Frank Rizzo Statue? (Philadelphia, Churchill: purchase, law school, university)

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by FKD19124

I dont think the city got more dangerous under him. The ones saying that were the pro criminal types that expected them to be handled with "kid gloves". As far as him being racist? thats still up for debate. Many a black people liked him even though they could never say that in public without getting lashed at by the left. He had their support back in 1991 when he was running again before he died.

"The plural of anecdote is not data," but that was the point of the tale I told of the woman who commuted to Penn with me on the Route 40 bus.

And she was no conservative, not by a long shot.

I still think both his worshippers and his detractors oversimplify him.

And to one other point about Rizzo and racial politics:

Consider for a minute, if you will, George Wallace.

He built his entire political career on staunch opposition to integration and racial equality, and his 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns sought to tap the similar sentiments many working-class whites above the Mason-Dixon Line harbored.

As you know, he almost lost his own life in that 1972 campaign, but he survived the assassination attempt.

Some 20-plus years after that, Wallace apologized to the black citizens of Alabama for his entire political career.

I know that for many, this sounds like shutting the barn door long after the horse has fled, but it shows that at some level, he knew that what he was doing was based not on some moral conviction but on political calculus. (If any of you saw TNT's masterful biopic on him that came out in the late 1980s, you would learn that he ran as a racial moderate in his first campaign for statewide office in Alabama but had his hat handed to him by his opponent, who out-demagogued him on race. He learned his lesson all too well.)

Who's to say that, had he lived into, say, the Nutter / Obama years, Rizzo might not have said something similar?

[kyb01]

There was something else that Rizzo did which was a plus. He was Lynn Abraham's mentor.

[mslhu]

Originally Posted by kyb01

There was something else that Rizzo did which was a plus. He was Lynn Abraham's mentor.

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. I surely hope it is.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by KevinE

Rizzo was a great mayor who kept the white neighborhoods safe. The statue should be relocated outside the city to a safer area.

Losing thousands of jobs and continued out-migration during his tenure didn't make him great. Those facts can't be disputed no matter what your personal views are.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by mslhu

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. I surely hope it is.

No, not at all. Abraham is a hero of mine. Has been for years.

[mslhu]

Originally Posted by kyb01

No, not at all. Abraham is a hero of mine. Has been for years.

Lol.

[BR Valentine]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

"The plural of anecdote is not data," but that was the point of the tale I told of the woman who commuted to Penn with me on the Route 40 bus.

And she was no conservative, not by a long shot.

I still think both his worshippers and his detractors oversimplify him.

And to one other point about Rizzo and racial politics:

Consider for a minute, if you will, George Wallace.

He built his entire political career on staunch opposition to integration and racial equality, and his 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns sought to tap the similar sentiments many working-class whites above the Mason-Dixon Line harbored.

As you know, he almost lost his own life in that 1972 campaign, but he survived the assassination attempt.

Some 20-plus years after that, Wallace apologized to the black citizens of Alabama for his entire political career.

I know that for many, this sounds like shutting the barn door long after the horse has fled, but it shows that at some level, he knew that what he was doing was based not on some moral conviction but on political calculus. (If any of you saw TNT's masterful biopic on him that came out in the late 1980s, you would learn that he ran as a racial moderate in his first campaign for statewide office in Alabama but had his hat handed to him by his opponent, who out-demagogued him on race. He learned his lesson all too well.)

Who's to say that, had he lived into, say, the Nutter / Obama years, Rizzo might not have said something similar?

Wallace knew that his embrace of racist politics was political calculus. Rizzo’s social and political framework never changed. Rizzo like so many people, especially in his generation, was oblivious to his racism.

We know that Rizzo believed that neither he nor his policies were racist. He explicitly campaigned on the message that he wasn’t a racist in 1983 against Goode. He tried to position himself as the candidate of unity. I think Rizzo was genuinely offended that people thought of him as a racist and in his mind legitimately wanted to set the record straight. While we’ll never know what might have transpired had he lived longer I’m not terribly confident that the man who was unable or unwilling to see the fundamentally racist foundation of his “law and order” policies, or any of the other racially biased policies her pursued, was going to have a change of heart.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by mslhu

Lol.

What's funny? She was a woman who was quite an achiever at a time when that was not so easy. Being slightly younger than her, she was a role model.

[Mr. Calendar]

Originally Posted by 2nd trick op

"I'm gonna make Attila the Hun look like a ******!" (Frank Rizzo, 1975)

Funny, how even from the grave, Frank's making Kenney look like one. (Though, in all fairness, that isn't too difficult)

[KoNgFooCj]

Frank Rizzo mural now too.