How Do We Integrate The Poor Into Our Neighborhoods?

As someone who lives in a neighborhood going through gentrification I am often at odds with my belief that poor people need to be integrated into mixed income neighborhoods and the fact that many poor people trash the neighborhoods they live in. We must develop a method of removing poor people from the isolation of ghetto existence, while at the same time protecting the values of the properties we relocate them to. Unfortunately because of personal decisions, lifestyles, and circumstances many of our poorer citizens have lost either the desire or the ability to respect their environments. Many will say that this is due to our treatment of poor people and I would not disagree with this, but this does not help in creating situations that will allow them to escape the dangers of ghetto life.

Developers in some cities are trying to incorporate the same public housing tenants that once lived in the neighborhoods back into them after development through vouchers, subsidies, and grants. Sometimes when poverty is multi-generational many self defeating habits may be developed, habits which make it difficult to understand the responsibilities of ownership. I recommend that as part of the voucher and subsidy process we require recipients to attend seminars that detail the responsibilities of the members in an ownership society. No one is inherently born knowing how to be responsible, we learn these things from our parents and our environments. The reason many poor people are not more responsible is not because they are inherently lazy or trifling, but because no one has taught them any better.

The redevelopment of the Arthur Capper and Carrollsburg projects, where Ms. Jackson lived, is the first in the country to promise replacement of all low-income units within the same neighborhood, said Michael Kelly, director of the city Housing Authority.

“Mr. Kelly is undertaking a great experiment to see if he can turn around distressed neighborhoods and keep the original residents there to benefit,” said Sue Popkin, a housing expert at the Urban Institute. “It’s a gamble. We don’t know how to take a terrible neighborhood and make it nice while keeping the same people there.”[1]

In Washington DC, they are trying to integrate the former residents back into a neighborhood that has been redeveloped, they are also trying to do similar things in Atlanta. While this is a risky undertaking it is one that I think must be attempted and allowed to succeed. So many other cities provide the former residents with vouchers to leave their old neighborhoods. The problem with this approach is that only certain landlords will accept the vouchers, these are usually slumlords who want to fill up crappy residences. This only relocates the former residents into scattered pockets of poverty throughout the city, once again surrounding them with other poor residents and bad schools. It is a difficult situation trying to incorporate former residents into the newer developments.

I know in my city they have tried to renovate older apartments into more mixed income residences in lower income neighborhoods. The problem is that placing a mansion next to the projects does not improve the projects or the neighborhood. It is hard to get higher income people to move into a neighborhood with drug dealers on the corners and violence in the streets. We have to develop a method of improving the neighborhoods and renovating them while still being able to integrate the former residents. In DC, they have created committees comprising of residents, city officials, and developers in an effort to create ground rules for integrating the former residents back into the neighborhoods. I think it is important to allow the residents an opportunity to take part in the decision making, if given the opportunity I believe they do not want the blight, drug dealing, and violence in their neighborhoods either.

A committee of residents, officials and neighbors decided that any returnees with a serious criminal conviction within three years of the move-in date, and anyone with seriously bad credit, would be excluded. They will keep their current vouchers or public units, officials promise.[2]

Integrating these former residents will not be easy, but it is something as a society we must continue to do. If we do not then we are sentencing many of our fellow citizens to a life of hopelessness and strife. It is a thin line we walk trying to balance the opportunities of incorporating these former residents with the genuine concerns of the new residents for safety, property values, and peace. I know for me this is a challenge that though I struggle with it, it is one that I must undertake. We are all better off in my opinion when we are living, working, and learning in a diverse environment. Not only do we help those who are struggling, but we also help ourselves to be better.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/us/21housing.html
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/us/21housing.html

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Shaker Heights vs. America

In what has become an all too familiar scene for most of America, a man was attacked in his neighborhood by six youths and nearly beaten to death. What makes this case unusual to me is not that the victim was a white middle-aged man or that the accused are six black youths from an inner city. No, what makes this case unusual to me is the location of the case and the responses the case has received. First of all, is the fact that it made the New York Times; it is strange that they would do a story on a random mugging victim in another state. Secondly, is the fact that in an otherwise quiet neighborhood this case would receive the publicity it has gotten. I believe that there are forces at work here that are trying to reinforce the fear and segregation that plagues so much of the American landscape.

SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio — A week after six black teenagers nearly beat her husband to death, Marybeth McDermott looked out her big living room window at the neighborhood she loves, pursed her lips, then looked away.

She has found great friends here in the Ludlow neighborhood, one of the first places in suburban America where blacks and whites came together to live as neighbors. But for the first time in 19 years, Mrs. McDermott has thoughts of leaving.

For many outsiders, the attack on Mr. McDermott is seen as comeuppance for a community that seemed smug about its wealth, security and racial diversity.[1]

Shaker Heights is a suburb in Ohio just outside of Cleveland. The population here compared to most of America would be considered very diverse, it is 60% white and 34% black. Shaker Heights has embraced diversity and integration to the chagrin of many outside residents, who view the city as being a bunch of rich liberals who have no concept of the real world. The real world meaning that different races cannot co-exist together, I mean the nerve of these people thinking they can get away with such blasphemes. Rather than recognizing this for what it was, a random act of violence by some bad youths, the spin is to attack diversity by raising the issues of fear and safety.

Why is it that when something like this happens it is a harbinger of death and mayhem for all white people? Immediately there is a “rethinking” of living patterns and discussions of a black “crime wave” on the rise. Let’s face it folks we live in a violent society and every now and then it spills over to folks who are normally not at risk. For many this will be used as an excuse to reinforce previously held stereotypes and prejudices, but before contacting the realtor here are some statistics that might help to put this all in perspective.

Violent crime is not an equal-opportunity offender. Your chances of being attacked vary tremendously according to your age, race, sex and neighborhood. The risk of becoming a victim of a serious violent crime is nearly four times higher if you are 16 to 19 years old, for example, than 35 to 49; almost three times higher if you are black instead of white; two times if you are male, not female; and again double if you live in a city rather than in a suburb or in the country. Lump several of these risk factors together and the differences become enormous: For instance, the chances of a white woman 65 or older becoming a victim of serious violent crime are just one-seventieth the odds a black male teen faces. -- Your risk of being a victim does not increase as you make more money -- it actually declines. Although our poll shows that people with high incomes are about as afraid of crime as those who are less well off, your odds of being victimized are two to three times lower if you make $50,000 or more a year than if you earn less than $10,000. Ironically, the fact that crime rates are so low among the affluent may partly explain their outsized concern, according to Mark Cohen, a Vanderbilt University professor who specializes in the economics of crime. Says Cohen: "When you don't know what violence really looks like firsthand, you may have an exaggerated fear of it.[2]

For the city of Shaker Heights here is the latest statistic as compiled by the FBI.

The number of violent crimes recorded by the FBI in 2003 was 28. The number of murders and homicides was 0. The violent crime rate was 1 per 1,000 people.[3]

So, why does this story rate the NY Times? The reason is because it plays to the misguided fears of whites and their need to segregate themselves from blacks. The truth of the matter is that a divided country is easier to pillage for the wealthy, by promoting certain stereotypes and playing to certain fears groups who naturally have common interests are kept disconnected. If you are so busy worrying about the “black menace” then you won’t have time to notice the real crook at Enron. Instead of wondering why you have lost spending power, suffer from job insecurity, and have maxed out your credit just to maintain you are looking over your shoulder at the black folks. Today you have a better chance of losing your job or your pension than you have of losing your life to a black person. The folks at Enron stole more in two years than all the black criminals have stolen in your lifetime, yet the myths continue. The paranoia is encouraged and stoked by a steady diet of isolated news stories that are played up to be everyday occurrences.

The saddest part about this story is the responses of some other whites outside this community. In what is on the verge of spite many have spoken out against the diversity that characterizes this community, as if to say, “we told you so” or “you deserve it”. Many would have you believe that segregation promotes safety, the reality is it does not. By segregating ourselves what we do is confine many blacks to a life of inferior housing, which leads to an inferior education, which leads to inferior jobs, which leads to increased crime; all of which leads back to start the process all over again generation after generation.

For many outsiders, the attack on Mr. McDermott is seen as comeuppance for a community that seemed smug about its wealth, security and racial diversity.

“I wonder how much ‘tolerance’ the ‘progressive,’ snooty, pseudo-intellectual limousine liberal, socialists of Shaker Heights will show now that the thugs are in their neighborhood too,” a reader wrote on a Cleveland Plain Dealer blog.

Ludlow residents understand that for a place just seven blocks across, their little neighborhood carries tremendous symbolic weight.

“People in the Cleveland area resent us because we’re a repudiation of everything they believe,” said Brian Walker, 56, who was among the first African-Americans to attend Ludlow school. “We’re proof that white people and black people can live together.”

Rather than flee, Ludlow residents say they plan to stay and organize.[4]

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/us/17shaker.html
[2] http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/1994/06/01/88911/index.htm
[3] http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=17444
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/us/17shaker.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1200589498-PEqGW3oCenCDODiKPbe1jA

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Prove It

Whoever said being black was hard didn’t know the half of it. Everybody talks about the side of being Black in a culture dominated by a majority race and all its attendant ramifications, but rarely do we write about the other side. There are endless volumes about slavery, racism, and marginalization from the dominant culture and while those are extremely important and relevant we are coming to another obstacle to being Black.

It seems more and more today the Black community is being splintered not by some nefarious plan of some white supremacy cabal, no unfortunately it is much more sinister than that. It is the separation of Blacks based on their “Blackness”. There have always been separation in the Black community which I feel has added to the current condition we find ourselves in today. There is a saying in Black America about the bucket of crabs, “Everytime a black person tries to escape their circumstances there are always other blacks (crabs) that try to pull them back down”. In other words, the attitude is if I don’t have anything, then neither will you. While this mentality has been present probably from the beginning of blackhood, it appears to becoming more pronounced as more and more Blacks are reaching some modicum of success.

I wish I could say that it was strictly economic in nature, but that is not altogether true. While Blacks have been split along economic lines this “blackness” thing appears to cross such lines. You have young Blacks who have received some success through various means who instead of wanting to advance the success of their people seem to only want to exploit them. We have young blackmen being slaughtered in the streets and the answer is “Stop the Snitchin”? We have these predators administering poisons to their brothers and sisters and the answer is “Stop the Snitchin”?

It’s bad enough that we have to struggle against the institutional racist obstacles placed in our path by people who are indifferent to our plight, but then after all of that we are being asked by our own people to prove our “blackness” by doing ignorant things. If you don’t follow these “street codes” you aren’t being black, you are imitating the whiteman. As if wanting safe streets, schools that educate, and children raised in a family is exclusive to any race. These are things we all should be striving to get, if not for ourselves; then for our people and our children.

Since when does being black depend on what I wear, what music I listen to, how I talk, or who I’m with? As if being black was some sort of fashion that one can buy at the mall and wear it to be cool; no being black is not about any of that nonsense. Those of us that are black are born black and will be black as long as we are in this world and no one should ever have to pass some litmus test to prove their blackness.

The problem as I see it is that we want diversity from others, but we will not allow ourselves the same diversity. Being black is not some one dimensional “Vulcan mind meld”, where if others don’t behave or think as I do then they are less black than me. Why does being black have to limit me around other blacks? We seek freedom of expression from others, yet we won’t allow that same freedom from ourselves. I’m sorry but I must have been absent when it was decided that being black was based on all of these superficial criteria and that without them your “Black card” will be confiscated, so remember, “Don’t leave home without it”.

One of the Black community’s greatest strengths has always been our diversity. We come in all different shades and different backgrounds and no one ever had to prove their “blackness”. Truth be told, who among us born in this country is truly black anyway? As much as I may not like the opinions of Blacks that believe in the conservative agenda, who am I to question their “blackness”? They believe different things to be the cause of our struggle and believe in different remedies to fix it. There are no black measuring sticks and just as this country is a melting pot of ideas and cultures, so are we a melting pot of the same. It wasn’t like we were all brought over here from the same village and the same tribe during slavery; we represent many different tribes and opinions.

No the way I prove my “blackness” is not in what I wear or how I talk, it is in who and what I am. And no matter how some people try to escape it, you never will. It is who you are, it is what you are. This is the same mentality used by the neo-cons, if you don’t completely agree with our view of the world then you are less of an American. There is plenty of room under the black tent for different ideas, different partners, and different lifestyles. We are a tapestry of many different hues and shades stitched together by our history and our circumstances, shaped by the common struggle of our ancestors.

Prove I’m black; yeah I prove it every day I get up and go to my job that a blackman isn’t supposed to have surrounded by people who hope that someday I will give up and not come to work. Prove I’m black; I do it every time I send money to my kids and provide for their education. Prove I’m black; I do every Friday when I go to feed the poor and show them a movie. Prove I’m black; I do every time I volunteer to mentor a black child from a broken home because his father had to go out and prove he was black. Prove I’m black; I do every morning when I rise up and get down on my knees thanking God for another day and another opportunity to express the love that He has given me to others. Now how are you proving it?

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Why The Supreme Court Was Wrong

After having read all the reasons why the recent decision of the Supreme Court concerning school desegregation was wrong, I have come to the conclusion that we have all missed the boat. The purpose of integration was not to make black kids smarter by sitting them next to white kids. If you judge the process based on that criteria, it has been a failure. If you talk to the people who were on the front lines of bringing this issue to the forefront or read their stories, it was never for that reason.

The purpose of integrating the two separate systems was two-fold. First of all, it would bring badly needed funding to the black schools which were in such bad shape; it was a wonder anyone could learn how to tie their shoe, let alone reading, writing, and arithmetic. And the second was to give each child a chance to actually see and meet someone from a different place, diversity. An opportunity to talk, play and argue with someone who was not like themselves. It put a face and a life to “those people” that we didn’t talk about or for that matter even see. It made the invisible, visible. It allowed kids that were willing to see, that we were not so different after all, that a lot of those stories and stereotypes were just not true. If gauged in that light it was a great success.

Some will wonder how I can say it was a great success, I mean after all most of the white kids that went through it were those few whose parents believed in it or those too poor to go elsewhere. Why I say it was a success is in how the majority of young people today interact with each other. Think about what it was like before the Brown decision, how young people interacted across racial lines. Kids prior to this Brown would be amazed at how young people today can interact with relative ease. That didn’t come from television or church; it came from sitting next to each other day in and day out feeling the same way about school and being a kid. For that reason alone it should be mandatory that everyone attend a desegregated school.

I have always maintained and truly believed that the reason everyone should be allowed to attend college is not because of the great education that college provides in the classroom, but the great education it provides outside the classroom. The education one receives interacting with the many diverse races and nationalities in the dorms, in the dining halls, and at the parties is far more valuable. For those who are brave enough college can provide an opportunity get to learn about so many different cultures and people. It always troubled me to see kids come to college and be willing to interact with all this diversity only to go back home and pretend it never happened. To get back to their old friends and go back to their old ways, but I believe that internally they will forever be changed. They will know things that their friends will never know. Walls of prejudice will no longer be there even if they try to pretend they are.

I remember when I first went to college. I came from an all-black high school experience. Growing up I had known whites, but after we moved into the neighborhood most of them left. I learned more about how to be successful from the experience of being around all those different people than anything I learned in class. The truth is that success in life is about relationships, how we interact with each other. Those who choose not to participate in this experience will miss out on more than an opportunity for career advancement; they miss out on an opportunity at life advancement; to grow as a human being. We spend so much of our time trying to separate from each other. We build walls to separate ourselves both physically and emotionally, afraid to lower our guards. We take the easy way out believing the stereotypes and the worst about one another.

The Supreme Court was wrong because they were looking at the wrong measuring stick. In America we must constantly reinforce our unity, if we are to survive. It is too easy to forget that we are all Americans stuck in this insanity together. We need to have our walls broken down or we will just be a bunch of tribes struggling against each other when it would be so much easier if we pulled together. This Court chose fear and isolation over inclusion and diversity. In this place we call America, it is the government’s job to bring us together, even if that sometimes means against our will. Our ultimate survival depends on it. Will we someday have a colorblind society? I doubt it, but we can have a color tolerant society and that begins with coming together and learning together as little children.

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Diversity In Blogosphere?

Lately there has been a lot of talk in the Blog world about diversity and its place in the world. There are voices that say all whites, liberal and conservative are basically the same and share the same agenda. There are voices that say that all whites are bred to feel superior and therefore are inherently racist, whether they acknowledge it or not. It’s in the DNA. There are voices that say because of our troubled history we can never have true unity as a nation and that the best we can hope for is an uneasy co-existence. There are voices that say because a person is born a certain race they can never truly identify with anyone from another race or their plight. What do you believe?

The first question we must ask ourselves is do we want diversity and why? Do I want diversity because it is the PC thing to do or do I honestly feel that we are strengthened as a nation, when all voices are heard, even those that do not echo my own? Why do we seek the comfort of likeminded in our dwellings, in our relationships, and jobs? Why is something different always to be feared? Can I only trust those of like mind and complexion? Why are we so divided? Can we ever truly be united as a nation?

These are questions I ponder all the time and I wish I could say that I have it all figured out, but I don’t. Sometimes the more I think I know, the less I really know about people. What I do know is the atrocity that was slavery cannot be compensated for. It is time we all got honest and admitted this fact. No matter what is offered it will never be enough and whatever is asked will be too much. Do you think that the casinos make up for the genocidal treatment that the Native Americans received? Do you think that they would trade them for their past, for their culture back? We as Black and White must move beyond this argument and come to a mutual understanding and equitable arrangement to help combat the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow in America. While nothing can ever remove the stain of it, there are definite vestiges of its insidious nature that must be dealt with in a constructive way if we are to achieve any type of lasting peace and unity.

There are concrete things that we can do as a nation to begin the healing process that has for too long been ignored for various reasons. The things that divide us are so deeply entrenched that we as men and women can never overcome them of ourselves. Look at us on Sunday mornings, today it is still the most segregated time in America. We can’t even worship God together, how can we live together?

Gandhi was asked by a Hindu who had killed a Muslim child’s family and orphaned him, how can the Hindu make up for what he had done? Gandhi told him that if he were truly serious and repentant that he should raise the orphan, but not as a Hindu. He was to raise him as a Muslim, like his dead father would have done. The simplicity of this answer is powerful and yet most people miss it. Today, we want solutions that don’t require any work. We basically have become lazy. We sit behind these computers and bang out all these ideas and theories and yet what do we actually physically do to change things? The message that Gandhi was relating is that in order to know a man you have to walk as that man walks, live as that man lives. So often today, due to our laziness we just readily accept stereotypes, rhetoric, and demagoguery. How much do we really know about each other? How much are we willing to learn?

Until we get enough people willing to do the things that are uncomfortable, we will merely continue to have an exercise in futility when it comes to race relations in America. Black people can’t force the issue and White people won’t. If you want to know what is wrong in the world all you have to do is just look inside your own heart. We all suffer from the same fears, insecurities, and shortcomings. I am every man and every man is me. Until, we recognize that we have more that unites us than divides us we will continue to fall into the same old traps. We need to stop allowing those that are exploiting the poor and the working class to continue to foster this false racial identity game. So long as they are able to divide and conquer they will remain free to continue their price gouging, profit stealing, and Wall Street inside trading. While we fight over the crumbs, they reap the gourmet meals.

I for one find it fascinating how those things we despise in others we someday become. I know for myself I use to say as a child I would never treat my children this way in response to some perceived slight of my father. Well, a few years later and a couple of kids and guess what. I say that to say, that we as people can sometimes make the same mistakes we find fault with in others, it isn’t that we are bad, we are just human and it is a part of our nature to do so. Do I think all Progressives are racists? No. Do I think that we all can learn lessons from each other? Yes, but you have to acknowledge that you have need of knowledge to get it. If I believe that I am not a racist, then I won’t look at myself and see where maybe I have been insensitive or could use more self evaluation from another’s perspective. If I say I am without sin, then I am a liar and the truth is not in me. Am I the worst sinner ever? Maybe, it will depend on who you talk to. My ex-wife has me somewhere near the top. In my mind I can always find someone worse than me, but does that make me innocent? The point being is that until I acknowledge I have fallen short in some area, I will continue to lull myself into a false sense of security. (I have friends who are…)

Einstein said it best, “It is all relative.” To the man who has been cheated over and over; can you blame him for being suspicious? If you are White think about how it feels when you are in a situation where you are the minority. Now imagine that feeling every day. If you are Black think about how it feels to be falsely accused just because you are Black or lumped into the generalization pot. He’s Black of course he can play basketball. We will never find unity if we can’t get past the fear and the stereotypes that continue to define us. This is a marathon, not a sprint. There has been a lot of mistrust, fear, and social conditioning to overcome. There are many who will not want to, but for those who want to build a better world we must overcome our prejudice and fears. It is going to take a lot of work and many years. I have had many white friends who truly believed that they were not prejudiced, and then they would say you are handsome or smart for a Black man…Articulate

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