The New York Times
When Liberals Blew It
Nicholas Kristof
MARCH 11, 2015
"Fifty years ago this month, Democrats made a historic mistake.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, at the time a federal official, wrote a famous report in March 1965 on family breakdown among African-Americans. He argued presciently and powerfully that the rise of single-parent households would make poverty more intractable.
“The fundamental problem,” Moynihan wrote, is family breakdown. In a follow-up, he explained: “From the wild Irish slums of the 19th-century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: a community that allows large numbers of young men to grow up in broken families ... never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future — that community asks for and gets chaos.”
Liberals brutally denounced Moynihan as a racist. He himself had grown up in a single-mother household and worked as a shoeshine boy at the corner of Broadway and 43rd Street in Manhattan, yet he was accused of being aloof and patronizing, and of “blaming the victim.”
MORE AT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/opinion/when-liberals-blew-it.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region
Our local churches do what they can to make family units. But that’s difficult when dad is in prison.
American slavery did more to separate families than any other single thing.
I believe the “War on Drugs” continues to separate families. When President Nixon declared the "War on Drugs", I think it was part of his "Southern Strategy". I believe it was a continuation of the terror part of Jim Crow segregation.
In the beginning Nixon's "War on Drugs" mostly separated black families. Now the "War on Drugs" has extended to separate poor families regardless of race and ethnicity. And middle class families that do not yet realise they have become poor families.
The "War on Drugs" has become a terrorist war that includes all poor and middle class American families as its victims.
I believe the “War on Drugs” continues to separate families. When President Nixon declared the "War on Drugs", I think it was part of his "Southern Strategy". I believe it was a continuation of the terror part of Jim Crow segregation.
In the beginning Nixon's "War on Drugs" mostly separated black families. Now the "War on Drugs" has extended to separate poor families regardless of race and ethnicity. And middle class families that do not yet realise they have become poor families.
The "War on Drugs" has become a terrorist war that includes all poor and middle class American families as its victims.
In a way keeping drugs illegal and keeping the violent part of the drug business in black areas like Coatesville is a continuation of slavery. The hard dangerous work is done by black people.
Slavery still is a black cloud over our country and not looking up at that cloud won’t make it go away.
Several books, movies and videos have recently addressed the lingering effects of slavery.
The Al Jazeera America Program Fault Lines "Fault Lines: Baltimore: Anatomy of an American City" tells the story of the “War on Drugs” very well. And it will feel familiar to people that live in Coatesville.
Besides the former steel company land becoming available for retail and office space, Coatesville’s excellent transportation links make it attractive to world class business real estate investors.
But Coatesville’s transportation links combined with historically black neighborhoods make it very attractive as the major drug hub in Western Chester County. And a lot of people want to keep it that way.
A guy in a red Jeep Cherokee came from the Bypass, parked on Cedar Street, kids on motorbikes ran bags of drugs across Lincoln Highway mostly to Walnut St and ran back with money. The guy in the Jeep was in and out of Coatesville in 15 minutes.
I think that in dollar amounts illegal drugs might be the biggest industry in Western Chester County and Coatesville is the primary distribution point for that business.
We have muggings and robberies and shootings. People say we have to bring crime under control.
There has been a war between people here that want to bring back Coatesville as a nice place to live and work and people who want Coatesville to remain as the drug depot for Chester County.
We talk about jobs for people in Coatesville. We talk about bringing business to Coatesville. What is unsaid is that Coatesville already has a very large industry that stretches across Western Chester County. Like any large industry it generates income that goes into the community to car dealers, real estate, restaurants and so on. That industry has public officials that benefit from it and protect it.
That drug industry has been opposing the revitalization of Coatesville. A few years ago the drug business won decisively and shut down the revitalization of Coatesville.
That drug industry has been opposing the revitalization of Coatesville. A few years ago the drug business won decisively and shut down the revitalization of Coatesville.
So far the drug business, that might be Western Chester County’s largest business, has been winning in Coatesville. We need to fight back. But you can't fight an enemy that you don't acknowledge.
You might be interested in:
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
Hardcover – September 9, 2014
Hardcover – September 9, 2014
by Edward E. Baptist
It’s economics but it reads like a novel.
And:
Lynching in America:
Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror
The full length version is only available in print:
For a copy of the full-length Lynching in America report, please e-mail EJI at contact_us@eji.org or call 334.269.1803.
No comments:
Post a Comment
You can add your voice to this blog by posting a comment.