Gentrify or die? Inside a university's controversial plan for Baltimore

[Segun]

JManc, don't argue with that idiot. Some people excel at playing dumb. Some people let that evolve into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let them wallow in their stupidity.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Segun

Black American families inherit years of generational poverty and institutional racism. We're conditioned to believe that the system not only doesn't work, it actively works against you. There's enough evidence to support that thesis also.

In slavery, families were forced apart so they couldn't form a unit and revolt, or they were forced apart for reasons of gaining capital (strong Black Men were treated like workhorses and Women like vessels for producing babies). That tradition of de-masculinization of Men, that tradition of misogyny, objectifying and de-sexualization of Women continued well after slavery. Throw in mass incarceration, drug abuse, crime, racial violence and you have a situation of hopelessness and disenfranchisement.

The very low rate of intact African-American families and of African-American children living in a household that includes their father is a thing that has happened not back to slavery but to the 1960s. In the 1950s and earlier, a much higher rate of African-American families were intact and of African-American mothers were married or at least living with their childrens' father. The situation we have now is as much a result of their own view that African-Americans shouldn't allow themselves to be restricted by white middle class values as it is of slavery.

[Segun]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

The situation we have now is as much a result of their own view that African-Americans shouldn't allow themselves to be restricted by white middle class values as it is of slavery.

No it isn't.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by JManc

I think the issue was that drug dealer or not, the guy was killed in police custody. Reducing him to a drug dealer does dehumanize him and trivializes that incident. He might have been a POS but he shouldn't have died for it.

Agreed. But now what of the consequences of the response in the city of Baltimore to that episode?

Baltimore Residents Blame Record-High Murder Rate On Lower Police Presence
December 31, 20172:31 AM ET
Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
LAUREN FRAYER

For the third year in a row, Baltimore, Md., has had more than 300 murders, reaching a new record of murders per number of residents in 2017.

Some residents attribute the high murder rate to relaxed police patrols in the city following high-profile cases of police brutality. Officers have backed off in neighborhoods, like the one where Freddie Gray was arrested . . . .

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/31/57482...olice-presence

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Segun

No it isn't.

You have your opinion, many people have a different one including me. It'll have to rest that way.

ARCHIVES | 1983

BREAKUP OF BLACK FAMILY IMPERILS GAINS OF DECADES
By JUDITH CUMMINGS

At the height of the civil rights movement in 1965, when a quarter of black families with children were headed by women, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote in a report to President Johnson that this growing matriarchy was an important cause of poverty among black Americans. Mr. Moynihan, then a White House aide, created a furor, accused by many of blaming the victims for their distress.

Today, 18 years later, virtually half of black families are headed by single women, and 55 percent of black babies are born to unmarried mothers.

Gun-shy from the Moynihan experience, authorities for years were reluctant to speak out about the problem. But now, politicians and scholars - black and white, liberal and conservative - openly agree that the situation has reached such proportions that it threatens to undo the black economic gains of the past three decades . . . .

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/20/u...f-decades.html

Slavery ended 100 years before 1965. But the point here is that since the "Civil Rights Movement" and the empowering of black Americans to toss off mainstream values, things have gotten worse sociologically even while improving legally and governmentally.

[Segun]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

You have your opinion, many people have a different one including me. It'll have to rest that way.

Your opinion means less because its coming from the standpoint of someone not living it.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Segun

Your opinion means less because its coming from the standpoint of someone not living it.

Sorry, no. "Living it" can actually blind people to the truth.

[Segun]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Sorry, no. "Living it" can actually blind people to the truth.

"Can" actually. "Can." Not living it means you're not even able to see the truth, because the truth doesn't register in your mind. All a blind man has to do is open his eyes. What's your excuse?

Apology accepted.

[Segun]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Agreed. But now what of the consequences of the response in the city of Baltimore to that episode?


https://www.npr.org/2017/12/31/57482...olice-presence

If you agree, there is no "but what", you simply agree. If one is concerned about the welfare of people who are victims of crime, one would begin a conversation on how to fix it, not simply post an article about murder rates.

[Segun]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

yeah, that kind of editorializing is bullshit.

i'll clear that out.

please don't physically assault anyone.

I channel aggression through my writing, rapping and speaking, so you don't have to worry about that. Hopefully my anger is understandable. Put it this way, I could very well have been related to Freddie Gray. Put yourself in those shoes, if that was your cousin who fell on hard times and might have lost his way a bit, and you see someone dismiss his death in such a cavalier way as if he was subhuman, no longer worthy of fair treatment, a heroin dealer.

I would never do that to even the nastiest racist. I respect the dead and their families.

[cannedairspray]

Originally Posted by Segun

JManc, don't argue with that idiot. Some people excel at playing dumb. Some people let that evolve into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let them wallow in their stupidity.

This is deliciously ironic. Do you do anything on this forum other than whine about people you think are racist?

[Segun]

I think a better, more long-term, sustainable option would be if John Hopkins invested in mental health facilities and job creation programs.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Segun

^ Forcing the poor out will only force the poor to go to more extreme methods to not be poor, such as traveling to rich neighborhoods to rob, steal and or kill. I'm also describing the World as it is.

Not all poor people turn to crime. A quick trip to a third world country would prove my point. Those are just excuses.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Segun

My stepfather is African, so I was married into a Ghanian family. African and Afro-Carribean immigrants are more likely to start businesses because they've immigrated with the intent of doing so. While there's no comparison to the poverty one can find in Ghana to nearly anywhere in the US, the mentality is different. For one, starting your own business is a much easier process. There's almost no bureaucratic tape to go through. If there is, it's often time simple as bribing someone a small fee. If you want to sell something on the street, you just go out on the street and sell it. The average mentality about business is different. You're raised knowing that the system works, albeit corrupt, slow and incompetent at times.

Furthermore, the family structure is much more intact.

Black American families inherit years of generational poverty and institutional racism. We're conditioned to believe that the system not only doesn't work, it actively works against you. There's enough evidence to support that thesis also.

In slavery, families were forced apart so they couldn't form a unit and revolt, or they were forced apart for reasons of gaining capital (strong Black Men were treated like workhorses and Women like vessels for producing babies). That tradition of de-masculinization of Men, that tradition of misogyny, objectifying and de-sexualization of Women continued well after slavery. Throw in mass incarceration, drug abuse, crime, racial violence and you have a situation of hopelessness and disenfranchisement.

My stepfather genuinely believed that all White people were friendly and had his best interest in mind until the first time something racist happened to him.

Slavery has exactly ZERO to do with the fact that over 75% of black kids are born to single mothers. Don't believe me? Look at the single parenthood numbers for black Americans in 1960.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Segun

Your opinion means less because its coming from the standpoint of someone not living it.

No. And he made a mistake to put the word opinion in his statement. The *fact* is 3/4 black kids had a father in the home as late as 1960. The *fact* is that is more like 1/4 now.

[Segun]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Not all poor people turn to crime. A quick trip to a third world country would prove my point. Those are just excuses.

I lived in Ghana with my family. I also visited the favelas of Rio. I also know that Nigeria is next door to Ghana, yet is more dangerous than Ghana for complex reasons. Most criminals won't give excuses, just rationale. I know many convicts and ex-cons, some of them in my family. If anything, they're extra hard on themselves. If you took the time to understand, instead of reading statistics and anecdotes, you'd know better.

"Slavery has exactly ZERO to do with the fact that over 75% of black kids are born to single mothers. Don't believe me? Look at the single parenthood numbers for black Americans in 1960."

"No. And he made a mistake to put the word opinion in his statement. The *fact* is 3/4 black kids had a father in the home as late as 1960. The *fact* is that is more like 1/4 now."

Slavery has a lot to do with it if you understand how the big picture works.

You don't.

As far as those statistics, I agree!!! Post 1960 was the rise of the drug war and mass incarceration and the culture of law and order, as I mentioned earlier but you failed to read:

"Throw in mass incarceration, drug abuse, crime, racial violence and you have a situation of hopelessness and disenfranchisement."

Your statistics confirm the truth in that our government's law and order policies were created to affect poor Black and Latino communities. I totally agree with you Jtown Man!

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Segun

Your statistics confirm the truth in that our government's law and order policies were created to affect poor Black and Latino communities. I totally agree with you Jtown Man!

It wasn't the government's "law and order policies" that made men impregnate women and then walk off to do it again or made women let them do it. And it wasn't slavery either because before the mid 1960s African-American women didn't let that happen like they do today and the men didn't try.

I guess while you were off in Ghana or Rio or somewhere, I was in Baltimore and elsewhere observing this depressing situation develop.

[tablemtn]

i'm trying to wrap my head around the point of your post.

are you saying that because parts of baltimore have a fairly severe violent crime problem that no investments should be made there to try and improve the situation?

It's more of a cynical observation that redevelopment schemes (sometimes on a grand scale) have been implemented MANY times before in Baltimore, over and over again, and yet - thanks to factors like feckless and incompetent civic leadership - the city as a whole seems unable to benefit from these projects. And in certain measures like murder rate, the city is worse in recent years than it has ever been. Hopkins is a longstanding institution with a large endowment fund, and it can spruce up a corner of the city here or there, but unfortunately, that involves fighting against the overall long-term trajectory of the city. I wish them well, but I don't expect much.

Forcing the poor out will only force the poor to go to more extreme methods to not be poor, such as traveling to rich neighborhoods to rob, steal and or kill.

That's a common fear, but in practice, it doesn't seem to happen outside of Latin America and South Africa specifically. It doesn't even happen in much poorer per capita places like India/Bangladesh, where actual slums often abut much fancier areas. In a country like the US, many suburban homes already have camera/surveillance systems, many homeowners are armed and are more than happy to shoot intruders (legally, too), and police services have lower caseloads and can respond more quickly and effectively to serious crimes.

There was a case from suburban Birmingham, Alabama last year (I think) in which a robbery crew hit a suburb and murdered an Iraq war veteran who happened to stumble upon them early in the morning. The local authorities "went nuclear," as it were, and used it as an opportunity to take down the entire gang, and not just the shooter and his direct accomplices. And thanks to doorbell and other surveillance cameras, there was a rich pool of evidence for investigators to use. In other words, criminals who try this strategy tend not to last as long as those who stick to their home areas.

Post 1960 was the rise of the drug war and mass incarceration

Incarceration rates didn't rise sharply until the 1980's, and were in large part a response to the crime explosion of the 60's and 70's, as indicated in the chart under this map:



From the late-50's until the 80's, the US was actually in a "criminal justice reform" phase, which culminated in the Supreme Court abolishing the death penalty for a time in the early-70's. The perceived failures of this era led directly to the policies of the 80's and 90's.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by tablemtn

It's more of a cynical observation that redevelopment schemes (sometimes on a grand scale) have been implemented MANY times before in Baltimore, over and over again, and yet - thanks to factors like feckless and incompetent civic leadership - the city as a whole seems unable to benefit from these projects. And in certain measures like murder rate, is worse in recent years than it has ever been. Hopkins is a longstanding institution with a large endowment fund, and it can spruce up a corner of the city here or there, but unfortunately, that involves fighting against the overall long-term trajectory of the city. I wish them well, but I don't expect much.

so, everyone with the potential means to help the situation should just throw in the towel and walk away? there's no use in even trying to improve things? just let the city rot until it's reclaimed by mother nature?

that's a dumb strategy.

[Segun]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

It wasn't the government's "law and order policies" that made men impregnate women and then walk off to do it again or made women let them do it.

So what was it? I want numbers.

And it wasn't slavery either because before the mid 1960s African-American women didn't let that happen like they do today and the men didn't try.

Where's your statistical proof of this?