insomnomaniac

Where have all the darkies gone?

Help me out with this one:

African-Americans are abandoning this famously progressive city at a rate that has alarmed San Francisco officials, who vow to stop the exodus and develop a strategy to win blacks back to the city. In June, Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed a task force to study how to reverse decades of policies--and neglect--that black leaders say have fueled the flight.

Black flight can alter a city's character. "It's important for a city's future that it be a diverse place, and San Francisco is drifting toward being an upper-middle-class city," says Ed Blakely, director of Katrina recovery for New Orleans.

Here's a question...What kind of blacks do they want to come to San Francisco? Are they saying the actively want lower-middle class or lower class blacks? I mean, sounds like it to me! They are bemoaning the fact that the city is getting too rich as well as too white, so isn't that the same as saying they want to bring the city DOWN a notch by bringing back some blacks?

Am I reading it wrong?

And help me understand why--even if that's not the case, even if they just want blacks b/c they are the chocolate chips in an otherwise vanilla city (i.e., there for "flavor" or "diversity")--how is this special task force not the most racist waste of taxpayer money you've ever heard of?

For years people were like "It's so unfair that blacks are shut out of the suburbs by the high cost of living and racism!" Now when they are fleeing all the same problems of urban living that whites have fled for decades, people are upset about THAT? Ummmm....Is it me, or is that a little weird? Shouldn't this be a good thing? I mean, if some of the reasons given are hat blacks are fleeing sub-standard housing and lousy schools, shouldn't we all rejoice that they--or anyone--care enough to seek better ones elsewhere? Or should they keep living in filth and keep their kids in crappy schools just so Gavin Newsom can keep his street cred as a "liberal?" Pretty hard to do if your "liberal" city is full of rich white people right?

/eyeroll

Can you imagine a task force in Detroit to find out why all the white people are leaving?

Yeah, neither can I.

Posted by insomnomaniac at August 28, 2007 5:15 PM | TrackBack