Pause.....My New Neighbors are Black?!?

Abuja, the Nigerian federal capital was designed in a way that it keeps the "common" folks out. In the capital, you have a bunch of satellite towns that sandwich the Abuja where common folks have to commute, back and forth to earn a living. Interestingly, the commute further impoverishes them.

The Nigerian elites, those that were anxious to take over the "white man's " legacy of Government Reserved Areas (GRA) created communities that excluded black Africans, except their servants, cooks and drivers, people who all lived in what is called Boy's Quarters (BQ). The BQ in North America is called outhouse.

In many African countries, especially areas where the British colonised, you find variations of this theme. Same story, but with different names and characters.

I guess this is why I find this issue interesting. The idea that someone can be labeled a "hoodrat" where you invoke associated cultural traits. But here is the question, how did suburban life begin? Was it really about the American dream, or to keep the black people out?

I would be glad if Americans can enlighten me on this topic. This is one of the topics I wish I understood.If individuals can't live in any neigbourhood of there choice, if they can afford it, then where do those arguing about the invasion of "hood rats" expect them to live?

Here we talk about human beings without value and socially identify them as human rats now invading a neigbourhood , an abusive term and a wrong social marker in my opinion. It is no different when Gadaffi calls his own people cockroaches and rats. It is still the same sense of entitlement that runs through.

I am educated. I have worked so hard. I am intelligent, and very smart to boot. I have a good career, and I should have my own space and woe betides anyone who does not subscribe to this sort of elitist thinking that once masqueraded as racism.

But back then, it was called white flight. White folks running away from the cities, leaving those places run down and without a tax base to take care of the amenities that were once the pride of these cities.

I have a feeling I am never going to understand this.

 

Housing vouchers a golden ticket to pricey suburb

Housing vouchers a golden ticket to pricey suburbs
By Stephanie McCrummen, Published: June 25

CHARLOTTE — It was clear that Liza Jackson’s luck had changed when she drove her pearl-white Dodge sedan, the one with the huge pink plastic eyelashes over the headlights, into Pinebrook, an eight-year-old subdivision where residents tend to notice cars with huge pink eyelashes.

“There goes the neighborhood,” one homeowner said when she heard that her potential new neighbor had a federal housing voucher known as a Section 8.

But Jackson could well be Pinebrook’s salvation, a means by which landlords can rent an empty, crime-magnet of a house to a tenant with a steady, government-backed check.

From Jackson’s point of view, the dismal housing market appeared as a glorious reversal of fortune: Fresh swaths of suburbia were opening up to the very people it has so often excluded.

She had seen one house, and now she rolled up to another, a tan three-bedroom with red shutters. She got out and looked around, a vaguely glamorous vision crossing the grass in a long, leopard-print dress. She peeked into the windows, making out what appeared to be vaulted ceilings.

“Dang,” Jackson said approvingly.

She put the house, a foreclosure turned rental, on her list of possibilities.

The reasons for this irony are mostly familiar. A steadily dropping homeownership rate, 5 million to 11 million more foreclosures in the pipeline, and a raft of investors buying them up have led to a proliferation of rentals in the land of lawns and cul-de-sacs.

But as housing prices keep slipping and the economy remains shaky, there’s been another shift as more landlords view the approximately 2 million American families with a Section 8 voucher — which essentially subsidizes fair-market rent for people who can’t afford it — as among the best ways to fill an empty house.



read more

 

trust me when i tell you that the reverse is met with the same groans...

pause.....my new neighbor is a white girl....

very soon after i bought my house...my next door neighbors nephew that was newly divorced and down on his luck living with his aunt and hating every minute of it...says to me, can i ask you a question? why did you buy a house in this neighborhood? my answer...because it was for sale and in my price range...

you would think that people would be happy when you make improvements to your home...not in my neighborhood...there are now 5 houses on the block owned by white families...2 white families renting...2 mixed couples...2 hispanic families and the rest are black...the tables are turning and the black families don't like it...it is now unacceptable to not care for your lawn...have your trees trimmed....bushes maintained...new fences are going up...junk cars are being towed away...the police are on our block a couple of times a week...

interestingly enough it is possible to live amongst the white...black...mixed and latino...people don't like change...this i will say, if you are never faced with challenges in your life...you will never learn anything...

if you are an adult still living in your parents house in a suburb then your life experience is limited at best...get out...pay your own bills...find a place to live...then come back here and complain about someone from your own race taking advantage of a foreclosure or short sale...that could be you...what are you going to do at the first block party? qualify yourself by telling them your parents address...smdh at the pure ignorance

i find it humorous how some of the threads relate yet if you read what some posters write from thread to thread their reponses don't match...after reading this thread then go read the thread about moving out of the hood

many say...get out of the hood as soon as possible...in this thread, just don't move next door to me and bring down the neighborhood:mrgreen:

 

good post....today you learn a new term, "hypocrite".....

 

Classism has always been a problem for society regardless of race.

 

trust me i learned all about hypocrisy long ago...it is unfortunate that it is so prevalant on this forum...

 

but not from me sunshine....

 

I remember that article. Even though I can't stand when people try to brush racism under the rug by saying how "It's not about race, it's all class!" this article is pretty much just about class. The only difference is they felt the need to mention the races of the people involved.

As someone who has lived in the suburbs their entire life I can sympathize with the people worried about the changing class demographics in their neighborhood. I live in an all black suburb and people here come and go but sometimes you have people that move here who just really bring a lot of bad habits with them.

I'm not saying it's always intentional but when I read things like this:

Umm no. You can't do things like that. If you live in a suburb you have to take care of your lawn and you have to take care of your property. Your property reflects on the neighborhood and on other neighbors who potentially want to sell their house. It affects how potential buyers see the neighborhood and can determine property value not just for you but for your neighbors as well.

I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to move to a better neighborhood but it can be extremely annoying when people bring baggage with them. Kids who don't behave, shiftless relatives, or when they pile 12 in a house like they used to on the opposite corner from mine, kids hanging out in the park across the street until midnight yelling and laughing, etc. Most of those types are not from around here. We're all black but that doesn't mean we're all on the same page.

 

This and many others is why I have that deep connection with you on many things. I don't have to be Nigerian you know, love can still flow and admiration can still blossom across borders

On a more serious note, your post resonates on many levels. I agree with your take. Sometimes growing up means confronting our insecurities and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. Life does not have to be perfect, you learn a lot of lessons from imperfections.

That said, I would say old habits die hard. It is hard to understand that people are coming into a neigbourhood to improve its value. For some folks, they would think it is gentrification taking place and they are systematically being priced out. Neigbourhoods are mean't to grow, consolidate and die. It helps if people can help stabilize or extend its useful life.

Housing is also a market. It is what it is. It makes sense to treat it as an investment and not something to get too emotional about. What I have always hated is the discriminatory aspect of the housing market. Yes, I understand the sentiment that people don't want people to bring some nuisance value to their neigbourhoods, yet there are ways to balance the objectives that support this with progressive policies and without discriminatory policies.

 

revitalization is not new...a term used more on historic properties...property protected from being torn down...new is not always better...there is something to be said for a neighborhood with a bit of character...new neighborhoods lack landscaping and trees with deep roots...one of things i love most about our house is the tree in the backyard...a maple tree with a trunk that measures three feet in diameter...

 

I love those three words. Revitalization, historic and character. They seem to all have a thread and carry through a theme in your line of thinking. Probably, it means revitalization brings a fresh and modern use to a historic property and in the end also maintains the stability of an old property in modern use. In that sense, character is maintained when in use, to the extent that you can link or connect it back to its date in its certain historical period.

Good buzz words: those three words.

What about if they are just a way of seeing the world, Lippy?