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This post is so presumptuous, irrational, and riddled with contradictions that it doesn't even warrant an in depth response. Thank you for proving my original point.
There you go -- that's quite all right. In any case, your in-depth response would fall on deaf ears, as I have no respect for your thoughts on this topic or expertise in this area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by james777
I am interested in knowing, how does one lose a house to blockbusting in Edmondson Village?
I didn't mean "lose" literally. What we experienced was more or less conventional blockbusting, where about two-thirds of the value of the house disappears quickly in response to the deliberate injection of crime into the neighborhood.
Quote:
Originally Posted by westsideboy
I can't give you any more rep points, so I have to do it the old fashion way. You've got chops. +1
Thank you! And thanks also to the others who have repped my contributions to this thread.
Last edited by Hamish Forbes; 06-29-2014 at 04:58 AM..
The ability to change ones life comes from within. When you look at the African-American culture and how they are viewed through media, a lot of the role models representing that ethnic background are thugs, gangster rappers, hating the police, referring to women has hoes, jacking things, guns and violence mostly.
When you think about it who do they actually have to look up to?
Inner city problems, gentrification, priced out of their own neighborhoods to make room for the yuppie liberal mindset which in my opinion democratic progressive liberals are more of a threat to the United States then any black person could ever think about being.
Every race has both good and bad people. Hitler and the Southern Plantation Owner we're both white in color, the one forced free labor through murder, rape, abuse, and the other tried to eliminate a whole race of Jewish people through genocide.
There you go -- that's quite all right. In any case, your in-depth response would fall on deaf ears, as I have no respect for your thoughts on this topic or expertise in this area.
Well, at least you're honest about your anti-intellectualism.
Well, at least you're honest about your anti-intellectualism.
Think so? Let's just put it this way: I must be really good at concealing my anti-intellectualism, because if you go into any major university library or patent office in the developed world you will find numerous instances of my work that somehow survived the review process. I wonder if you can say the same in honesty about yourself, my intellectual friend.
Here's something else I will offer you, in parting: I have observed that excessive intellectualism is quite a mixed bag, and often comes between the intellectual and the good life (in the meaning of Aristotle).
I didn't mean "lose" literally. What we experienced was more or less conventional blockbusting, where about two-thirds of the value of the house disappears quickly in response to the deliberate injection of crime into the neighborhood.
TRANSLATION:
The neighborhood used to be white and christian or had express clauses in its homeowner association rules and/ or local zoning laws indicate no blacks or Jews are allowed within a certain neighborhood/certain blocks. Someone slacked up/went asleep at the wheel and let a/some Jews move in (or a real estate agent previously blockbusts using a Jewish family to do so; in this case the neighborhood becomes all Jewish, and another group, usually blacks are used to blockbust the neighborhood a second time). Then, some white real estate agent decided they wanted to make some real money quickly and "tempted" a middle class black person (who probably got a "deal" on an illegal mortgage that never allows the build up of equity and/or has a ridiculous interest rate--black tax) to move in to an available home. All of the neighboring white people put their homes up for sale within a week or if they're really foolish a several months. They sell their homes at a loss and buy a home in a "new" whites only neighborhood elsewhere from the same real estate agent or another real estate agent from which the initial real estate agent receives kickbacks. The neighborhood is quickly populated by other middle class blacks, and property values remain depressed and decrease over time because it is now a black neighborhood. Some homes remain vacant, and because they don't sell quickly, become rental properties or long term vacants. Those middle class black homeowners then leave when the neighborhood becomes majority renter and majority poor, and when lessors stop giving a crap about their properties and more focused on their own greed and ability to get away with maintenance. (Renters and poor people come to the neighborhood because housing is now cheap there, which further depresses property values. Many urban poor are non-white. Some poor people resort to "soft" criminal activity when they are not able to take care of basic needs in conventional, legal means. Poor areas begin to lose city services like trash pick up, police, enforcement of basic zoning and municipal ordinances because of institutional racism and because the neighborhood residents do not generate tax revenue and no one in positions of power, e.g., no one who is not poor, cares about the area. The area then becomes a haven for harder criminals, too, because harder criminals know they're "safe" in the neighborhood.) And that's how the "good, hard working, tax paying" white people in the neighborhood like Hamish Forbes lost their homes to "crime" aka "blacks" (or more earnestly and honestly their greedy neighbor). This is known as blockbusting.
Short version: majority group realtors use the fears of the majority group residents within a neighborhood to make quick riches in an unethical and illegal manner which changes the demographics in the neighborhood in a way that (when supported by institutional racism, lack of social power, and lack of tax dollars) will eventually destroy the neighborhood. History of many US urban neighborhoods, including Baltimore, in a nutshell.
Crime was not deliberately injected into anything, but greed and racism were.
Think so? Let's just put it this way: I must be really good at concealing my anti-intellectualism, because if you go into any major university library or patent office in the developed world you will find numerous instances of my work that somehow survived the review process. I wonder if you can say the same in honesty about yourself, my intellectual friend.
The peer review process is far from foolproof. In any case, this comment reveals precisely what is wrong with your posts: your constant use of logical fallacies. Your personal experiences and credentials are irrelevant to this discussion and my view of this forum. My evaluation of your intellectualism is based on what you've written here, not how many articles you've published in academic journals about who knows what.
In fact, you denigrate academia and the intellectual life by dragging your publication history into this discussion. I find it extremely hard to believe that a serious scholar in the humanities or social sciences would recommend a book that wouldn't pass muster at any reputable university or survive even the least rigorous review process. Not that I need a reading list about Baltimore or any other city from you. I've read numerous works about the city by actual residents, past and present, from Fredrick Douglass to H.L. Mencken to E. Franklin Frazier to David Simon. Anyone seriously interested in objective, rigorous accounts of urban history in working-class American cities should read works by serious writers like Thomas Sugrue, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Kenneth Jackson, Adolph Reed, Beryl Satter, and Jane Jacobs or experienced and serious journalists like Isabel Wilkerson and David Simon -- you know, intellectuals who spend years conducting interviews and doing research in various archives. They set the standard for intellectual analysis of urban issues. They don't just cherry-pick articles from newspapers. Your recommendation is an insult to the intelligence of serious scholars everywhere.
Of course, I'm not surprised that you take such disingenuous work seriously. After all, you've been completely disingenuous throughout this exchange. You claim I "know nothing about Baltimore" and suggest that my experience with the city is limited to the newspaper and YouTube. Yet you know damn well that this probably isn't the case because you quote a post from me in which I clearly state that I have in fact been to Baltimore. Apart from this you have no way of assessing my knowledge of the city whatsoever. Yet you say I "know nothing." And I'm the one who is overconfident? Moreover, this comment comes immediately after you tell me that I should learn more about Baltimore by reading a series of newspaper articles. Um, ok.
But my experience with Baltimore is truly irrelevant. Forget about the fact that I've been there multiple times, read numerous books about the city, have close friends who live there, and have family in the metropolitan area. None of this matters -- not because the only people who truly know anything about the city are those who grew up there or have years of firsthand experience with it, as you suggest with your chauvinistic diatribe. If this were the case we wouldn't need urban studies scholars, historians, or political scientists at all. I mean, why listen to anyone who does not "have any ancestors buried there?" No, it doesn't matter because it's purely anecdotal, and anecdotal evidence is unreliable. Arguments based on anecdotal evidence are not valid. That is why I'm not interested in your personal experiences with Baltimore or playing your little authenticity game.
Perhaps this is hard for you to grasp, but not everyone shares your feelings about Baltimore. This is not simply because they "know nothing" about the city or what it's like to live in struggling neighborhoods. There are many cities in this country and elsewhere that have bigger problems, and yet people still love them or consider them viable and worth fighting for. Those people aren't ignorant. They just happen to have a different worldview. I spent much of my youth in a very poor city, which is partly why I find your caveats about Baltimore's bad areas incredibly presumptuous (another reason is because the first book I read about Baltimore was David Simon's Homicide, which does not play down the city's crime problem). You are not the only person here who has watched a city or neighborhood deteriorate. It is arrogant and presumptuous of you to think I have no experience with these things.
But, as I said, the argument about my personal experience is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with my original post, which was not about Baltimore as a city. That post was about this forum, which is filled with mean-spirited, hateful, uninformed, biased commentary about a racial group. People like you do not come here to inform others about the city and how to construct decent lives there or to discuss in good faith what's wrong with Baltimore and how to fix it. You come here to vent because you have an axe to grind. For example:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish Forbes
The Black population that migrated to Baltimore from the South -- the unemployable dregs of the Southern Black community of the time -- was essentially a third-world population with third-world ability, skill, and approach to life. The culture that they planted in Baltimore -- which you now see in full flower -- is despicable, dysfunctional, violent, tribal, superstitious, willfully ignorant, and self-defeating.
And:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish Forbes
The problems mentioned here result from a mutation of Black culture...
And so on. This is hardly a nuanced, historical portrayal of Baltimore's problems. I certainly expect more from an academic. And just because other people on this forum agree with this weak, spiteful, shoddy analysis and rep you for providing it, doesn't mean it's accurate. Heck, even Baltimore historian Kenneth Durr offers a more complex narrative. Of course, I don't agree with it, but I know it is well-researched and largely intellectually honest. I can't say the same about your posts
Quote:
Here's something else I will offer you, in parting: I have observed that excessive intellectualism is quite a mixed bag, and often comes between the intellectual and the good life (in the meaning of Aristotle).
Our society does not suffer from "excessive intellectualism." And neither does this forum. I would argue that there isn't enough intellectualism in either one. You've certainly helped me realize that.
Last edited by Devout Urbanist; 06-29-2014 at 01:16 PM..
TRANSLATION:
The neighborhood used to be white and christian or had express clauses in its homeowner association rules and/ or local zoning laws indicate no blacks or Jews are allowed within a certain neighborhood/certain blocks. Someone slacked up/went asleep at the wheel and let a/some Jews move in (or a real estate agent previously blockbusts using a Jewish family to do so; in this case the neighborhood becomes all Jewish, and another group, usually blacks are used to blockbust the neighborhood a second time). Then, some white real estate agent decided they wanted to make some real money quickly and "tempted" a middle class black person (who probably got a "deal" on an illegal mortgage that never allows the build up of equity and/or has a ridiculous interest rate--black tax) to move in to an available home. All of the neighboring white people put their homes up for sale within a week or if they're really foolish a several months. They sell their homes at a loss and buy a home in a "new" whites only neighborhood elsewhere from the same real estate agent or another real estate agent from which the initial real estate agent receives kickbacks. The neighborhood is quickly populated by other middle class blacks, and property values remain depressed and decrease over time because it is now a black neighborhood. Some homes remain vacant, and because they don't sell quickly, become rental properties or long term vacants. Those middle class black homeowners then leave when the neighborhood becomes majority renter and majority poor, and when lessors stop giving a crap about their properties and more focused on their own greed and ability to get away with maintenance. (Renters and poor people come to the neighborhood because housing is now cheap there, which further depresses property values. Many urban poor are non-white. Some poor people resort to "soft" criminal activity when they are not able to take care of basic needs in conventional, legal means. Poor areas begin to lose city services like trash pick up, police, enforcement of basic zoning and municipal ordinances because of institutional racism and because the neighborhood residents do not generate tax revenue and no one in positions of power, e.g., no one who is not poor, cares about the area. The area then becomes a haven for harder criminals, too, because harder criminals know they're "safe" in the neighborhood.) And that's how the "good, hard working, tax paying" white people in the neighborhood like Hamish Forbes lost their homes to "crime" aka "blacks" (or more earnestly and honestly their greedy neighbor). This is known as blockbusting.
Short version: majority group realtors use the fears of the majority group residents within a neighborhood to make quick riches in an unethical and illegal manner which changes the demographics in the neighborhood in a way that (when supported by institutional racism, lack of social power, and lack of tax dollars) will eventually destroy the neighborhood. History of many US urban neighborhoods, including Baltimore, in a nutshell.
Crime was not deliberately injected into anything, but greed and racism were.
I wish I could give you a 100 reputation points for this. Great analysis.
My goodness . . . such contributions from people barely old enough to rent cars in their own names. By the way, I am not an academic -- if you knew any useful logic you would realize that "academic," "intellectual," and "peer-reviewed researcher" are not the same sets. My professional work was in one of the mathematical sciences, as was my PhD, as have been my publications. You might have picked up on this from my mention of patents, as social scientists and other such lightweights are hardly ever involved with patents. By the way, you are using some of my contributions under the hood as you read this on the internet (you're welcome! -- I wonder what you have contributed to civilization beyond blustering umbrage). I mentioned this only in response to your rather odd comment concerning my status as an intellectual, which status I am not altogether sure I wish to claim in any case. But I do agree with you that our culture does not suffer from excessive intellectualism. My point was that you do.
The only other point I choose to address right now is the role of Jews in blockbusting. This is simply disingenuous baloney, contrived to carry an argument otherwise full of holes, and propagated by one particular author who posts here frequently. Jews had no role in the changeover of Edmondson village except as being some of the principals behind the blockbusting operations. In many cases, Jews were directly responsible for discrimination against other Jews. Their role in blockbusting is greatly exaggerated in any case, as virtually nobody was afraid of having Jewish neighbors -- social pathology did not follow them as it inevitably followed and continues to follow Blacks (in many cases, the arrival of a Jewish neighbor improved the neighborhood, and was quite welcome). The arrival of social pathology was the key element driving the flight away from Blacks in Baltimore, and you can see its continued manifestation today. Do you think that their culture leads to a good life -- to eudaemonia?
But all that notwithstanding, continue to wallow in your vicarious fantasy about Baltimore, and -- for any of you who actually live in Baltimore, should there be any such posting here -- enjoy what your city has become, to the best of your ability.
Their role in blockbusting is greatly exaggerated in any case, as virtually nobody was afraid of having Jewish neighbors -- social pathology did not follow them as it inevitably followed and continues to follow Blacks (in many cases, the arrival of a Jewish neighbor improved the neighborhood, and was quite welcome). The arrival of social pathology was the key element driving the flight away from Blacks in Baltimore, and you can see its continued manifestation today.
Lies. Nothing but lies. "Social pathology"-- whatever that means these days -- is a product of economic conditions and does not follow any particular "race." The "key element driving flight away from Blacks in Baltimore" and other cities was anti-black racism. The first blacks to integrate most predominantly white neighborhoods in the North were upper-class (doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, etc.) as these were the only people who could afford to pay the inflated prices that real estate agents demanded of black home buyers looking to break into middle-class neighborhoods. Many were often better off and more cultured than their white neighbors, just as many of the blacks who moved to northern cities from the South had more skills and manufacturing experience than a lot of white migrants who nonetheless received preferential treatment in hiring. These well-to-do, law-abiding blacks who moved into white neighborhoods frequently encountered angry white mobs. Their homes were vandalized. People burned crosses on their lawns, threw bricks through their windows. They were physically attacked. Not because they were criminals or irresponsible neighbors or exhibited signs of "social pathology" but because they were black. When these brave men and women refused to move their white neighbors fled instead, allowing greedy real estate agents to prey on blacks desperate to leave the overcrowded, substandard slums they had been forced into thanks to government housing policies. That is what happened in most cases.
There are many integrated and predominantly black neighborhoods today, from Mitchellville, Maryland to Mt. Airy in Philadelphia to Ladera Heights in California that exhibit far less "social pathology" than many predominantly white neighborhoods. Thus, your claim that "social pathology inevitably followed" blacks is preposterous.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish Forbes
Do you think that their culture leads to a good life -- to eudaemonia?
This is a truly ridiculous statement. Yet another logical fallacy. "Black people in Baltimore," or anywhere else for that matter, are not a monolith. They do not have a single collective identity. They are, first and foremost, individuals. You are simply imposing a racial and cultural identity onto them.
What you have said about blockbusting is exactly wrong. I was there; you were not.
We did not leave Edmondson Village because of someone's skin color; rather, we left specifically because of the cousin who died at the hands of black teenage thugs in his own home and because of the new next-door neighbor who killed her husband by cutting his throat with a kitchen knife. Almost overnight, the police and ambulance drivers gained first-hand knowledge of streets they had barely heard of before.
After leaving Edmondson Village, we remained within the city limits for a while, only to see the same process repeat in the area around Memorial Stadium (whoops, I forgot -- you've never lived in Baltimore, and have barely visited, so I guess you'll need to research the location of old Memorial). The final straw for many whites was the great outbreak of Black-ignited arson in April, 1968 (Were you living in Baltimore then? Do you know about the community response? Do you know the political consequences at the National level? Were you even born then?).
More importantly, adherence to your theory is exactly what continues to suffocate the Black inner-city community -- you need to get over the idea of white racism and move on to the idea of cleaning up Black behavior (I refer here to the specific strain of Black culture so painfully evident in Baltimore). This is what people like Bill Cosby and Arthur Ash tried to say for years (I suppose that they were racists, too).
"Papa was a rollin' stone, wherever he laid is hat was his home; and when he died, all he left us was alone." To understand the idea of social pathology, look at the statistics by race for the commission of crime, the birth of illegitimate children, the birth of low-IQ children to drug-besotted mothers, involvement in the drug trade, the prevalence of single-parent and no-parent homes, and levels of educational achievement. "Folks say papa wasn't much on thinkin', spent most of his time chasin' women and drinkin'."
You can bluster and blather all you want, but the aforementioned statistics speak loudly for themselves -- inner-city Black Baltimore culture is in a death spiral. Change can come only from within. Would-be blame shifters -- people like you -- are the biggest impediment to ever improving the lot of inner-city Black Baltimoreans. A good first step would be for successful Blacks to begin to preach what they practice. I was hopeful that the election of President Obama would begin this process, but so far no such luck. By the way -- fwiw -- I voted for President Obama twice (once per election ), so evidently his skin color didn't bother me too much . . .
Last edited by Hamish Forbes; 06-30-2014 at 10:10 AM..
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), so evidently his skin color didn't bother me too much . . .
