It must kill them to write:
“Upward income mobility is significantly lower in areas with larger African American populations.” That is also true for people of other races who live in those areas. As much as race, this is a problem of economic and social segregation."when over a year ago I wrote:
"You see, unbeknownst to a lot of you high class white folk, us poor white folk that got left behind are finally beginning to figure out that we too have been victims of white on black racism for all these years. Not the he said she's a nigger and won't give her a job type racism but the more dangerous and destructive institutional racism with its repeated "friendly fire" incidents. And like our black neighbors who we finally learned to love, we're starting to get pissed-off about getting discriminated against."
the night before Reginald Demarcus Wrenn was gunned down outside my bedroom window.
You see, this Institutional racism and class discrimination long practiced here in Greensboro and other cities like Greensboro remains the underlying reason for our inequality in opportunity. All the problems cited in the News & Record:
"Race. “Upward income mobility is significantly lower in areas with larger African American populations.” That is also true for people of other races who live in those areas. As much as race, this is a problem of economic and social segregation.
Education. Higher test scores, lower dropout rates and smaller class sizes are characteristic of areas with greater upward mobility. So are higher local tax rates, which presumably support local schools.
Social capital. Areas with stronger social networks and community involvement, and where more people are religious, have greater upward mobility.
Family structure. “The strongest predictors of upward mobility are measures of family structure such as the fraction of single parents in the area.”
Some will try to argue that family structure isn't effected by economics but research has proven time and time again that economics bear heavily on the family structure. Money is too often an issue leading to divorce.
Like too many who influence public policy decisions in Greensboro, the N&R Editorial Staff is incapable of seeing for themselves the problems that exist here. For them it takes a Harvard researcher to point out what a lifelong Bessemer boy with a fake high school diploma from James B Dudley Sr High School has been saying all along. Sad, isn't it, that all that education was wasted on men with so little to give?
All these problems are effected by deliberate political actions like:
"This lively community began to wind down in the late 1950s and 1960s when, under the guise of "urban renewal," thousands of people and more than 80 businesses (many minority-owned) were displaced. Most of those businesses never reestablished."
That last quote was lifted from the City of Greensboro website.
It's time our leaders came to understand:
"...economic development isn't just about selling real estate, building roads and erecting cookie cutter developments. Economic development is making decisions about people's lives for many generations to come. Regretfully, our current crop of "leaders" and economic development "gurus" can only see the next deal and dream up the lies they have to tell to make it happen."
Yep, they all agree with me now, the News & Record Editorial Staff admits Billy Jones was right all along. But will the N&R editorial staff agree that building downtown performing arts centers won't address these problems. As a matter of fact: of the 5 cities that rank lower than Greensboro in the Harvard Study: Atlanta, Charlotte, Columbia and Memphis all have downtown performing arts centers.
Looks like that in itself should tell you something about misplaced priorities especially at a time when East Greensboro is the hungriest community in a 10 county region that is ranked the second hungriest MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) in the United States of America and Greensboro is a city in crisis.
