Royce, you're a cool poster, but I've got to use your posts to ask questions about the common "textus receptus" of Detroit business and race relations that just doesn't add up.
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Originally Posted by
royce
Another issue that white suburbanites don't seem to understand about the decline of Detroit is that in the '60s prior to the riot of '67, whites owned the majority of businesses. Once whites left under white flight, they took their businesses.
But there were quite a few black business owners in Detroit before the 1960s. My grandfather was one of them. What happened?
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Since blacks did not own many of the businesses, storefronts became vacant, neighborhood residents, especially teenagers, didn't have jobs, crime increased.
What happened to the black owned businesses that there used to be? Or were my grandparents lying to me? Or were my own eyes that was served by the vestiges of a black business class as a youngster lying as well?
Why did teens in Detroit suddenly find it difficult to obtain employment? Did young black men in the 60s prior to the riots find it easy to work?
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Also, because many blacks worked for the Big Three and jobs were being lost because of the oil shortage, competition, and jobs being shipped overseas, black neighborhoods declined.
Many whites worked for the Big Three as well. Did their neighborhoods decline?
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Throw in crack cocaine and slumlords in the 1980s and you have more decline in the neighborhoods.
What contributed to the rise in the crack trade? Where did the slumlords come from? Where did they live?
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Now, because many blacks worked for the Big Three, when it came time for someone to operate a business in the neighborhood, blacks weren't prepared or ready to take on these businesses.
Many whites worked for the Big Three as well. And if my great-grandfather, the son of slaves who never reached secondary education, could become one of the most successful black businessmen in a major Florida city prior to integration, then surely black people who worked for the Big Three could do so as well.
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However, Arabs and Chaldeans were willing to fill the gap that white businesses owners had left behind.
Weren't there any black business owners who tried to purchase these places?
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They learned the businesses, brought family members over from their homelands, and taught them the businesses. Then they opened up a business. Eventually they owned most of the businesses in the black community.
If only it were that simple.