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I concur AAs were not the only ones having problems, also not all Blacks were slaves. In some parts of the south they were free blacks and some even owned slaves Black and White. Some Whites were even slaves and served an entire lifetime of indentured servitude. Hell some Blacks even fought for the Confederacy. IF you read Howard Zinn in one his passages after the reconstruction era a white land owner in Texas stated he rather hire a negro instead of an heathen Catholic from Ireland. Look at Leo Frank case were both Blacks and Whites conspired and framed a Brooklyn Jewish busisness man of raping a 13 year old girl.
The OP has a 1 sided view of the issue. I'm black and I don't feel one ounce of a connection to the story. I don't walk around carrying the burdens of the black race on my back. IF they cannot afford to live there, that's on them ont me. Nor will I have pitty on them.
I actually plan on moving to NYC in 2012-13...this story will not change my views and opinions of NYC and my anticipated move.
It's not the fault of NYC if some folks cann't afford to live there.
Many people cannot afford to buy a Rolls Royce, we accept that and move on. We don't protest RR and DEMAND that they lower the proces "for all".
Until you can afford a RR buy a Honda and keep it moving. No one makes a big deal about the expensive price of the cars.
But when blacks are being "Ran out" due to high cost of living...........STOP THE PRESSES!!!
Blacks can treat eachother like total 3rd class citizens at times. Blacks are wrecking havoc on their own schools and neighborhoods. You're complaning because someone does not "make blacks feel welcome".
LMAO!
You sound just like the guy that used to post on Black Voices........his style and name is like yours.....same old whinny stuff about blacks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by anon1
To give you all a perfect reason why I say a good number of black folks feel unwelcomed here is Canarcie... Look at the crime statistics of Canarcie and tell me it was better in the 80s and 90s than it is today... However, anyone who knows anything about Canarcie nowadays who isn't black tells you how that neighborhood has gone to the dumps even though overall crime is at an all-time low over there... Explain that to me cause I don't get it...
The OP has a 1 sided view of the issue. I'm black and I don't feel one ounce of a connection to the story. I don't walk around carrying the burdens of the black race on my back. IF they cannot afford to live there, that's on them ont me. Nor will I have pitty on them.
I actually plan on moving to NYC in 2012-13...this story will not change my views and opinions of NYC and my anticipated move.
It's not the fault of NYC if some folks cann't afford to live there.
Many people cannot afford to buy a Rolls Royce, we accept that and move on. We don't protest RR and DEMAND that they lower the proces "for all".
Until you can afford a RR buy a Honda and keep it moving. No one makes a big deal about the expensive price of the cars.
But when blacks are being "Ran out" due to high cost of living...........STOP THE PRESSES!!!
I agree, the city is not only expensive to blacks but to other people aswell of other races and classes, unless everyone wants to hustle like a Dominicans and Jamaicans, this aint pirates of the Caribbean, or hustle like a Arab, Chinese and Indians still do like if its the silk roads Afghanistan 1296 AD. I wonder howlong Transplants will give in and give up when they realize NYC its not worth it anymore and not worth the sacrifice? I too plan on moving aswell. Im a 1st generation American, as I look back on my parents, there parents and ther parents also come from different parts of the world. I too will someday leave NYC and settle and start life somewhere else, its what we humans do. Transplants are doing it why cant us Natives do the same, but we New Yorkers have been moving out and settling across the U.S for quite sometime.
I have a somewhat different take. I think MORE people should "vote with their feet". I think this a good thing. I may very well do the same and vote with my feet and move to a lower tax state.
I haven't read the full article yet but I did listen to an excerpt on the daily podcast this AM.
I don't know whether the full article touches upon this, but the 2010 census data shows a very large migration of AAs from many large, northern cities to the south and west, NYC just happens to be one, though I've seen statistics that show that NYC has lost the largest number of it's AA residents (though percentage-wise, I believe we're still below other cities like Detroit).
I am sure that there are personal, political and social issues that impact their decision, but when you see an across-the-board migratory pattern like this, I don't know if you can really point to anything that might be unique to any one city as the "main" cause of this pattern. I think it boils down to simple economics and the COL, and the quality of life that one can afford to buy.
In the end, NYC *isn't* for everybody, and if you're looking for a large home, cheap goods at Target and Wal-mart, and fewer urban complications, then it's definitely *not* for you. And you can knock the "hipsters" and "transplants" all you want, and perhaps some of them have very superficial or materialistic reasons for wanting to come to NYC, but in the end, some of them will stay and help to keep this city what it is and always has been. We may have a Target and a Costco and Starbucks everywhere, but that's not *all* that we are, nor are we defined by those things, as many places are nowadays.
And perhaps we're overlooking the fact that maybe the reason so many people are leaving NYC and other cities in the northern part of the country is because the rest of the country, particularly the southeast, has become more like us in the last century -- more open, more inclusive, more diverse -- and isn't that a good thing?
You make it sound as though the demographic makeup of a given neighborhood is etched in stone and must not be allowed to change. Do you know anything about the history of Bushwick? Founded by the Dutch, then dominated successively by English, Germans and Italians--for a good 300 years before blacks and Hispanics moved in.
I myself was born in Brownsville. Does it sound strange to you to think of that part of Brooklyn as a solidly Jewish district? Because it used to be! Harlem was originally Dutch, and later there were also Italian and Jewish sections. Now, for the first time since the beginning of the 20th century, there are whites moving there...again. Have you got a problem with that, too?
The word is change. It's the story of every neighborhood in the city. OK, you may not like who's moving in (or the reasons why). But to suggest that someone should flick some kind of magic switch and prevent any future change from happening...that's utterly ridiculous.
Thank you! Someone talking sense for once on this forum. I wasn't going to comment on this at all because it's pointless, but I just wanted to thank you for this thoughtful post.
The OP has a 1 sided view of the issue. I'm black and I don't feel one ounce of a connection to the story. I don't walk around carrying the burdens of the black race on my back. IF they cannot afford to live there, that's on them ont me. Nor will I have pitty on them.
I actually plan on moving to NYC in 2012-13...this story will not change my views and opinions of NYC and my anticipated move.
It's not the fault of NYC if some folks cann't afford to live there.
Many people cannot afford to buy a Rolls Royce, we accept that and move on. We don't protest RR and DEMAND that they lower the proces "for all".
Until you can afford a RR buy a Honda and keep it moving. No one makes a big deal about the expensive price of the cars.
But when blacks are being "Ran out" due to high cost of living...........STOP THE PRESSES!!!
What a ridiculous comparison! You're comparing acquiring a super expensive car to living in the same city, the same neighborhood you and your family have lived your whole lives. I.e., we're not talking about blacks wanting to move to a super exclusive rich enclave of the Hamptons, we're talking about people trying to stay in the place that they've called home for their entire lives. There is a not very subtle difference.
Some of the people posting on here continue to miss my point... Yes I used the word unwelcome and maybe that was a poor choice of words but my point was that there isn't equal ground in terms of who is accepted to come into this city and who isn't...
We know that this isn't for everyone and this mass exodus of born and raised black americans in NYC isn't uncommon as it is happening throughout the north... however, we are focusing on this city and why is it that this city has had the largest number of Black folks in the country leave for other areas... It isn't simply a need for change or the natural progression of things... from what we can gather from this article along with others that discuss both effects of gentrification, there is more to this issue other than people being overly sensitive...
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nycjap
And perhaps we're overlooking the fact that maybe the reason so many people are leaving NYC and other cities in the northern part of the country is because the rest of the country, particularly the southeast, has become more like us in the last century -- more open, more inclusive, more diverse -- and isn't that a good thing?
That's the point this article is really trying to impart and I think some people are missing here.
More than anything else, there was a time not too long ago where the only place you could live as a black person and not have to worry about being lynched and forced to live a second class life (really, less than second class life) was New York City and few other places in the Northeast and Midwest.
This isn't just some sort of pie in the sky notion either. Black people in most places in the South as late as the 1970s literally lived in fear 24/7 and did not enjoy their full rights as citizens. If you wanted to go get a bite to eat you had to enter the restaurant in the back or in an alley way (that is if you were even allowed to enter that restaurant), if you rode a trolley or bus you were made to get up and give the good seats to a white person even if you were an elderly woman, no matter how much education you had you would never be hired for a white collar job, you could not live in certain neighborhoods and would be told straight to your face your couldn't, and forget about having voting rights.
Even though New York and other cities had racism and sotto voce segregation, the experience PALED in comparison to what it was like to live in the South for a person of color. Thus, throughout the 20th century, black folks poured out of the South and headed North. Their mantra was it was better to be annoyed by racism rather than actually having to fear for their life.
The thing is that, thanks in part to people like MLK and thousands of other heroes, Segregation was killed a long long LONG ago. In it's aftermath, the entire structure was torn down and the South was rebuilt (most especially in the big cities) under a new social structure that completely rejected the past. In Georgia specifically, this is the era when Jimmy Carter rose to prominence on an anti-Segregationist platform where he declared it dead forever in Georgia and immediately began to integrate the State government (the heroism of White allies to the Civil Rights movement in the South is far too often overlooked). Now does that mean there is no racism in the South or that there aren't situations where the old hate is still there, no. However the situation in most of the South is night and day compared to what it once was.
From that a situation was created in places like Atlanta and Charlotte and dozens of cities small and large that destroyed the conditions under which it was nearly impossible for any one of color to live under there. At the same time, large corporations began moving into the South and created millions of jobs just at the time when the manufacturing industry began to fall in the Northeast and Midwest. Black people (as well as everyone else) started doing the math: They saw their jobs leaving for overseas, new ones opening up down South, and on top of it all cheap housing with all the amenities that would have broken their bank in NYC or elsewhere.
There was also something else at play. In the North, cities that did not have de jure Segregation felt as if there was nothing they needed to change in a post Civil Rights era. For example, some people citied the discrimation felt by black people from the NYPD (if you doubt that is real, ask Sean Bell what he thinks) or how if a person of color moves in to a majority white neighborhood (or vice versa) they will encounter open hostility from their neighbors and what were they told? They were "complaining". Here's a newsflash, that sort of thing is not normal and that is why black people are up and leaving in large droves (along with the economic reason).
They are sick of having to feel like they are "complaining" about what are actually valid complaints about where they live. That fact is compounded even more when they come to places like Atlanta where they see black people not only living wherever they want but also in huge middle class AND upper middle class/weathly majority black neighborhoods that extend far beyond the city limits. That is something that is very rare to find in the suburban areas outside of any city in the North. No matter what some might think, black folks have that big suburban American dream too (not me) and guess where they can find it more easily.
I really, really hope though that New York City can find a way to reverse the trend though. It would be a damn shame for it to lose it's Black culture because, despite it's short comings, it was the place where most of modern Black culture was formed. It was the mecca for black people for a very long time and without it my mother's parents would have never been able to provide her with the life that lead her to be in a position to create me. It is an important city in black culture, music, academia, and philosophy but if we aren't careful its going to be nothing more than just a memory in a few short decades.
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