Baltimore

I know you gots lots of jokes, but do some reading about Maryland's history. It's a lot more complicated than "Blue state!" Read that Post link I just shared. Decisions that were being made by Dixiecrats in the 1930s and 1940s segregating the city and essentially making black home ownership impossible turned the city into a fucking mess that's still being felt today. Every time I drive to my house, I drive past big ass Southern mansions (in the city) that wouldn't be at all out of place in South Carolina or Georgia. Maryland fucking hated Abe Lincoln, loved owning slaves, and would have likely succeeded if it hadn't been terrified Pennsylvania would have rode down and whipped its ass right quick.

 

YankeeFan is far too smart to believe that black people in Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, Milwaukee or anywhere else just ended up staying by their own choice and without any redlining or don't-sell-to-them real-estate laws.

 

Over time, deindustrialization took their decent blue-collar jobs, too. And because we never invested in the kind of education low-income urban communities would need to find work in a post-industrial world, low-skilled workers today are left with worse prospects today than they had two generations ago.

Did we not invest the money, or did City leaders, and Big Education waste the money:

The Baltimore school system ranked second among the nation's 100 largest school districts in how much it spent per pupil in fiscal year 2011, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The city's $15,483 per-pupil expenditure was second to New York City's $19,770. Rounding out the top five were Montgomery County, which spent $15,421; Milwaukee public schools at $14,244; and Prince George's County public schools, which spent $13,775.

Baltimore second in per-pupil spending, according to Census Bureau - tribunedigital-baltimoresun

 

Well, we've certainly created a cycle of poverty, and dependency.

And the root causes may go back 75 years, and even further to America's history of slavery.

But, we've also had a War on Poverty for 50 years now. Seems the cure might be worse than the decease. We'll always have poverty, but it's dependency that is soul stealing.

And, while it's hard to break a cycle, we do have to look at what folks are, or are not, doing to perpetuate it. The breakdown of the African-American family can't be ignored. 73% of African-American kids are born out of wedlock. That's a problem, and some of the policies we've put into place to fight poverty have contributed to it.

Now the Washington Post would have us believe that the breakdown of the family is a natural progression from unemployment and incarceration, but i'm not so sure it's that simple either:

It's little wonder, then, that dealing drugs might look like a viable way to keep a family afloat in a neighborhood with soaring unemployment. It's no wonder that incarceration would follow, along with family breakdown.

To what degree has unemployment and incarceration been a progression that begins with the breakdown of the family?

 

To whatever degree it is that you want to blame poor black people for everything. Which seems like a high degree tonight.

 

Where'd I say that?

I just said that government policies over the last 50 years piled dependency on top of poverty.

 

Yeah. I just used shorthand.

The government policy of making felons out of nonviolent low-level drug users and dealers has done a hundred times the damage of whatever you think those other programs did. By all measures poverty was being reduced until the early 1980s.

 

Who are the non-violent drug dealers exactly?

The drug trade goes hand-in-hand with gangs. Turf is defended with guns.

It's been in all the news.

 

If you want to talk abut some of the driving infractions, which results in fines that double and triple when they aren't paid promptly, or even missed child support payments, then you might be on to something.

But, let's not pretend the inner city drug dealer is involved in a non-violent, victimless crime.

 

This is LOL funny.

 

I think he was referring to the radically harsher penalties that were instituted for crack possession in the 1980s, while the penalties for more expensive drugs like cocaine were significantly lighter.