Why is Detroit About 80% African American? (Warren, Livonia: apartments, unemployment rate, public schools)

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by teejuris

That may be changing...I've seen more white people in Detroit within the past few months driving down "unlikely" residential streets (not including downtown Detroit where it appears that majority of the employees are white) than I have in ten (10) years! Someone schooled me that maybe a lot of suburbanites are losing their homes, and are therefore, forced to move back to the city where the cost of living is a lot cheaper. I don't know...Should we say, "Welcome Home"?!

I've been noticing that as well.

It's amazing how often I've driven by some blight of a neighborhood with pretty much no redeeming factor whatsoever...I'm talking about the NON-Mexicantown, non-Cork Town, non-hopeful communities...where it is just blight and abandonment and the generally few if any stores that are NOT boarded up...and suddenly see some white person walking down the street.

I haven't noticed any families in that situation though...seems to generally be solitary older (40s or 50s) white males.

No data to back that up, but observed it somewhat freakingly frequently in the most unlikely obscure places of the city. I guess you'd call them 'urban pioneers'

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by Tiger Beer

I've been noticing that as well.

It's amazing how often I've driven by some blight of a neighborhood with pretty much no redeeming factor whatsoever...I'm talking about the NON-Mexicantown, non-Cork Town, non-hopeful communities...where it is just blight and abandonment and the generally few if any stores that are NOT boarded up...and suddenly see some white person walking down the street.

I haven't noticed any families in that situation though...seems to generally be solitary older (40s or 50s) white males.

No data to back that up, but observed it somewhat freakingly frequently in the most unlikely obscure places of the city. I guess you'd call them 'urban pioneers'

I think this is occurring more and more in cities in general. I think gentrification has something to do with it and the economic situation as well.

[snappysandy]

Originally Posted by SolidSnake85

I'm just curious. Why is there very little race diversity and about 10% of Detroit is White/Caucasian? Is it really cheap? I know a lot of cars are built in Detroit and I think would any other races besides Black or White would be unwelcomed and treated very badly? I saw on some of the threads that a lot of people there are racist. Sounds like it! What's the main reason why there are SO many African Americans in Detroit?

Yes, Detroit is black, but it’s not because of racism, it’s because when the industry moved out, the whites moved north, following the corporations that located in the northern areas of Detroit, like Southfield, then Troy and Sterling Heights. The blacks chose to stay, many because they didn’t have the money to move, or already had a job and stayed to keep it, maybe to only to lose it later. New industry came to town, like the Casinos, but not enough jobs with it. But racism, I don’t agree. Just because Detroit is mostly black doesn’t mean it’s because of racism. It’s because they chose to stay when most others left.

[detroitlove]

Ok old thread but its so much ignorance on here that I couldn't read past the 3rd page smh. Let me give you some reasons why Detroit is mostly black

1. Back in the day Detroit had a high black population already, like someone else mentioned. The white flight began before the riot. Most black people were FORCED to stay in certain areas most in Black Bottom which was the poorer section. Don't think that when I say forced I mean they just weren't welcomed in white neighborhoods, which a lot were middle and upper class unless they were Polish or Irish and sometimes equally as poor as blacks (a lot stayed in Brightmoor) but they actually put in deeds that you could not sell your house to black people. Some deeds of older homes still say this which is shocking. But when blacks began to make more money and started moving into some all white neighborhoods whites moved without reason (white flight). They didn't neccessarily bring crime to those areas smh. After the riot they moved out more rapidly & so did all the businesses.

2. Now most white people stay on the southwest side then eastside and I believe the westside has the least whites (the whites on the westside fled more than any other side). For all the people swearing that if you're white people are automatically going to hate you that is not true. I live in what would be considered the "hood" (Osborn Comm) and there are quite a few white families or white parents/biracial kids families over here, some who have been here for years and they aren't treated any different. Matter of fact the family right in back of me is a white mother with biracial kids but her boyfriend is white and so is her brother who stays with them and I often see them outside talking to everybody. We have even stopped and talked to them plenty of times. A white family moved on the next block from me last summer and no one treats them different when they moved over here they introduced themselves and talked to everybody and everybody talked to them. It depends on how you approach people period. Its black ppl over here that act stuck up and no one talks to them.

3. Lastly those saying "blacks are welcomed in the burbs" must be blind and don't watch the news. In MANY suburbs blacks are treated just as bad as you all claims whites are being treated in the city and sometimes worst. no one in my neighborhood burned crosses on white people grass, put KKK signs on their doors, jumped on a white person just for moving over there etc but there was plenty of stuff like that in Warren, Shelby township, Dearborn etc. In warren a black woman, her white husband and their children were getting tourmented by the whites for just moving in smh and this was in 08 I believe. As far as people believing that all the crime happens in the city and non in the burbs?! whew thats a shame. crime definitely happens in the burbs as well as some suburban people coming to the city to do their dirt and going back to the burbs as if nothing happened.

[Huckleberry3911948]

Originally Posted by Paddington

Sounds like a liar from California. You think those progressive, liberal white people from California like living amongst minorities? Yeah right. California has more segregated neighborhoods than anywhere else in the country.

guilty as charged we use money to segregate rather than skin tone. if you have money you can escape ghettos, which is what every smart AA has always done.

[Brutally Honest]

Originally Posted by and the

Because it's the "Detroit" forum maybe?!?!!? Because I don't live in Appalachia, I live just outside of Detroit, after fleeing Detroit like my ancestors fled Appalachia. YOU'RE the one who is injecting race into this. I don't care if Detroit was full of European-Americans who had kids they couldn't afford, let their property decay and relied on the government for everything. I would have left just as sure as I did with an almost all African-American Detroit.

.....and another thing......The Detroit school system is not a failure because of a lack of money. It's a failure because it's required to "teach" a bunch of students whose parents who don't give a damn. I don't care what race they happen to be, it is what it is.

....and yet another thing. If you WANT to talk about an area of European-Americans who desire the life that I have but don't have it instead of Detroit, check out what's going on in Appalachia. Have you heard of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining? Do you know what happens when a holding tank of millions of gallons of coal sludge gives way, sending the coal through the valley where people live? The European-Americans in that area are exponentially more politically and economically disenfranchised than African-Americans in Detroit, but I bet you never even heard about it. The reason being, they have no political pull, no voice in politics like African Americans do in Detroit, and they live where coal is king. If Detroit suffered a similar industrial disaster, we'd be paying the people who were affected for new houses. Go to the KY, TN or WV forums ans ask about mountaintop removal coal mining.

So forgive me if I don't see Detroiters as somehow more handicapped than anyone else in the year 2009 because the city happens to be majority African-American. The race of people who don't take the initiative to improve their lot despite haveing the ability to do so is incidental to the fact that the reason the place is a pit is because so many people of the same philosophy and lack of values live in the same area. It's getting old, and it's getting more and more generational.

There will always be people of every race who don't give a damn about anything more than having enough to eat, smoke or inject and not freezing to death in the winter. When a bunch of them live in one place, you get a Detroit.

And one more thing. How come the armed forces recruiting centers in Detroit aren't overflowing with young people trying to join the armed forces if times are so economically bad? That was my choice out of high school. My parents certainly weren't going to have me laying around the house after high school whether the reason I didn't have a job was because I was lazy or because I was the hardest worker in the world but there were no jobs available.

Yeah, I have to agree. I've been to both Detroit and the Appalachians in WV and KY. Southern WV is, by far, is more of a "*****hole" than Detroit is. West Virginians have it much much harder than Detroit residents as it went from almost 3 Million people to 1.6 Million because everyone left because jobs disappeared...including Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez

[Davante]

What type of question is that? It's like that because it is! Why is Los Angeles populateed with mostly Hispanics, or why is Florida mostly populated with whites, and Hispanics. I tell you why. Us black people came North in what was known as the Great Migration. They moved to places like New York City, Chicago, and Detroit, among whom these were the major ones. Because of us having to endure such persecution, we came there to settle. I guess the white people can testify of that. Now I'm not racist, I truly am not, but you listen to the question that's being put forth, and then you ask me if that sound racist. Ok?

[zthatzmanz28]

Glad someone dares to tell kimosabee the truth...

Persecution is a terrible thing to waste on one race...

Back to the original topic--

EVERYONE else has moved out of Detroit

[ForStarters]

Originally Posted by SolidSnake85

What's the main reason why there are SO many African Americans in Detroit?

There are many answers to your question, all of which are reltated to Detroit's self-destructive history. But, why does it matter in 2010?

Most people have moved on; only a few sad people still cling to the prejudices that caused the drastic segregation in Detroit/Metro Detroit. Thankfully, those people are dying off or are actively shunned by the community.

[Maxine3]

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