tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3330039258193454269.post1666496082778281698..comments2023-06-15T08:31:35.030-07:00Comments on Double Consciousness: Ethnic Cleansing, San Francisco, and White SupremacyJack Stephenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05349703689965815558noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3330039258193454269.post-6213205118866341762007-11-26T16:53:00.000-08:002007-11-26T16:53:00.000-08:00Jack Stephen’s diatribe regarding “white supremacy...Jack Stephen’s diatribe regarding “white supremacy” and the woes of the Bayview-Hunter’s Point (BHP) neighborhood are off the mark on so many levels that I feel compelled to respond. The badly flawed spelling and grammar are the first indication of the level that the discourse will take. Couldn’t you at least spell “Bayview” correctly?<BR/><BR/>Bigoted stereotyping among African Americans who blame all white people for their oppression is just as wrong-headed as white people who consider all black people to be low-life criminals. The real enemy of poor folks—-white and black—-is rich conservatives who get fat on the backs of the lower classes. Unfortunately, bigotry is one of the most effective tools they have for keeping the lower classes down, and people who spew this kind of swill are their handmaidens. <BR/><BR/>I’ve lived in Bayview almost 10 years, am a history buff, and have researched the history of the BHP neighborhood, as well as, to a lesser extent, the Western Addition. I don’t have time and you don’t have the space for me to go into a long, detailed discussion of the woes of BHP. Suffice to say that during the late 30s and 40s, blacks coming up in the diaspora from the deep South found a better life in BHP and some level of acceptance. Life was good in the neighborhood for several decades, but a large influx of poor blacks from the Western Addition when that neighborhood underwent “urban renewal” and the closing of the shipbuilding and meatpacking industries in BHP caused a serious downturn in the local economy. None of this had anything to do with racism, although the effects were felt deeply within the African American community. Riots following the murder of the Rev. Martin Luther King, including rampant, gratuitous destruction of businesses along 3rd St., caused a widespread flight of non-black business owners and residents, inaugurating the grimmest period in BHP history. <BR/><BR/>Wallowing in a victim mentality is a serious affliction that affects a segment of the African American community, paralyzing them and creating the biggest roadblock to progress. Sure, it feels good to blame all one’s failures on some external boogieman, but it’s also psychologically devastating. To claim that someone else has complete power over one’s life means that you’re weak, ineffectual and hopeless, a state of mind that leads to a lot of rage and mental illness. If you insist that some external force has complete control over you and is the cause of your failures, then you have no ownership of your successes either, and no hope of becoming the agent of your own betterment. If you refuse to look at your own responsibility in your failures, you can’t work toward overcoming them. The Bay View is a really badly written rant that luxuriates in this mentality. Few people in BHP read it-—it’s mostly a case of the choir preaching to the choir and reinforcing their own wrong-headedness. What truth there is in it gets lost in an avalanche of bad, nonobjective writing. <BR/><BR/>The sad truth is that the biggest cause of decent African Americans evacuating BHP is that they’re escaping from black-on-black violence and crime fomented by thugs and gangbangers. Predictably, whiners like Stephens decry the loss of liberties of gang members, but they ignore the oppression of BHP residents by the low-life element in the neighborhood. He thinks that he’s presenting a compelling argument by name-dropping a bunch of rich white people—-his “white gang.” But he doesn’t give a clear explanation of how specifically all these white people are oppressing the black segment of BHP residents that he presumes to champion. A case could be made for some of them, but he fails to do so and it has nothing to do with ethnic heritage. <BR/><BR/>Stephens decries the privatization of public land, and it’s true that a better developer than Lennar or a better plan might be developed, but it won’t come from complainers like Stephens or Willie Ratliff (editor of the Bay View). Their whole raison d’etre is to complain, not to provide real solutions. If you press Ratliff, he’ll say that people like him should be put in charge of the development of Hunter’s Point. What a disaster that would be! <BR/><BR/>With regard to the pollution kicked up by the construction, a study was done at the request of local residents by a disinterested third party, and the finding was that the construction did not cause a serious increase in local health problems. In fact, BHP has had an inordinately dusty and polluted environment long before the construction at Hunter’s Point ever began. Unscrupulous pollution-causing businesses like concrete manufacturers have been allowed to create huge amounts of dust and other pollution, only rarely penalized or forced to stop by the city. Trashy people living in BHP have also been throwing garbage around for years—-small wonder that unscrupulous building contractors don’t feel any qualms about adding their detritus to the mix. <BR/><BR/>A serious mold problem in the public housing has been one of the most serious causes of health problems among poor residents of Hunter’s Point, but rebuilding of deteriorated housing by a private concern in cooperation with the city holds much promise, especially since George Bush’s federal government refuses to pony up any cash for this. The number of subsidized housing units will not diminish, and adding market-level units to the mix will assure more positive energy in the neighborhoods. It will help poor kids in project housing to have more positive role models than drug dealers, gangbangers and prostitutes. Similar developments in other parts of the country have been extremely successful and considered responsible for turning around high-crime project neighborhoods.<BR/><BR/>There are many progressive African American residents of BHP who look forward to the redevelopment of the neighborhood as the best hope for the next generation and the best chance for all residents to have a reasonably pleasant environment. Complainers who preach to the choir don’t get this, and they never offer real solutions. Unfortunately, this is the loudest element. As the saying goes, “an empty barrel makes the most noise.”TruthWillSetYouFreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00244498773481833469noreply@blogger.com