Check your PM box, sweetcheeks. :)

Yes, racism is allive and well. In In Shelby County, we have Memphis and the suburbs. A few years ago, Memphis annexed Hickory Hill (now called Hickory Hood by many). Hickory Hill used to be a mostly white suburb where crime is almost nonexistent to a part of the city where crime went up, more fights break out at schools and it's mostly black.

Also, the mayor of Memphis (who is black) wants to consolidate the city and the suburbs. However, the suburban mayors (all of them white) do not want annexation because of fear of high crimes, lower property values, and the degrading of schools.

Many people think that it is a racial issue with annexation. I agree halfway. It is a racial issue, but it's a money issue. Think about it. It the city and the suburbs consolidate, the city and the suburbs would save a lot of money because the county (suburbs) and the city are in debt. For instance, services are being cut back (i.e. the parks looking horrible).

If consolidation were to happen, then expect whites to move to Desoto County, Mississippi.

One more thing, on the news, they were talking about building a new high school in Southeast Shelby County. It would be at first a County School and then in the next years it would be a City School. Many black officials think that the new school would force a growing black student population diminish from the county school systems. County School offcials deny that.

Now on that, I have no comment.

Bottom line is, racism is everywhere. Whether is Memphis or Detroit or Los Angeles or Boston.

lol, GC heads are some explainin mofos.

Interesting read...
 

William Raspberry / Syndicated columnist

WASHINGTON — "There is a crisis of unprecedented magnitude in the black community, one that goes to the very heart of its survival. The black family is failing."

Quibble if you will about the "unprecedented magnitude" — slavery wasn't exactly a high point of African-American well-being. But there's no quarreling with the essence of the alarm sounded here last week by a gathering of Pentecostal clergy and the Seymour Institute for Advanced Christian Studies. What is happening to the black family in America is the sociological equivalent of global warming: easier to document than to reverse, inconsistent in its near-term effect — and disastrous in the long run.

Father absence is the bane of the black community, predisposing its children (boys especially, but increasingly girls as well) to school failure, criminal behavior and economic hardship — and to an intergenerational repetition of the grim cycle. The culprit, agreed the ministers (led by Boston's Rev. Eugene Rivers III, president of the Seymour Institute), is the decline of marriage.

The concern is not new. As Rivers noted at last week's news conference, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan sounded the alarm 40 years ago, only to be "condemned and pilloried as misinformed, malevolent, and even racist."

What is new is the understanding of how deep and wide is the reach of declining marriage — and the still-forming determination to do something about it.

When Moynihan first issued his controversial study, roughly a quarter of black babies were born out of wedlock; moreover, it was largely a low-income phenomenon. The proportion now tops two-thirds, with little prospect of decline, and has moved up the socioeconomic scale.

There have been two main explanations. At the low-income end, the disproportionate incarceration, unemployment and early death of black men make them unavailable for marriage. At the upper-income level, black women are far likelier than black men to complete high school, attend college and earn the professional credentials that would render them "eligible" for marriage.


Read the rest here: Healing the Black Family

In my parents neighborhood, there is one black family in their neighborhood. They were there before my parents moved there and they were one of two families that actually welcomed my parents to the neighborhood when my parents moved in to the neighborhood. They brought over fresh baked goodies (i.e. bread, cookies, etc.) and the other family brought over fresh blueberries.

Unfortunately, there is a KKK group in the town in which my parents live and we're all afraid for the black family in our neighborhood. Not only are we afraid for them but for the rest of the neighborhood because the neighborhood has an association. The association approves what kind of houses can be built in the neighborhood and puts a few restrictions on residents (the restrictions aren't Nazi restrictions but there are some rules). Of course, the association let them in and there's still people moving into the neighborhood. It's obvious no one cares if there are black people or what race you are (i.e. there's a Vietnamese family across the street from my parents) living in the neighborhood.

It's quite unfortunate people have to fear for their lives and property and families in the 21st century due to racism.

That is why some folks of color stay strapped--meaning having a good home defense system... Especially if they come from the South and know how to play the bigotted groups...

I am reading a lot of this from folks who identify as caucasian and personally, I find it novel and interesting.

My, my, my, how the times have changed with what folks think, remains in the back of my mind.

However, I do not think educated folks of color have issues with splinter groups like the Klan or the Neo-Nazis being all up in the neighborhood unless they defame property. It is all a matter of how far some folks of color want to take it when that kind of issue occurs. If these hateful groups do a "cross-burning" or crap like that in my yard, they had better hope that I have many lights on and do not know how to fire a Glock, well... Because they can come in, but they are going to have a difficult time getting out without the military personnel... We know how they feel about "US"--and we really won't go over to their house and "play"... And they'd better be careful coming up into our houses...

Ironically, you can desensitize that aspect of utter hatred, there are ways to do that nonviolently, but it takes practice...

But what remains in my mind is when folks of color do move into the communities that have been traditionally caucasian and there is resistance moving, the response by the "authorities"--such as the police, teachers and goverment officials--feel it as their duty to harangue individuals of color that are thought of as a stereotype; whereas, inner city officials would have little issue with it...

That really plays tricks on the minds of folks of color--especially the kids--especially when they become teenagers, with a developing self-esteem...

I can give NUMEROUS examples of my own life experiences having to endure with what "we" call "living with the whitefolks". And getting the label of being a "sellout" because "I talk too white", etc. And being accused of "working for the MAN" in the "BIG HOUSE" on the Plantation, etc. So on and so forth, etc., etc., etc...

You get it from both sides and it eats out your heart and you eventually, it makes you insane if you let it...