I grew up on the S.S. also in the Englewood Precinct. I left when I turned 18 and never looked back. My brother also left and now we both live safely, peacefully in White neighborhoods where we can walk the streets alone at night, we don't have to stay away from the windows in our homes for fear of being shot on purpose or by a "stray" bullet etc. None of our children were ever recruited by a gang nor did they experience fighting on a daily basis.
I don't think that there is anything that can be done for the inner city community because the people are incapable and unwilling to do anything for themselves. You are correct that things have gone from bad to worse. Blacks are the only ethnic group that have performed that trick of actually being worse than they were before. I astounds me to see this happen but it has.
I did some research years ago on why Black children perform so poorly in school and in the process I came across some research that was done in which the academic performance of Black children of enlisted parents in the U.S. Army who were stationed in Germany was compared with Black students in America.
The author of the study found that there was no difference between the academic performance of Black students in Germany and their White peers whereas there was a big gap in performance between Black students in America with their White peers.
He attributed this difference to the fact that the Black students in Germany weren't exposed to a Black culture as the the Black students in America were. In other words there's something rotten within the Black community that harms the mental growth and lives of its young people. I concur with this author.
I am a former teacher and I have observed the same thing with it comes to Native American students when you compare the academic performance of Native American children on the reserve with those who don't live there. Native American students who don't live lives immersed in the Native American community can perform much better than those who do. And this is true even when you are comparing family members who've been separated. Those off the reserve do better than those on it.
As an adult I've not met a single White person who moved out of his community because it was a dangerous place. I did move out of Chicago because it was dangerous. I figure that the odds are good that I would've been shot or killed by now i I'd stayed on the S.S.
I wouldn't say that I'm unscathed from spending 18yrs growing up in Chicago. I'm pretty sure that I have PTSD from always living in fear. There are ways of thinking about safety that I still haven't shaken off and it comes through when I'm talking with my friends and neighbors who grew up normal.
JH- very interesting perspective- thanks for sharing. Your well-earned cynicism about the potential for majority black urban communities to find healing from the cultural pathologies that have plagued them for more than a half century is sobering to say the least. I'd offer (just a bit of) hope for your consideration: Glenn's not that old, and he remembers a much different Chicago: full of promise as it came out of the century of enforced racial segregation that followed the abolition of chattel slavery in the US. An older man like Thomas Sowell can remember a Harlem where everyone slept out on fire escapes on warm summer nights, or in Central Park without any thought of molestation by criminals.
What's the difference? Of course it's the alarming deterioration of the basic unit of social cohesion that held the black community together throughout the severe depredations imposed by actual systemic racism: the FAMILY. 57 years ago black families were still strong, though out of wedlock birth rates had risen to an alarming 24% despite increasing economic prosperity associated with the post-war migration to Northern industrial centers. Then the War on Poverty was declared by the Johnson administration, which in its hubris thought it could stop the commies in SE Asia and eliminate poverty at home at the same time. After 25+ $$TRILLIONS$$ spent on means-tested welfare programs that REQUIRE the abiding poverty of recipients for continued "assistance", now 3 out of every 4 black kids is born into a home without a father- including much higher rates of fatherlessness in broken urban communities...
It's arguable that the ongoing failure of the War on Poverty has been a much more significant disaster for our nation than the Vietnam War, or any other ill-conceived military adventure, precisely because so many are still unwilling to examine the evidence for that failure, the damage done to millions of fellow citizens (actually every one of us), and the implications for future public policy decisions. So there's my little bit of hope for you: the problem is not what the urban poor look like (as evidenced by the 95% of them who are not criminals), it's what we continue to do for (to) them together, ostensibly for their benefit. If public policy can have this disastrous an impact on those we try to help, think how much potential there is for a public policy that prioritizes family formation and gainful employment for all! (novel ideas to be sure- pretty much the opposite of what's being pushed by the Left and the technocratic globalist elites who are currently manipulating them for their own nefarious ends)
And the same can be said of Hispanics except for Cubans, some of the South Americans. Mexicans and Central Americans are far better off in the USA than in their home country and Hispanics like my siblings who leave the barrio outperform those who remain stuck in the barrio.
I grew up on the S.S. also in the Englewood Precinct. I left when I turned 18 and never looked back. My brother also left and now we both live safely, peacefully in White neighborhoods where we can walk the streets alone at night, we don't have to stay away from the windows in our homes for fear of being shot on purpose or by a "stray" bullet etc. None of our children were ever recruited by a gang nor did they experience fighting on a daily basis.
I don't think that there is anything that can be done for the inner city community because the people are incapable and unwilling to do anything for themselves. You are correct that things have gone from bad to worse. Blacks are the only ethnic group that have performed that trick of actually being worse than they were before. I astounds me to see this happen but it has.
I did some research years ago on why Black children perform so poorly in school and in the process I came across some research that was done in which the academic performance of Black children of enlisted parents in the U.S. Army who were stationed in Germany was compared with Black students in America.
The author of the study found that there was no difference between the academic performance of Black students in Germany and their White peers whereas there was a big gap in performance between Black students in America with their White peers.
He attributed this difference to the fact that the Black students in Germany weren't exposed to a Black culture as the the Black students in America were. In other words there's something rotten within the Black community that harms the mental growth and lives of its young people. I concur with this author.
I am a former teacher and I have observed the same thing with it comes to Native American students when you compare the academic performance of Native American children on the reserve with those who don't live there. Native American students who don't live lives immersed in the Native American community can perform much better than those who do. And this is true even when you are comparing family members who've been separated. Those off the reserve do better than those on it.
As an adult I've not met a single White person who moved out of his community because it was a dangerous place. I did move out of Chicago because it was dangerous. I figure that the odds are good that I would've been shot or killed by now i I'd stayed on the S.S.
I wouldn't say that I'm unscathed from spending 18yrs growing up in Chicago. I'm pretty sure that I have PTSD from always living in fear. There are ways of thinking about safety that I still haven't shaken off and it comes through when I'm talking with my friends and neighbors who grew up normal.
Can you find the paper on you mentioned? I looked for it yesterday but I couldn't find it.
JH- very interesting perspective- thanks for sharing. Your well-earned cynicism about the potential for majority black urban communities to find healing from the cultural pathologies that have plagued them for more than a half century is sobering to say the least. I'd offer (just a bit of) hope for your consideration: Glenn's not that old, and he remembers a much different Chicago: full of promise as it came out of the century of enforced racial segregation that followed the abolition of chattel slavery in the US. An older man like Thomas Sowell can remember a Harlem where everyone slept out on fire escapes on warm summer nights, or in Central Park without any thought of molestation by criminals.
What's the difference? Of course it's the alarming deterioration of the basic unit of social cohesion that held the black community together throughout the severe depredations imposed by actual systemic racism: the FAMILY. 57 years ago black families were still strong, though out of wedlock birth rates had risen to an alarming 24% despite increasing economic prosperity associated with the post-war migration to Northern industrial centers. Then the War on Poverty was declared by the Johnson administration, which in its hubris thought it could stop the commies in SE Asia and eliminate poverty at home at the same time. After 25+ $$TRILLIONS$$ spent on means-tested welfare programs that REQUIRE the abiding poverty of recipients for continued "assistance", now 3 out of every 4 black kids is born into a home without a father- including much higher rates of fatherlessness in broken urban communities...
It's arguable that the ongoing failure of the War on Poverty has been a much more significant disaster for our nation than the Vietnam War, or any other ill-conceived military adventure, precisely because so many are still unwilling to examine the evidence for that failure, the damage done to millions of fellow citizens (actually every one of us), and the implications for future public policy decisions. So there's my little bit of hope for you: the problem is not what the urban poor look like (as evidenced by the 95% of them who are not criminals), it's what we continue to do for (to) them together, ostensibly for their benefit. If public policy can have this disastrous an impact on those we try to help, think how much potential there is for a public policy that prioritizes family formation and gainful employment for all! (novel ideas to be sure- pretty much the opposite of what's being pushed by the Left and the technocratic globalist elites who are currently manipulating them for their own nefarious ends)
And the same can be said of Hispanics except for Cubans, some of the South Americans. Mexicans and Central Americans are far better off in the USA than in their home country and Hispanics like my siblings who leave the barrio outperform those who remain stuck in the barrio.