Originally Posted by
Detroitnerd
See how this works? When you want to discuss racism, somebody is right there to barge in, laughing, about how what you're really doing is playing the "race card." Never mind that "playing the race card" has been, primarily, historically, a term for white people appealing to the racism of other white people. No, now anytime you want to have a frank discussion of racism in the United States, no sooner have you uttered your intentions before some chortling, red-faced joker sidles up and starts prefacing his remarks by saying, "Now, I know this isn't politically correct but ..." haw haw haw
See, nobody said that. This is called taking somebody's point [["There is a lot of white racism in metro Detroit suburbs") and trying to twist it into something that's easier to argue against [["All of Detroit's problems is [sic] racism").
Oh, yes. It's like a buzzword when you don't take it seriously, or when you intend to derail other people's intention to take the subject seriously and look at it.
First of all, this is a blanket generalization that cannot be true.
Second, to say that racism played NO role in people leaving Detroit and choosing to live in all-white suburbs is ridiculous. Of course a lot of the people who've left Detroit have been racists. Does it matter whether they're the hood-wearing, I'm-going-to-burn-a-cross-on-your-lawn kind or the kind who simply loathes and fears living around black people?
You're right there. They don't bare responsibility. They bear it. You have a struggling city that's 3/4 white and pretty well off and 1/4 black and not-so-well off. The white people take their resources, their income, their taxes, their institutions, their churches, their neighborhood watches, their significant capital, pick it up, and move beyond the city line. Now the city has to exist without the benefit of their resources, income, taxes, institutions, churches, neighborhood watches and capital. What did they think would happen? If residents of choice leave a city, they know damn well they're leaving it to people who can't properly afford to care for it. That's just simple economics. So that's why I imagine a lot of older people who left Detroit in the 1960s vent so much rage. They look at their old neighborhood and can't blame themselves, so they blame the "other." Anger disguises their shame and turns it into white rage.
Is that so? What's your evidence for that? A lot of the time it's just crossed signals I find, not hostility. From both sides.