This article is blowing up Philly. And it's about to blow up nationally

[cali]

That might not be such a bad thing. I haven't posted excerpts because I think you need to read the whole original story that's generating such strong responses and then read some responses.


http://www.phillymag.com/articles/white-philly/

The reactions to it:

http://articles.philly.com/2013-03-16/news/37769728_1_philadelphia-magazine-race-relations-mayor-nutter

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/03/against-the-conversation-on-race/273735/

http://www.ebony.com/news-views/being-white-and-racist-in-philly-405#axzz2MnAUm7e5

[graham4anything]

1. 100% support and solidarity for Mayor Nutter, one of the great people in the nation

May Mayor Nutter continue to win and move up the political ladder.

Mayor Nutter is 100% correct, and this article is whew...what timeframe is this person living in to write a racist article like this?

enough said.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. Yet the same Nutter is trying to break the city unions

who haven't had a contract since 2009. And he refuses to pay the firefighters an arbitrated settlement despite the fact that the courts ordered it.

And so the public workers rightly made their disgust known to this tired ass business-first DLCer this past Thursday at his joke of a Budget Address at the weekly City Council meeting -

Enough said.

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. Teachers too

They are very unhappy with the mayor.

[Squinch]

2. I am a white woman. I work in predominantly black neighborhoods, often being the only white person

Last edited Sun Mar 17, 2013, 08:49 AM - Edit history (1)

in a room. Some of the neighborhoods are among the poorest in the nation.

The writer of the article is externalizing his own fear and ignorance. He managed to forward every element of the mythology that is believed in the increasingly rare "lily white" bastions about neighborhoods that are not lily white.

Uninformed, ridiculous attitude.

[cali]

3. Robert Huber is not a woman. He is the writer.

I'm not quite sure what you meant in your comment. Could you post an example from the article?

[Squinch]

5. Wow, thanks. I don't know why I thought it was a woman, even after reading the whole thing.

As far as examples of the attitude:

Even the incidents he sees as uncomfortable results of race relations: A white girl loses her blackberry and facebooks people asking people if they knew who took it. If I got such a message, I would probably be insulted too. But because the girl who was insulted was black, it's seen as a racial incident. The teacher who inadvertently creates a to do by calling a child "boy" - the boy subsequently becomes incorrigible because he thinks no one can touch him. That incorrigibility due to percieved immunity is certainly not a racial trait, which I'm sure teachers from Scarsdale and Newport Beach would happily confirm.

His overpolite-ness when encountering black people in the Wawa: that's no one's issue but his.

His description of the "seemingly permanent black underclass." That in itself is a value judgment. We all know now that the underclass today is pretty permanent. Whether you are black or white, we know that if you are in the underclass you have smaller chance of escaping from it than at any point in our history. That isn't a function of the "black underclass" or of blackness. That's a function of the underclass, because we have destroyed social mobility in our country.

The BMW law school Russian woman: "Blacks use skin color as an excuse." The contractor's Panamanian wife saying "there is a moral poverty among inner city blacks." Don't even get me started. Have we not gotten to a point where we can dispense with these ignorant spoutings as valid discussion? Is the writer really giving these arguments credence by putting them forward as valid? As I say. I am often in these neighborhoods. I see bad people and good people. In Scarsdale and Newport Beach, there are people with moral poverty, just as there are in the neighborhoods in the article. Moral poverty is not a characteristic of any group, but any group has members who are morally poor. To paint "inner city blacks" with that brush, or to quote someone who does as having a valid point of view, is ridiculous.

I could go on.

But thanks for the correction. I'll edit.

[msanthrope]

9. I would have liked Mr. Huber to interview some of the long-time Black homeowners south of Girard.

On my block alone there are 4 households that are Black, primary residence, owned, and been in the neighborhood over 20 years.

Their views tend to mirror the Russian and Panamanian women's. You presume "ignorant spoutings" but let me tell you what transpired in my neighborhood a few years ago:

My car was jacked up and two wheels stolen. One of my neighbors noticed it and rang my doorbell.


"Msanthrope, some (n-word) fucked with your car," was what my Black neighbor said to me. My neighbors gathered as I went to the car, called the cops, filled out a report, got a tow, etc... To a person, every single Black homeowner expressed dismay in racial terms to me. Racial terms that I would not have used nor did I feel comfortable in hearing.

Race is complex. You do have a permanent Black underclass that engenders different feelings than the White one does. I think not addressing that leads to an over-simplification of race/poverty.

[Squinch]

12. I'll defer to your knowledge, as a resident of the community being discussed, BUT

I think your story proves one of my points: all of your black neighbors were horrified by the act and found it unacceptable. But the comments by the people interviewed in the article paint these neighbors with the same brush as the guys who jacked up your car.

In New Canaan, CT, where lots of "too big to fail" guys live, I am sure there were a lot of people culpable for bringing down the world economy, and plenty of their neighbors who were horrified at those actions. Which means there were morally bankrupt people, and people who were not. I don't hear anyone saying that proves that all the whites of New Canaan are morally bankrupt. And let's face it, bringing down the world economy is a much bigger moral failure than stealing tires.

As far as the terminology, it is unfortunate, but might be a function of the anger of people who know that in the minds of a lot of people, they are the same as the guys who jacked up the car.

Clearly you are right. The issue is complex, but I think some aspects of it are less so. I think we have to begin by ditching the generalizations.

[msanthrope]

19. I respectfully disagree with you on a particular point--not one of those interviewed would have

confused any of my neighbors with the guys who jacked my car. You seem to think that race is the deciding factor here--but it's actually a more subtle combination of race/poverty/class.

[Squinch]

21. OK. I am probably missing some nuances that are clear to people in the local area.

It just gets my back up when I read phrases like "there is a moral poverty among inner city blacks."

[socialist_n_TN]

14. Very cogent points about the "seemingly permanent black underclass"......

Yes, that is racist, but the bigger factor is the lack of economic democracy in this country as a whole. Racism, sexism, indeed ALL of the negative "isms" are part of the systemic oppression of workers in this country and the world under capitalism. It's simple to see. If you have no control over the livelihood of someone you have a bias against, it's just a personal, negative trait or personal bias. It only becomes racism (or sexism, etc) when your personal bias has power over another through control of livelihood. As in capitalism. And although this is talking about a permanent black underclass, poor whites also have almost as few opportunities to move up as anybody else. Once again, because of capitalism.

And as to the "moral poverty" part, I don't see much morality in the ruling class, whether economic or political either. THEY are the ones who either precipitated or (in the case of the politicians of capitalism) enabled this latest crisis of capitalism that has almost destroyed the world's economy and the livelihood of millions (billions?) worldwide. It looks like they're going to get away with it too. Whatever crimes they perpetrated are coming up on the statute of limitations AND the nation's AG has already said that they're not only "too big to fail" but also "too big to jail". Although the moral failings might be equal in the rich and the poor and working class, the effects are definitely NOT equal. A moral failing in a poor person affects him and his immediate circle. A moral failing in a banker affects the world. Which is worse?

[Shivering Jemmy]

4. The author observes something

That I've seen. Recent immigrants to America don't often recognize that racism has taken a long term toll on inner city communities...so they blame the residents for their poverty.

[msanthrope]

6. Ahem--this is where I live. The exact neighborhood. And I know every, single person he talked to.

To 'Eileen and Bruce', the couple complaining about Halloween? I would tell them to stop practicing de facto "White-o-ween" and stop blaming those poor kids.

Some parents just don't give a shit enough to get/make their kids costumes. Just like some parents send their kids around with the crappiest bags, ever. I can't tell you how many times I've replaced Halloween bags for kids, and I think this year, I'll get a supply of bags and leave them out the same way I leave mini pumpkins out.

Also, I'd tell 'Eileen and Bruce' that no teen in America, white or black, dresses up, but they still want candy! I give 'em a single DumDum and chide them. They always take it good naturedly.

Halloween is a great night in this neighborhood. I wish I saw my neighbors and their kids, more. My family chooses to have a great time....I usually scare the crap out the kids.

[hatrack]

7. Thank you - Halloween ever since I can remember . . .

Little kids in cute costumes, and teenagers in street clothes. So what else is new?

We always gave everyone candy, and this was in semi-rural Missouri.

[msanthrope]

8. Exactly....no teen dresses up, and they are all a bit snotty...so my husband and I

usually chide them, much to the delight of their parents/younger siblings/companions.

[graham4anything]

11. Yup. Most as they get older don't dress up, but still want free candy.

We live in an area where people from other neighborhoods more spread out all come down our blocks some after 10pm and they get one apiece, but they can't reach in and take, we give them out. The smaller kids never take more than one. The older kids will take what they can grab.

That is Halloween.

Screw the racists.

[MineralMan]

15. My wife and I tell the teen trick-or-treaters,

"Wow! You look just like an American teenager. Cool!" Then we give them the same thing we give all of the kids who come.

I remember trick-or-treating as a younger teen. We got pretty much the same treatment. We stopped doing it at about 15. Instead, we had water balloon wars among ourselves on Halloween.

[msanthrope]

16. Last year, one paused long enough from her smartphone to snap my picture, in full costume,

and post me on her Facebook page. I loved it.

It's a good time in my neighborhood.

[MineralMan]

17. We love it. This past year we had almost 200

trick-or-treaters. Expensive, but fun.

[msanthrope]

20. I get at least 300. I've got a reputation. I know how to make a toe-pincher

coffin, and I've used that knowledge....

[BumRushDaShow]

13. Every so often when the local media is bored

like Philadelphia Magazine or the tabloid Daily News, they throw flame bait out to stir a pot to get attention and sell magazines or papers.

It's one thing having a "conversation" and another manufacturing something to cause outrage to prompt the conversation.

It's distraction (and the usual suspect media fall for it) in that it's not done to offer solutions but to repeat what has been cyclic efforts to rattle.

Those who are not native Philadelphians have difficulties understanding the dynamics of this city and often try to distill it down to Rocky Balboa and cheese steaks and other nonsense. This has been and still is a Quaker-influenced city and that overlay is deeply embedded into the psyche here. Like other cities, this 400+ year old place has had immigrants move in while displacing others who move on.... and neighborhoods have changed because of that over the centuries (much of the area being discussed was almost all-white through the '40s in fact, with small pockets of black populations on certain streets). So unless one understands how the city has evolved over the years, one really can't have a serious discussion on "race". If anything it goes to show how gentrification aids in keeping the so-called "permanent underclass" by displacing loyal residents of one area and forcing them out by raising their housing costs, shunting them to less desirable areas. Case in point is the toney "Society Hill" that was once almost all black back in the 1800s, well documented by W.E.B. Dubois in his book The Philadelphia Negro - http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/duboisopedia/doku.php?id=about:philadelphia_negro