Originally Posted by
Packman41
Hello erikd: Since you chose my quote, perhaps I should respond.
I would also second what Honky Tonk wrote. The implication by those folks calling it “White Flight” is that those who left Detroit are, “…racists" that "abandoned" Detroit because they didn't like the skin color of their neighbors.” And that could not be farther from the truth.
Same could be said for those using the term “Weatlh Flight.” That, somehow, someway, those folks that wanted something different, left Detroit in order to make their neighbors poorer and the city less livable – on PURPOSE. From my observations, those that claimed, “Wealth Flight” were the same folks that denied the “Trickle Down” theory of economics. So, if there is no wealth trickling down, then how would a person leaving town have a negative effect on me?
If the folks using these terms really meant to say “Great Migration,“ then they would have called it that.
Instead, they chose racially-tinged adjectives and described moving to the suburbs in an irrational panic - as in FLIGHT. But, by using those specific terms, they want to perpetuate their agenda of victimhood.
Maybe you didn’t understand it that way because, as you say, “… it was colloquial term for it for as long as I can remember...“ Perhaps, now is the time to speak to those with an agenda.