You know, if the Buck's president wasn't such a typical New York blowhard who can't go anywhere without it being inferior to New York, I'd have read the article more seriously. Most New Yorkers who would dare live in Milwaukee are too good to do anything but sit home and console themselves about the loss of Saturday Evening Post culture and the ability to get a corned beef at 3:45am (not that they ever would do such a thing, but they COULD HAVE in New York and don't you forget it).
New York has its own issues, I might point out, and the only reason he's comparing Milwaukee to Chicago, is because that comparison works in his favor by making Milwaukee look inferior simply because it's smaller and lacks the population to EVER have all of the things Chicago has. And I also might point out that outside of a few islands of "diversity" and culture that are a by-product of its massive population, Chicago is not much different than Milwaukee.
To be fair, though, Milwaukee has its own issues. The city's government needs to take an honest look in the mirror to see the problem.
He seems to complain but pose no resolutions. A real blowhard.
Building a stadium and promising $12hr+ is great and all, but offering an employment advantage to inner-city kids based on the color of their skin can only be understood to be the very definition of racism.
Well, he did say that Milwaukee is "the most segregated, racist place [he's] ever experienced in [his] life," so his opinion admittedly draws from a narrow pool of places and is not meant to be scientifically totalizing with regard to all places in the States. I conjecture he was referring to the metro area as a whole, though perhaps he only referred to the city itself; I dunno. In my own personal experience, the tiny town I lived in down south for a couple of years would be the most racist and segregated place, but I don't have access to Madison's Rotary Club. But yeah, there are plenty of other places with similar or worse problems, but I doubt that Feigin ever lived in East St. Louis, Trenton, and many other troubled places.
You think after the state of Wisconsin and the city and county of Milwaukee gave the Bucks $400 million to build the new arena he would have been a bit more grateful and complimentary towards Milwaukee. He was completely out of line, especially after the state and city went to bat for the Bucks to get this arena thing finished.
The Bucks aren't in business to remind us of our problems, that's not their job. They should sell the community and give back when possible. He was out of line and I hope he moves on to somewhere else. He can go back to New York, a community as segregated as Milwaukee. Maybe Peter should read the New York Magazine article a few months back concerning blacks in New York. The article went into great detail how white residents in Brooklyn will not live in apartment buildings with black residents, so the owners buy out the black residents one at a time starting at $8,000 per unit up to $40,000 in quickly gentrifying areas. A very interesting and insightful article. I don't remember stop and frisk in Milwaukee either.
Last edited by Allan Trafton; 09-27-2016 at 04:38 PM..
He wasn't comparing and contrasting Chicago to Milwaukee. That was my doing to an extent. There are a lot more professional blacks in Chicago than in Milwaukee. But Chicago is a "world city," meaning it draws in tourists and investments from all over the world, and it has an economic and cultural impact internationally as far as cities can do so. Milwaukee is parochial by comparison and virtually unknown overseas. Of course, there are some tiny towns in Italy that know of Milwaukee do to many Italians and Sicilians in the early 1900s coming from those towns to Milwaukee. So, they have relatives in Milwaukee. Likewise, a small number of Germans might know of Milwaukee for obvious ethnic reasons due to the past. But circa 2016 most people on earth have no idea Milwaukee even exists. Unlike Chicago.
But I was pointing out Chicago has racially segregated neighborhoods itself.
If you go back to the early 1900's then Milwaukee was a city almost entirely made up of white "ethnic" immigrants. Almost the whole city. If memory serves me correct either pretty much on par or possibly even exceeding New York City in its percentage make up of immigrants. But back then ethnic neighborhoods were actually glamorized, and even into the 1980's. Like cities speaking highly of their "China Town," something Milwaukee never had. Today apparently ethnic and racial neighborhoods are bad and only totally "diverse" neighborhoods are good. But this also fails to appreciate the long history of white ethnic divides in Northern cities of the US--like Milwaukee's former Polish South Side.
A neighbor of mine is from New York City but moved to Wisconsin because of her husband. She told me she visited Madison but was drawn to Milwaukee instead because the ethnic and racial neighborhoods of Milwaukee reminded her more of New York City.
No doubt New York is more vibrant and capitalist than Milwaukee when it comes to the financial sectors, entertainment sectors, and well... not closing everything down virtually by 9 PM. You can in part than the Democrat Norquist for part of that (at least with making it illegal to sale alcohol past 9 PM) and his socially conservative attitudes (like making whole areas of kids pay a price of a kid gets shot on a playground by ordering the basketball courts on that playground be taken down).
I'm no Democrat. And truth be told I'm too liberal to be a conservative Milwaukee Democrat. You left it up to me their would be a Red Light District re-opened again in Milwaukee. The Casino would be given green light to expand to the size of a multi-billion dollar Las Vegas style casino. The drug war would virtually cease, and a heavy hand would be used on the black teenage and adult violent criminals terrorizing their own city and the suburban mall of Mayfair too. I'd ask Karl Kopp to lead a group of his making in researching and figuring out how to prepare Milwaukee to produce (if possible) and mass distribute (sale) marijuana across the country when the time is ideal. And sale of alcohol in Milwaukee needs to be pushed back to at least 1 AM and allowed around the clock sale in the Red Light. District. Milwaukee's mayors need to court more foreign investors too.
I'm not the smartest dude and I'm not a businessman and I don't have all the answers. But one thing I do know is that for Democrats running the city to constantly complain how racially segregated, backwards, and poor it is but yet do the same things over and over expecting different results is idiotic.
You think after the state of Wisconsin and the city and county of Milwaukee gave the Bucks $400 million to build the new arena he would have been a bit more grateful and complimentary towards Milwaukee. He was completely out of line, especially after the state and city went to bat for the Bucks to get this arena thing finished.
The Bucks aren't in business to remind us of our problems, that's not their job. They should sell the community and give back when possible. He was out of line and I hope he moves on to somewhere else. He can go back to New York, a community as segregated as Milwaukee. Maybe Peter should read the New York Magazine article a few months back concerning blacks in New York. The article went into great detail how white residents in Brooklyn will not live in apartment buildings with black residents, so the owners buy out the black residents one a time starting at $8,000 per unit up to $40,000 in quickly gentrifying areas. A very interesting and insightful article. I don't remember stop and frisk in Milwaukee either.
Good post, Allan.
Maybe we should make you mayor.
That sounds like an interesting article to read. I think I might try to google it up.
Being totally honest the suburbs around Milwaukee are in varying degrees each, pretty racist towards Milwaukee. But within Milwaukee while a racial minority might experience some racism every blue moon, really racism from whites in the city (although, some cops are pretty racist) is not much of a problem if existing at all. The greater problem--in my view as an ethnic Black-American--are the internal social and family problems in the black community. Finding itself exhibited in young black kids ransacking small businesses and even stores in the large suburban Mayfair Mall. This makes it worse on black youth that aren't thuggish even if they are typical teenage goof balls like teenage white kids are usually too.
Institutional racism does exist still. But black people have to get off of this blaming white people for everything. The "white man" is not keeping you down when you're out there carjacking both black workers and white workers cars they paid hard earned money for.
The stop and frisk is an unofficial policy. Meaning it is not officially written down or admitted to but in practice on the streets of the near North Side it is pretty common place. I've seen it occur with my own eyes. I even had some white cop in a car slowing down and eyeing me as I walked down the street, apparently trying to figure out if I was suspicious enough in the black section of the Sherman Park neighborhood I was raised in since age 3 (and right across the street from my parents house this happened), to stop, question, and then frisk. He kept driving though. It get's tiresome being subject to police eyes for scrutiny, in an area you grew up and lived in, and they aren't even from there. But the Catch 22 is that the black thugs robbing blacks at gun point, robbing stores as well, the rapes, beating, shootings sparked this by the Police Chief. It's young black males (younger than 50) not bothering anyone that get caught in the war between the cops and the thugs.
He wasn't comparing and contrasting Chicago to Milwaukee.
I know. I wasn't attributing it to the Bucks' President. But it's a good comparison because the cities are an hour apart and people compare them for things that aren't comparable.
Karl Kopp is one of my favorite Milwaukee businessmen. I have been eating (and heavily drinking) at his restaurants AZ88 and Hanny's in Phoenix. AZ-88 since a long time ago, and Hanny's since it opened. Especially since Hanny's opened near my house and accessible from light rail.
Mr. Kopp's businesses are favorites of Milwaukeeans and Phoenicians alike.
Haven't seen Mr. Kopp on the regular PHX flight on Tuesday nights. There are a few of us longtime PHX regulars (some going on to San Luis Obispo with our dogs, hint hint) who used to fly out there. I still recognize people commuting from 11 or 12 years ago. Same people all that time. Can you believe it?
I read the article, thanks. But this portion of the article is interesting given in New York City supposedly it's all one big happy interracial family.
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If there’s a black tenant in the house—in every building we have, I put in white tenants. They want to know if black people are going to be living there. So sometimes we have ten apartments and everything is white, and then all of the sudden one tenant comes in with one black roommate, and they don’t like it. They see black people and get all riled up, they call me: “We’re not paying that much money to have black people live in the building.”
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