So only good ol’ one hundred percent ‘merican blacks are entitled to their cheques? I’m not at all surprised to hear that the guy behind this sort of a scheme is a bigot, the whole deal is fundamentally racist after all.

Yes, this guy is an arsehole, I wonder how he feels about the children of interracial parents and if they are included in his idea of what is ‘black’.

Plainly he is seeking a back door into reparations paid by people (including many blacks) who never enslaved anyone to people who were never enslaved by anything but their own disabling self-pity.

I’ve been meaning to write something on this myself, being that I live in the Detroit area, so I’m glad to see someone finally got off their ass and did it for me.

Um… not to be a total cock, but the fact that you point out that this guy is black is the very reason these laws remain in place. As long as people continue to mention race, unless where a visual description is needed, these problems will always arise.

Unsomnabulist, as long as you have something reasonable to object, you are very welcome to offer your views here!

You are right in that it isn’t really important that Anderson is black. He is a bigot no matter his skin color. That, in fact, should be the point of this entry: no matter the historical facts, no matter the current situation, anyone can be a bigot. It ain’t hard!

This may be a stupid question, but if (according to the article) Detroit is 80% black, doesn’t that make them the majority?  Period, full stop?  There comes a time when you can no longer wave the “minority” banner.  When you turn this around and look at the proposition as a selective measure being implemented by the reigning majority, it really looks as bigoted as it is.

You raise a reasonable point there, Unsomnambulist, but you may not have a complete picture of the situation. This is a big local news story and part of why I hadn’t gotten around to writing on it yet is because I’ve been unable to complete part of the research I was doing on it.

The problem most folks have with this plan isn’t that it creates an ‘African Town’ in a city where blacks are in the majority, but that the plan calls for limiting grants and loans for the project only to blacks. It also doesn’t help that the report from Claud Anderson the plan was based on does have some language that sounds divisive at best—blaming Arab, Asian, and Hispanic immigrants for taking “jobs, resources and other opportunities from blacks”—and outright racist at worst:

He said immigrants have displaced blacks from affirmative action programs, which were originally meant to correct injustices against blacks by the federal government. As a result, he said, the concept of affirmative action has been polluted.

“Black folk do not benefit from it,” he said. “Immigration has had a negative impact on black folks and nobody wants to address it.”—Source: Detroit Free Press: Author says African Town plan will make up for past wrongs.

Many of the plan’s supporters are arguing that Detroit already supports similar projects in the form of Greektown and Mexicantown, among others, so there’s no reason that the city shouldn’t support an African Town. Part of what I’ve been trying to research has been whether or not there are rules in place for either Greektown or Mexicantown that would limit grants and loans for these projects only to the associated race or ethnic type associated with them. As far as I can determine that isn’t the case at all and that’s the biggest problem with this plan. It also appears that this dispute may have some members of the city council engaging in some retribution against the other minority groups that protested this plan. Which calls into question how capable some members of the city council are of anything resembling good judgment.

Personally I tend to agree with Freep columnist Desiree Cooper who said: “Balkanizing Detroit will never give rise to its renaissance. But ignoring the legacy of the ethnic and cultural groups that built the city is a missed opportunity. African Town as proposed is a narrow-minded, bigoted movement that’s not only counterproductive but illegal. But if it can be recast into a genuine, inclusive effort to celebrate Detroit’s rich ethnic heritage, it’d have my vote.”

(Hey, you no longer have to tab through the text-controls when filling out a PostCommont form.  Nice.)

Anyone ever wonder why places like Detroit or EStLouis are so poor and lack a strong, commerce-diverse economy ?

I wondered also as I read the post if Greektown and Mexicantown were developed with the same restrictions and financial support suggested for this project.  That would decide my point of view on this project.

Lol. I’m sitting in far-off Germany and write a post that Les was RESEARCHING. Get that!

I could barely restrain myself enough to finish that article, once I decided I’d like to write an entry about it…

Ingolfson

PS: I do wonder why there ain’t any flames so far.

Michigan has a history of glorifying communities for their background. Are you familiar with the House of David amusement park in Benton Harbor? Seems it was originally a house of ill repute. What a way to celebrate history! Is this a proposal to upgrade a neighborhood, like redevelopment? You know what a mess they made out of the projects by ignoring the science of proximics (how people use the space around them). Hopefully this will not make matters worse where they are trying to make them better.

They hit the nail on the head earlier when they called this an under-handed attempt at restitution.

The only valid point that Anderson makes is that the Affirmative Action program was diluted by vast number of immigrants coming into the country.  Other than that, he’s way off in left field with no glove.

Setting up something such as this would cause more racial discord in a town such as Detroit than anything else.  He’s be better off pursuing an avenue of approach putting the American Blacks on a similar plane with Native Americans.  At least that way you’d have two unwillingly displaced ethic groups to relate to.  Of course, we can see how well that has worked out for the Native Americans though.

What I dont understand is how the same people who try to wave the flag of equality are the ones who champion pro-race things like this and affirmitive action.  I guess no matter what people say, everyone is against discrimination until it benifts them.  Then all of a sudden its fair.  People just want handouts.  That is universal.  I know the original post isnt about affirmative action, but I think this is just another example of communities trying so hard to make up for the mistakes of people 50 years ago, by giving things away to people who wernt even alive 50 years ago.  Call me a racist or whatever, I know im not.  But I cannot be the only one who sees something wrong with having to pay for crimes i didnt commit to some who didnt have the crime commited against them.  Whats done is done.  Throwing money that isnt yours at it wont solve things.  If people really want to stop discrimination, they should first stop benifiting from it themselves.  Equality for all, not just revenge against whites.

I’m all for using affirmative action to address CURRENT inequities.  And anyone who thinks people of color are receiving equal treatment today is living in a rich WASP enclave dreamworld.

TOLERATE MY INTOLERANCE, YOU BIGOT!

I think that says it all, but if you want more of the same, there’s always my 1000+ paged satirical website you can go to.

Everything I write, I post on my website, accessible from http://www.matthewshepard.info Matthew Shepard is that masculivoid who was crucified in Wyoming for being a sex addict towards two cool dudes.  I believe I’ve taken Matthew’s name in vain.  Anyway, I’ve written two autobiographical screenplays, 100+ song parodies like “I want something else to get me through this semi-charmed kind of mas (cu-line ‘xistence)” and “Hazy Shade Of Mister”.

I film narrative videos and post them, I design T-shirts and post them, I cut and paste AOL chats with other masculivoids and I post them, I do it all at my website!

Have a look, matthewshepard.info forwards to my site!