If you want to do everyone a favor, including the impoverished, lower-class, maybe mobilizing to pass a city ordinance that caps the number of rental properties by neighborhood?
My interest is not in doing favors for anyone. My interest is in working for justice. As a full-time worker and single parent, I can't take on every issue. I take on the issues that interest me and that I feel I can have an impact on. If this is an issue that interests you, why don't you start the ball rolling. Others will join you. This is something I encourage everyone to do--work on the area that interests you. It's a division of labor that generally works out pretty well.
If it is truly society's goal (in the U.S.), to afford equal oppotunity, WHY NOT force every neighborhood to accept at least some of the down-trodden?
Sounds reasonable to me. Again, go for it.
[snip]
Personally, I have nothing but contempt for individuals that live in nice, middle-class neighborhoods that are working as "crusaders" against issues such as police brutality. Drive by my house 24/7 and see what I have to contend with, then drive into one of the more affluent neighborhoods, such as Bryn Mawr, or Kenwood and see what they have to contend with. As I write this, at the end of my block, there are 5-6 individuals (standing on the corner) selling drugs, and another 6-8 indivduals on the front porch of an abandoned house gambling. I make roughly 12-15 calls/week to 911 on this activity. It still occurs 24/7. Who's being brutalized?
I have nothing but contempt for individuals who presume to know my motivations for working on the issues I've chosen to work on. As a matter of fact--not that I owe you this explanation--I am a survivor of a serious incident of police brutality. So don't give me any BS about where I live or that I'm doing this work as any sort of "charity" effort. I've been doing this work for over 20 years, long before I lived in Bryn Mawr or Minneapolis for that matter. As to my "class status," I happen to be a renter who has lived in the same duplex for nine years. I rent because I can't afford to buy. I moved here because it was close to the school I wanted my daughter to attend and we've stayed because our landlord has been reasonable in our rent increases. If we moved, our rent would go up a lot.
My work around police brutality issues is an extension of the anti-racism work I have done for decades. This work has included trying to keep David Duke out of office (unsuccessful the first time, successful the second time), unseating the white-supremacist mayor of Selma, AL, taking on the KKK directly many times (including staring down the barrel of a shotgun being held by one of those creeps), etc. What I learned over the years is that while it is important to work actively against the overt purveyors of racism, it is equally important to work at ending systematic forms of racism in our society.
As I've said many times on this list, withholding of services is the flip side of police brutality. This has been an ongoing problem on the Westbank, Jordan and other neighborhoods. Just as we are taking legal action to effect policy changes to reduce police brutality, we are gathering info and considering a legal action to deal with withholding of services. I would encourage you to consider becoming involved in that effort since it is an area that clearly concerns you.
Michelle Gross
Bryn Mawr
TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.)
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