6 ms·

> evacuated by white people That seems like a very strange assignment of blame.

by claytongulick 4y ago

tptacek 4y ago
How so?
- lelanthran 4y ago
  When people run away from violence, it is not normal to blame them for an increase in violence in the area they left. There is something really wrong with that logic
  - tptacek 4y ago
    People didn't run away from violence. They ran away from any neighborhood where Black people were allowed to buy houses. Black people were locked into specific neighborhoods, and were generally not allowed to own their homes and instead locked into rapacious "contracts" for their houses. All commercial investment in the neighborhoods vanished. Generations of families grew up without opportunity or economic mobility, and crime came along with that.
    - lelanthran 4y ago
      > People didn't run away from violence. They ran away from any neighborhood where Black people were allowed to buy houses. Once again, your logic is somewhat twisted: are you really blaming people that left an area for the violence in that area? You're effectively saying "White people shouldn't have left because the all-black area becomes crime-ridden", which is obviously nonsense. When people leave an area, regardless of the reason, you cannot blame the leavers for the area getting more violent. They're literally not there any more to influence things!
      - tptacek 4y ago
        Am I not saying this clearly enough? I'm talking about the 1930s-1950s. If a Black family moved onto your all-white block, everyone would move. It had nothing to do with violence. I can and do blame explicitly racist actions for the economic havoc and concomitant violence they created.
        karlshea 4y ago
        I'm sort of dumbfounded that your comments are even controversial... this exact same thing played out in dozens of cities in the 30s-50s. In the upper midwest Minneapolis, St Paul, and Milwaukee all had/have exactly the same issues for the same reasons. U of M has a whole website mapping racial covenants[0] here in the Twin Cities, and the Wikipedia article about redlining[1] is pretty thorough, discussing exactly what you're bringing up. Do people just not actually believe how racist everything used to be? And how decades of disinvestment leading to violence just might possibly lead to generational issues? [0] https://mappingprejudice.umn.edu https://mappingprejudice.umn.edu [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
        questionputter 4y ago
        Given that the areas they moved out of now have problems with crime, maybe it was a rational decision to move out?
        Sprocklem 4y ago
        The movement of white people out of neighbourhoods with black people, and the use of redlining to concentrate a marginalized group within those neighbourhoods led to a disinvestment of both private and public capital in those neighbourhoods, creating and later perpetuating the cycle of poverty that leads people to turn to crime to survive. It does make sense for people with the means to leave a neighbourhood (from a personal safety standpoint) when it starts to have an increased crime problem but that is not what is being described here. Instead, the people left due to the racism that was prevalent in the mid-20th century, well before the rise in crime that resulted from their leaving.
    - intimidated 4y ago
      I could very well be wrong, but I don't think this is quite accurate: > Black people were locked into specific neighborhoods, and were generally not allowed to own their homes and instead locked into rapacious "contracts" for their houses Redlining meant certain areas were deemed hazardous to investment. Maybe the "deeming" was accurate; maybe it wasn't. It certainly made loans more difficult for anyone in a redlined area (of any race). But it didn't mean Black people weren't allowed to own homes. Many millions did and do. My parents moved to the United States nearly penniless from India. I am very privileged thanks to them; they were not privileged, especially not when they first arrived. All of the arguments about generational wealth are compelling at first exposure, but they ignore the control group: Poor as dirt, strange-smelling, English-deprived immigrants like my parents. I don't think it's healthy to blame white people for depriving an area of themselves. Proximity to white people isn't a human right.
      - pcwalton 4y ago
        > Proximity to white people isn't a human right. This is literally a defense of segregation.
        dial9-1 4y ago
      - kasey_junk 4y ago
        The other side of redlining were racial covenants that quite literally made it impossible to buy certain houses by black people. This was taken to the US Supreme Court.
npteljes 4y ago
I don't read it as blame, rather as a report of a thing that happened.

> evacuated by white people That seems like a very strange assignment of blame.

tptacek 4y ago

How so?

lelanthran 4y ago
When people run away from violence, it is not normal to blame them for an increase in violence in the area they left. There is something really wrong with that logic
- tptacek 4y ago
  People didn't run away from violence. They ran away from any neighborhood where Black people were allowed to buy houses. Black people were locked into specific neighborhoods, and were generally not allowed to own their homes and instead locked into rapacious "contracts" for their houses. All commercial investment in the neighborhoods vanished. Generations of families grew up without opportunity or economic mobility, and crime came along with that.
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > People didn't run away from violence. They ran away from any neighborhood where Black people were allowed to buy houses. Once again, your logic is somewhat twisted: are you really blaming people that left an area for the violence in that area? You're effectively saying "White people shouldn't have left because the all-black area becomes crime-ridden", which is obviously nonsense. When people leave an area, regardless of the reason, you cannot blame the leavers for the area getting more violent. They're literally not there any more to influence things!
    - tptacek 4y ago
      Am I not saying this clearly enough? I'm talking about the 1930s-1950s. If a Black family moved onto your all-white block, everyone would move. It had nothing to do with violence. I can and do blame explicitly racist actions for the economic havoc and concomitant violence they created.
      - karlshea 4y ago
        I'm sort of dumbfounded that your comments are even controversial... this exact same thing played out in dozens of cities in the 30s-50s. In the upper midwest Minneapolis, St Paul, and Milwaukee all had/have exactly the same issues for the same reasons. U of M has a whole website mapping racial covenants[0] here in the Twin Cities, and the Wikipedia article about redlining[1] is pretty thorough, discussing exactly what you're bringing up. Do people just not actually believe how racist everything used to be? And how decades of disinvestment leading to violence just might possibly lead to generational issues? [0] https://mappingprejudice.umn.edu https://mappingprejudice.umn.edu [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
        questionputter 4y ago
        Given that the areas they moved out of now have problems with crime, maybe it was a rational decision to move out?
        Sprocklem 4y ago
        The movement of white people out of neighbourhoods with black people, and the use of redlining to concentrate a marginalized group within those neighbourhoods led to a disinvestment of both private and public capital in those neighbourhoods, creating and later perpetuating the cycle of poverty that leads people to turn to crime to survive. It does make sense for people with the means to leave a neighbourhood (from a personal safety standpoint) when it starts to have an increased crime problem but that is not what is being described here. Instead, the people left due to the racism that was prevalent in the mid-20th century, well before the rise in crime that resulted from their leaving.
  - intimidated 4y ago
    I could very well be wrong, but I don't think this is quite accurate: > Black people were locked into specific neighborhoods, and were generally not allowed to own their homes and instead locked into rapacious "contracts" for their houses Redlining meant certain areas were deemed hazardous to investment. Maybe the "deeming" was accurate; maybe it wasn't. It certainly made loans more difficult for anyone in a redlined area (of any race). But it didn't mean Black people weren't allowed to own homes. Many millions did and do. My parents moved to the United States nearly penniless from India. I am very privileged thanks to them; they were not privileged, especially not when they first arrived. All of the arguments about generational wealth are compelling at first exposure, but they ignore the control group: Poor as dirt, strange-smelling, English-deprived immigrants like my parents. I don't think it's healthy to blame white people for depriving an area of themselves. Proximity to white people isn't a human right.
    - pcwalton 4y ago
      > Proximity to white people isn't a human right. This is literally a defense of segregation.
      - dial9-1 4y ago
    - kasey_junk 4y ago
      The other side of redlining were racial covenants that quite literally made it impossible to buy certain houses by black people. This was taken to the US Supreme Court.

npteljes 4y ago

I don't read it as blame, rather as a report of a thing that happened.