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I have what you could call "white trash" as neighbors. I was riding my bike last week when a black man was out with is 4 year old and his loose dog knocked me on my ass. So what. Am I going to blame him b/c he's black? Heck no. This racism isn't my fault just like slavery wasn't introduced by Americans but it keeps coming up by the "reverend" al sharpton and jessy jackson. Thhis is the twenty first century, get over it.
I was talking about how people see their homes at less than market value whenever ONE black family moves to the neighborhood. Yes, sometimes criminals get in, but I was talking about the initial response before the real low-lifers get there. When someone says "There goes the neighborhood" whenever a certain minority moves in , I say "It hasn't gone down yet. It will go down if you sell your house for less than what it's worth to someone who wouldn't appreciate it." That is what I'm talking about.
I want to live with people who take responsibility for themselves and their children. I want someone who doesn't make poor choices when the better choice is right there in front of them. I want to live with people who can see past tomorrow, can see past the cute guy wooing them into bed and then leaving them. I want to live with people to don't suck the system dry because of their poor choices and irresponsibility.
Is there any reason someone should be a high school dropout these days? We're not an agricultural society so much. No one in the city needs to help the family with the harvest. If you have to work in high school to help support your family, you can still get some hours in while still staying in school.
While there are certainly castastrophes that happen to people and there are people with personal issues who have a hard time in the world, I think many poor people of any race are in that position because of short sightedness and the need for instant gratification. "School is boring, I'd rather earn cash." "Man, that guy is hot. I'll let him do me." etc.
It will go down if you sell your house for less than what it's worth to someone who wouldn't appreciate it."
"Someone who wouldn't appreciate it?" Don't our local "investigative reporters" relish an expose where they can expose a house seller trying to be choosy about who they sell their house to? Not selling because you think the buyer "won't appreciate the house" is illegal. You sell your house to whomever comes up with the money. And if you can't sell it as fast as you need to, you lower the price until someone buys. If you don't like your neighbor doing that, buy the house yourself and sell it at your leisure to keep standards up. Personally, when I see the neighborhood slipping for WHATEVER reason, be it people selling at a lower house because they don't want to sit on the house for two years, or people selling to "people who won't appreciate the house", I MOVE. My house isn't a statement of my willingness to stand fast is the face to support the city. My house is a bricks and mortar investment. When my investment stops appreciating, I appreciate a new neighborhood.
The last few times my houses in Detroit were burlgarized, it was by white guys. I didn't stick around because the local B&E men were white. I left. Mostly black people moved in. God bless them if they want to live in that area. I don't.
I want to live with people who take responsibility for themselves and their children. I want someone who doesn't make poor choices when the better choice is right there in front of them. I want to live with people who can see past tomorrow, can see past the cute guy wooing them into bed and then leaving them. I want to live with people to don't suck the system dry because of their poor choices and irresponsibility.
Is there any reason someone should be a high school dropout these days? We're not an agricultural society so much. No one in the city needs to help the family with the harvest. If you have to work in high school to help support your family, you can still get some hours in while still staying in school.
While there are certainly castastrophes that happen to people and there are people with personal issues who have a hard time in the world, I think many poor people of any race are in that position because of short sightedness and the need for instant gratification. "School is boring, I'd rather earn cash." "Man, that guy is hot. I'll let him do me." etc.
Off topic here!! From your reply, this is what I have to say. I am talking about how crime gets into what would be normally nice neighborhoods. I'm not talking about instant gratification or any of those issues. I'm not denying those issues, but you are going off topic.
I've been reading so many posts and seeing so many white people voice opinions that would regularly be kept at the kitchen dinner table with their families in the confines of their own homes. However, because anyone can hide behind a screenname and speak their minds, it shows me how divided the city of Detroit is. I've been living in Southfield most of my life and I just cannot understand why so many WHITE, yes WHITE people feel threatened by the city? Is it so hard to believe that civilized middle to upperclassed BLACKS can live competently in an environment with whites as well without turning it into a "Ghetto?" And by the way, that term seems to just be a code for a predominantly black area, no matter the property values or upkeep. If rap music is heard playing loudly it is a "ghetto." If rock music is heard playing loudly, it is considered to root from the rebellious youth of white suburbia. I am not a racist, before someone calls me one. I went to private school all my life, and was surrounded at all times by more white than black. I'VE EVEN DATED A BEAUTIFUL WHITE WOMAN, however - it seems that no matter what black people do to prove themselves, white America still does not trust us.
[SIZE=3]TWO WANDS[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]By The Honorable Richard D. Lamm[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Let me offer you, metaphorically, two magic wands that have sweeping powers to change society. With one wand you could wipe out all racism and discrimination from the hearts and minds of white America. The other wand you could wave across the ghettoes and barrios of America and infuse the inhabitants with Japanese or Jewish values, respect for learning, and ambition. But, alas, you can’t wave both wands. Only one.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Which would you choose? I understand that many of us would love to wave both wands; no one can easily refuse the chance to erase racism and discrimination. But I suggest that the best wand for society and for those who live in the ghettoes and barrios would be the second wand.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]This metaphor is important in correctly diagnosing one of the most significant problems facing contemporary America: the large economic, education and employment gap between Black/Hispanic America and White/Asian America. The problems of crime, educational failure, drugs, gangs, teenage pregnancy, and unemployment that burden certain groups threaten our collective future. They form a nation-threatening social pathology that must be addressed in broader terms than we have done to date.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Most discussion of minority failure blames racism and discrimination. I’m an old civil rights lawyer and such racism and discrimination clearly still exists. But the problem, I fear, is deeper than the current dialogue. We need to honestly think about these problems with a new sophistication. One of these new areas is to recognize that increasingly scholars are saying “culture matters.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]I’m impressed, for instance, that minorities that have been discriminated against earn the highest family incomes in America. Japanese Americans, Jews, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans all out-earn white America by substantial margins and all have faced discrimination and racism. We put Japanese Americans in camps 60 years ago and confiscated much of their property. Yet today they out-earn all other demographic groups. Discrimination and racism are social cancers and can never be justified but it is enlightening that, for these groups, they were a hurdle, not a barrier to success.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]The Italians, the Irish, the people from the Balkans - America has viewed all these groups and many more with hostility and suspicion, yet all have integrated and succeeded. Hispanic organizations excuse their failure rates solely in terms of discrimination by white America and object vociferously when former Education Secretary Lauro Cavazos observes that Hispanic parents “don’t take enough interest in education.” But Cuban Americans have come to America and succeeded brilliantly. Do we discriminate against Hispanics from Mexico but not Hispanics from Cuba?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]I suggest that those groups whose culture and values stress delayed gratification, education, hard work, success and ambition are those groups that succeed in America - regardless of discrimination. I further suggest that, even if discrimination was removed, that other groups would still have massive problems until they developed the traits that lead to success. Asian and Jewish children do twice as much homework as Black and Hispanic students, and get twice as good grades. Why should we be surprised?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]A problem well defined is a problem half-solved. We must recognize that all the civil rights laws in the world are not going to solve the problem of minority failure. Ultimately Blacks and Hispanics are going to have to see that their solution is largely in their own hands. Lionel Sosa, one of America’s leading Hispanic businessmen, in his book The Americano Dream, titles his first chapter “Escaping the Cultural Shackles.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Daniel Patrick Moynihan has insightfully observed, “the central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Thus, morally, I would want badly to wave both wands; if I had to choose, I would wave the second wand. A Confucian or Jewish love of learning would gain minorities far more than any affirmative action laws we might pass.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Editors Note: Two Wands was originally printed in the Journal, Academic Questions. We would like to extend our sincerest thanks to Dr. Lamm for allowing us to reprint his article in the Irvine Review[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][SIZE=3]By Dr. Richard D.Lamm[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]I started teaching at the University of Denver in 1969 and, except for serving as Colorado’s Governor for 12 years, have been there continuously. I became a full tenured Professor in 1973.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Some time ago I submitted the attached article, “Two Wands,” to The Source, the University Newspaper run by our Vice Chancellor for Communications. The article was in response to a particularly offensive screed on “white racism” by one of our Affirmative Action officials. I felt it should not go unanswered.
The Source is run by the administration, separate from our student newspaper. To my amazement, the article was turned down as “too controversial.” I protested to no avail. So I confidentially went to our Provost to get the decision reversed, and was doubly shocked when he agreed with the Vice Chancellor that the article was “too controversial.” Next stop was the Chancellor of the University, who has been a friend for 25 years. Ever the diplomat, he said he did not think of it as “censorship” and also refused to reverse the decision. I argued at length about academic freedom and that controversy was what Universities were all about. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]I recounted that I had attended the University of Wisconsin when Joseph McCarthy was Senator and observed first hand courageous Academic Administrators standing up to the power of the U.S. Senate, time after time risking their careers to protect what is the most basic freedom on a University campus. I reminded him that I come out of the liberal wing of the Democrat Party and my first job out of law school was as a Civil Rights Attorney. Our family marched in Selma. Certainly this was a viewpoint deserved to be heard.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]I argued and argued: To no avail.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Is there a liberal orthodoxy at the University of Denver that threatens academic freedom? You be the judge.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Dr. Richard D.Lamm[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]The Honorable Richard D. Lamm is a Professor at the University of Denver, the Co-Director of the Institute for Public Policy Studies and the Executive Director of the Center for Public Policy & Contemporary Issues. Dr. Lamm served three terms as the Democratic Governor of Colorado from 1975-1987.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][/SIZE]
[/SIZE]
For the record I am a white woman and have worked and attended school and graduate school with some amazing african americans whom I still adore to this day. I also know some whites who I'd like to get as far away from as possible (our house is up for sale not, partly bc of some of the white trash people in our neighborhood, not the blacks). I do not care what race my neighbors are, I just want to feel safe and have neighbors who keep their yards looking nice and are not a bad influence on my daugher (grammer, mannerisms...). I don't want her speaking like certain backwards "hicks" just as much as I don't want to hear her speaking ebonics (sp?). Please take the time to read the link below.
BTW, I just googled Bill Cosby to find an article about this topic. There were many similar articles and I chose this one. I am not familiar with this magazine.
What racial mix would be OK for you? You don't want to live in an all black neighborhood, but you don't want to live in an all white neighborhood. You want something in between. You don't want ALL the white folks to leave but you want enough of them to leave to get some color into the neighborhood. Presumably, you don't want ALL the white folks to leave because then too many blacks would move in! Why do you have a problem living among black folks? And by the way, dating a white woman doesn't give you any anti-racist points. You can be as racist as the white guy who claims "some of my best friends are black..."
I'VE EVEN DATED A BEAUTIFUL WHITE WOMAN
Please defend yourselves.
Well, I'm white, and I've dated a beautiful black woman.
Do I win?
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I apologize for the length of this post-excellent article!!
