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![]() ![]() Section 4: President & Congress Subject: Woke Worcester Library Msg# 1128128
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There are always exceptions to general patterns. Yes, some people of color are drug dealers. Yes more whites consume drugs than other people groups.
Exceptions does not mean that systemic racism, institutional racism does not exist. |
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For reference, the above message is a reply to a message where: Steve = I would love to agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong. When we were young my wife and I both worked and over the course of a few years managed to save of enough money to put down on a house. Many of the people I worked with (black & white) did the same. We put about 15K down on a dumpy little house in Parkville, and continued to save. A few years later our neighborhood began to deteriorate, and we were able to upgrade to s lightly nicer neighborhood in Perry Hall. (By the way, our mortgage was approved before we even met the lender's rep, so they had no idea of our race, merely our ability to afford the loan). We put down about 25 K and had a mortgage of slightly over $1000/month. It was a quiet little neighborhood, mostly young first-time home owners (many black). A few years later Baltimore City (we were in the County) initiated a program called "Move to Opportunity". Three inner city black families were placed in our neighborhood. One was two doors down from me, one directly across the street and the third around the corner on another street. I had to come up with 25K and pay $1000/month, but for the exact same house these "Move to Opportunity" beneficiaries needed NO down payment and were paying between $250 and $300/month. That's the kind of "white privilege" I didn't need. We never heard much from the people around the corner, but the people two doors down invited the police to their home at least once per week, various domestic disturbances. The folks across the street dealt drugs from their home, all sorts of cars and nefarious visitors at all hours of the night. There were TWO murders on our street not long after the city transplants arrived. One made national headlines. Perhaps you remember the infamous Samurai Sword Murder. The other was a 17 year old boy shot dead in MY FRONT YARD, a dispute over drug territory. Trash began appearing all over the place, graffiti as well. The original neighbors began to move out and property values went down. The drug dealers were eventually busted and replaced with another move to opportunity. Don't know how that worked out because we moved out as well. Every once in a while when we visit Baltimore we drive through that old neighborhood. What was once a clean and vibrant neighborhood can only be described today as a slum. These people were give an opportunity to get out of their terrible city neighborhood. But instead of making the most of that opportunity instead chose to bring their old neighborhood culture with them. It is not race, it is culture and class. Our neighborhood had many blacks and other minorities in it. They had a nice middle class culture too,. And they too, for the most part, moved out. I had the "privilege" of paying 4 times as much for my house, plus paying the taxes to pay for their house. Are you really trying to say that these people were treated unfairly ? Mark |