The first principle is to understand how ghetto people think. They cannot organize as middle class people think. Middle class people think they will call a meeting, discuss their ideas and principles, hold other meetings, involve perhaps church people, or go to various city meetings on zoning so as to prevent MacDonalds from locating close in the neighborhood. Perhaps zoning would involve streeting cleaning, keeping out people who would depress home values, establishing covenents, looking for grants for local schools, and insuring that education would get its fair share of those grants, and perhaps one among them would run for the school board.
This is a familiar pattern among middle class invididuals in our society. But note these resources, at their disposal are not at the disposal of the average ghetto dweller.
Note that most ghetto dwellers:
Do not own their own homes, they are mostly renters;
Do not know their neighbors and might not trust them if they knew them;
Do not have disposable cash for meetings and do not have money for baby
sitters, and cannot to attend regular meetings at the zoning commission.
And middle class people do not have the daily problem of the police. You can go for days and not see policemen in a middle class neighborhood.
Not true in the ghetto. The police troll these neighborhoods, making arrests, shooting some and back again for those that do not show up for tickets, for those who cannot make court appearances, and many have their cars impounded and cannot make an appearance. If they do it might mean some children in their family might have to go hungry that day and many will not do that, so they skip the court hearing.
Their expenses are such they cannot take advantage of sales, that means extra cash they don't have and cannot get there to a given store to save 10 cents on an item. So they do not save as middle classs people routinely do, cash is not available in larger amounts, this implies, and in is short supply.
Their car insurance is redlined, and zip coded where their car insurance, is higher than their white neighbors. Their interest rates on that car loan is high 30-to 40 percent compared to 4-6 percent for their white neigbors and they have to buy high cost used cars.
Their cost for a home is at a similar high predatory interest rate with, where the bank really has a secret agenda to take back the home, buy up the homes in their area, scare out the remaining white residents, gentrify the entire area and rent it out at higher cost to richer white neighors.
Food is more expensive and often stores, if they even exist, are stocked with lower quality goods and produce and, often simply, don't have the variety and quantity you need for your larger family.
If you try to gain control over your neighborhood by voting out the rascals, you are confronted with hostile politicians, bankrolled by money from out of state by the Kochs who have millions to spend, or by those which neglect you, or those that actively suppress your votes, by either throwing you off the rolls, by closing polling places in your neighborhood, or you have so few polling places that you have to be stand in in line for hours and; at your low paying job, with a hostile boss you know you have 15 other people waiting to take your place.
If you cannot make bail after an arrest for j-walking [really people get arrested for this, city coffers and cops need the money,} you have to languish in jail, either until your trial date, months ahead, or until your cash strapped family can get together bail to get you out and anyway your job has gone to someone else.
This does not include the fact that people you love having been murdered by a stray bullet on last evening at the hands of the police or some gang-banger. The police do not even investigate,and most go unsolved, and, in fact, most police departments in this country are not even required to report shootings and killings by even their own police departments.
Your older relatives go to church and they pray, but you don't see how that is effective. You are counseled to work hard and you will succeed in the long run, but meantime, you fear for your mental health and the stress all of this is taking upon your and yours, your children, and your friends. Those that survive, are not killed, run away to the military, or drop out of this vale of tears see you feeling increasingly isolated.
What do you do to organize this depressed neighborhood to make it become effective, to defend its own interests and become a vibrant neighborhood among many competing for the city dollar?
First let's look at it from the top down because these issues have to be tacked from the top down and then from the bottom up.
First of all see;
A wonderful article clearly pointing out many of the misperceptions that middle-class people have about poor people who live in ghettos, primarily because real estate redlining during the 20th century forced people of color to live in substandard neighborhoods even if they had the means to leave. When the civil rights laws of the 1960s came along, the wealthy left those neighborhoods and those who are left had little political power except to occasionally riot for rights.
Houston, where I live, had wards, particularly the 3rd, 4th and 5th, that were segregated like this until the 1970s when economic opportunity in the oil business allowed many to leave those neighborhoods, making them poorer. But the churches stayed in the neighborhoods and remained strong with their parish members driving great distances back to their church on Sunday. There also were activist groups, including a newspaper and community group that continually worked on political solutions to local problems. When I came to the 3rd Ward to work for TSU, in 1981, there were both positive and negative changes going on. Two years later, when OPEC flooded the market with cheap oil, Houston's prosperity was challenged for the next six or seven years as dependence on oil moved toward international business.
One bank, locally owned in the 3rd Ward continued to operate under very trying conditions. It is quite prosperous today, along with several other businesses that persevered. And, new businesses are cropping up all the time. The location of the 3rd Ward, close to three universities, downtown, and the Houston Medical Center, has driven property values up and upscale lofts and service businesses are rapidly moving into the area. Since Houston doesn't have zoning, this kind of mixed-use property is common all over the city. When I came there, most Houstonians thought that the 3rd Ward was a dangerous part of town. I never found it to be true. Crime occurs all around the city and there are no more gangs or other crime operations in the 3rd Ward.
I agree with Glen Way. Enabling hard-working poor people to get a small slice of economic opportunity, worldwide, will give them the purchasing power to bring prosperity back to United States with our goods and services considered better than most. One of the examples of the success like this is Buick. General Motors had to stop making Pontiac and Oldsmobile, but kept Buick. By using Tiger Woods to advertise the car in China, Buick became a prestige item for newly rich Chinese. Reversing the flow of trade, unlike other products that we buy in mass quantities from China because they are cheap.
So, what in the world has happened that maybe I think we are over populated! You girls keep your legs crossed not your fingers!! I do get fired up, Lonnie!
