Gentrification, Indianapolis, and The United Way

[WebSnyper]

Years ago when I was filling out paperwork with a new job the HR lady told me I need to check this box as it was mandatory that I give a minimum of 1% of my gross to United Way. I told her, she was confused.

Yeah, that would have been a hard No. Offering opportunity for matching donations, etc is all good, until someone/anyone makes any of this type of thing mandatory.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/unders...acism-a-four-part-series-tickets-113770612966

My employer has asked it's employees to watch the new series from the United Way of Indianapolis called "Understanding the Roots of Racism".

The second in the series was in regard to Housing. There was a gentleman as part of the panel who's first name was Wildstyle (I don't recall his last name) and he was discussing something called "White Flight". This concept was presented as the act of white homeowners/renters moving out of housing areas when black homeowners/renters moved in. This was discussed at some length between the moderator and panelists before moving on to the next point - Gentrification. As presented in the forum, this is a real problem. Gentrification occurs when white homeowners/renters move into housing areas that are primarily occupied by what they described at black homeowners/renters. The panel explained that this causes property taxes and rents to increase and negatively affects those long term residents. I'd never heard of the term so I did a quick google search and the definition given is slightly different than the United Way presentation.

I found it very disconcerting that the previous point was that 'whites' moving out of an area was a terrible thing and the very next point was that 'whites' moving into an area was also an equally terrible thing. Am I missing something? I consider myself an active learner, critical thinker, and do appreciate hearing a variety of view points and life experiences. I am brought to a halt when there are discussion points that are sharply opposing stances offered by the exact same speaker within the same discussion panel. When everyone's heads were nodding in agreement to both points it causes me to take a step back. What am I missing? This is a championed by my employer.

Search Results
Dictionary
gen·tri·fi·ca·tion

/ˌjentrəfəˈkāSH(ə)n/
Learn to pronounce

noun

• the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste.
  "an area undergoing rapid gentrification"

I'm curious, in the end, what solution do they propose to the issues that are presented?

On the overall aspect of this: I get a fair amount of this type of stuff pushed by my employer. I generally avoid the social agenda. My purpose for working is to provide and support my family, and I generally separate other personal aspects from my job as much as I can. Just seems the best way to navigate to me. I'm at work to earn a living, bring return to the company and its shareholders and to bring solutions and good results for my customers. I'm not interested in someone at work deciding how I think, and where/how I spend my earnings, etc.

 

[MCgrease08]

Only thing I can add to all of this is a strong reccomendation you never try and debate any of this head on.

It's like a deeply religious person arguing with a devout athiest that God exists or an avowed athiest arguing with a deeply religious person that God doesn't exist. The critical theory stuff in the end is a matter of faith. Statistics, argumentation, etc won't have any impact. The ones that support the position will be accepted and the ones that don't will be dismissed.

The only thing you can do is be alert for people starting to question it and then be open to talking to them when you see that. I wouldn't do that in a professional context for a thousand reasons -- just talking about in your personal life here.

To carry the religion metaphor a little further here -- for the Wokened there is no third position, no agnosticism. I'm a pretty extreme agnostic. I have no idea if God exists or not. I have yet to meet a religious person or an atheist who really has a problem with me saying that. They will certainly disagree, but I've never been attacked for it. For the woke it's for or against, full stop.

Being right won't matter in a professional context, so your frame of reference and goal has to navigating the waters. Pure pragmatism. Save the stands for out of work.


**Edit
Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay have articulated the above ideas the most clearly and most rigorously. If you're encountering this stuff for the first time outside of social media, it's worth looking them up.

In particular, Lindsay's website newdiscourses is a really valuable resource for understanding exactly what you are dealing with. Think of it as a depth chart for navigating this stuff.

https://newdiscourses.com/translations-from-the-wokish/

Before you dismiss the above link, scroll down to any definition's "new discourses commentary"

The first block of text is always what the woke mean in their own circles.

The commentary is plain language criticism and translation which is the "help you navigate this crap" part.

I need to spread the rep around, but quoting this to bump to the next page. I've been banging this drum for years. Boghossian and Lindsay are experts on explaining this stuff, along with Brett Weinstein, who was targeted by the woke mob and basically run out of Evergreen University, which was essentially on of the first big public examples of just how pervasive this stuff has gotten in Universities.

Both Weinstein and Lindsay have done excellent interviews on Joe Rogan's podcast within the past few months. I'd encourage everyone to look those up and watch.

 

[larcat]

Goes back way further. There was a big dry run in the late 80s and through the mid 90s. The rhetorical tricks were much less well developed and it didn't have the institutional power is has now though:

Trigger warning : reading the rest of this post may ruin anyone's day.

While she was chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the school adopted a speech code banning hate speech, and she introduced a plan to more than double the number of new minority undergraduates. A federal judge ruled the speech code unconstitutional; critics said the minority recruitment plan could lead to admission decisions based on race.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/govt/admin/shalala.htm

https://shalala.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=2403

I need to spread the rep around, but quoting this to bump to the next page. I've been banging this drum for years. Boghossian and Lindsay are experts on explaining this stuff, along with Brett Weinstein, who was targeted by the woke mob and basically run out of Evergreen University, which was essentially on of the first big public examples of just how pervasive this stuff has gotten in Universities.

Both Weinstein and Lindsay have done excellent interviews on Joe Rogan's podcast within the past few months. I'd encourage everyone to look those up and watch.

 

[erasure]

a plan to more than double the number of new minority undergraduates. A federal judge ruled the speech code unconstitutional; critics said the minority recruitment plan could lead to admission decisions based on race.

"I'm going to make admissions decisions based on race!"

"You can't do that, it could lead to admissions decisions based on race!"

 

[JeepHammer]

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/unders...acism-a-four-part-series-tickets-113770612966

My employer has asked it's employees to watch the new series from the United Way of Indianapolis called "Understanding the Roots of Racism".

The second in the series was in regard to Housing. There was a gentleman as part of the panel who's first name was Wildstyle (I don't recall his last name) and he was discussing something called "White Flight". This concept was presented as the act of white homeowners/renters moving out of housing areas when black homeowners/renters moved in. This was discussed at some length between the moderator and panelists before moving on to the next point - Gentrification. As presented in the forum, this is a real problem. Gentrification occurs when white homeowners/renters move into housing areas that are primarily occupied by what they described at black homeowners/renters. The panel explained that this causes property taxes and rents to increase and negatively affects those long term residents. I'd never heard of the term so I did a quick google search and the definition given is slightly different than the United Way presentation.

I found it very disconcerting that the previous point was that 'whites' moving out of an area was a terrible thing and the very next point was that 'whites' moving into an area was also an equally terrible thing. Am I missing something? I consider myself an active learner, critical thinker, and do appreciate hearing a variety of view points and life experiences. I am brought to a halt when there are discussion points that are sharply opposing stances offered by the exact same speaker within the same discussion panel. When everyone's heads were nodding in agreement to both points it causes me to take a step back. What am I missing? This is a championed by my employer.

Search Results
Dictionary
gen·tri·fi·ca·tion

/ˌjentrəfəˈkāSH(ə)n/
Learn to pronounce

noun

• the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste.
  "an area undergoing rapid gentrification"

I think the film, and definition are flawed...
And I'm sure that will make several blow a fuse, but you have to reach a little further back than the current state of the 'Definition' currently used, which is like most things in American english, it's been bastardized.

Being a bit of a historical buff, consider the areas that weren't 'Gentile', that would be mostly another religion in earlier times.
The most recent/common would be 'Gentile' used by Jews when non-Jews moved into a mostly Jewish neighborhood.

Keep in mind, when we all pretty much look alike, dividing lines usually run down religion or economic class lines.

When people immigrate into cities, they tend to group together from economic status, religion & customs.
Blacks tended to group with blacks, Irish to Irish, Catholics with Catholics, lower income with lower income, etc.
These people were also used to dealing with things in the 'Old Ways', instead of with American laws.
Some things that were Illegal were 'Customary' to some immigrants, and therefore accepted/allowed.

'White Flight's was as much economic status as anything, European immigrants tended to value education, and that allowed for more economic opertunities, which lead them to being able to afford better housing out of the lower income, very basic housing.

From within the US borders, or from outside the US borders, immigration to cities was an economic choice.
More people provided more customers for the production of your trade,
Or there were jobs for unskilled workers with no specific trade.
Either way, virtually everyone had to start at the bottom and work up *IF* there wasn't family money for advanced education.

Now, this is strictly history, there weren't any social programs to keep the 'Poor' from starving to death, dying of disease, etc.

The first use of 'gentrification' I can remember seeing in historical context was the building of common sanitary sewers in Boston.
Ben Franklin spent a lot of his personal fortune building sewers after typhoid/typhus/yellow fever epidemics,
Was quoted as saying two things,
"If you do well, do good". And a very large part of his inventions did very well, he spent most of his fortune on social engineer projects, like clean water delivery & sewers.
The second was the water/sewers would make large areas (for 1700s) more 'Gentile', suitable for the human population that was exploding on the east coast at the same time.

Keep in mind that virtually 100% of the Franklin sewer system is still in use 200+ years later...

Now, since residents of the US have become largely science/education deniers,
And we all know there are areas of the country are governed by the law of the jungle instead of the laws of the land,
The current definition of 'Gentrification' refers more to the amount retail sales generation rather than to a socioeconomic, religion or race,point of origin status of residents.

Think about land prices of prime retail spots...
Big business has used imminent domain laws to evict people from their homes so they can build shopping malls, casinos, etc. with absolutely zero gains for the general population, what the imminent domain laws were originally designed for.

*IF* you decide to turn this into a race thing,
Then consider trailer park dwellers as a separate 'Race', along with any given religious group that is predominant in any given area.
When you decide it's about race, you just blew the bell curve for the Constitution...

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

All of these folks that rant about racism in America need to travel around the world a bit and I would bet just after a short visit to***,, say Japan and get told a few times that they will not be served just because they are Americans will have an enlightening...

I went to Japan in 2017 and had no such issue. Everyone was super nice to us.

 

[Hoosierdood]

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to JeepHammer again."

 

[Clay Pigeon]

I went to Japan in 2017 and had no such issue. Everyone was super nice to us.

My youngest just spent about 8 months at four different Marine corp bases in Japan and two in Okinawa and had this happen in town at every base. Japan has paid protesters outside of every MC base. He had a great time in Japan even when this happened.
Were you traveling as a tourist or wearing camo on deployment?

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

My youngest just spent about 8 months at four different Marine corp bases in Japan and two in Okinawa and had this happen in town at every base. Japan has paid protesters outside of every MC base. He had a great time in Japan even when this happened.
Were you traveling as a tourist or wearing camo on deployment?

You should have specified that is how they treat military personnel, because they don't treat non-.mil that way.

 

[Hookeye]

White flight did happen in many areas.
And those areas went into decline.

With prices low, some have moved back, and fixed things up.

Like it or not, it is what it is.

 

[hoosierdaddy1976]

I went to Japan in 2017 and had no such issue. Everyone was super nice to us.

That's because they were worried you would breathe fire and demolish buildings if you were angered.

 

[MCgrease08]

My youngest just spent about 8 months at four different Marine corp bases in Japan and two in Okinawa and had this happen in town at every base. Japan has paid protesters outside of every MC base. He had a great time in Japan even when this happened.
Were you traveling as a tourist or wearing camo on deployment?

To be fair, your original comment referred to racism towards "Americans", which in and of itself is kind of confusing because "American" isn't a race. Then you add context about protests of Marines stationed on bases in a foreign country.

There may be a number of reasons why someone in Japan might not like the idea of having US troops in their home country, none of which have to do with race.

I'd wager we might see protests in the US if we had multiple Japanese military bases around the country.

 

[Hookeye]

Watched some progressive BS show about race on CNN or somewhere......and it was black folks of some position saying white flight didnt happen.

Not kidding, within a month another show....blaming white flight for all the dem cities black crime problems.

Cant make this crap up.

Some folks will blame others no matter what.
Bo jangles doing the same ol song and dance for da man.....LOL

Actually had a black guy at work say that...and he did the soft shoe while saying it.

LMAO

 

[Hookeye]

To be fair, your original comment referred to racism towards "Americans", which in and of itself is kind of confusing because "American" isn't a race. Then you add context about protests of Marines stationed on bases in a foreign country.

There may be a number of reasons why someone in Japan might not like the idea of having US troops in their home country, none of which have to do with race.

I'd wager we might see protests in the US if we had multiple Japanese military bases around the country.

But we didnt lose that war.

 

[Hookeye]

People are people, after reading how the japs treated other asians, yeah......im gonna believe after 2 atomic bombs and the cultural humiliation of losing the war.......they all love anglos nowadays.

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

That's because they were worried you would breathe fire and demolish buildings if you were angered.

True story. I did get a lot of stares while there. And some polite chuckles when I smacked my head on the overhead handholds in buses and trains. One time I had a little old lady follow me around a grocery store the entire time I was inside.

 

[Clay Pigeon]

You should have specified that is how they treat military personnel, because they don't treat non-.mil that way.

Oh, I will work on those skills Frank, and you should work on your skills stating that you were on vacation visiting the tourist traps of Japan, and not in the small towns and villages that really are the makeup of the true Japanese culture. And I'll tell my son that the street clothes hes wearing while off base must not look like the tourist clothes that the typical tourist wears and maybe thats why they are told sometimes their money is not wanted by that business.

Haters Gonna Hate....

 

[Hoosierdood]

 

[Clay Pigeon]

I'd wager we might see protests in the US if we had multiple Japanese military bases around the country.

But we control that Con, remember we won that war.... Would Japanese still be spoken there without us?

 

[Clay Pigeon]

No ones upset here, true story... I have received some unbelievable PM's from some members over the last few years.. Haters gonna Hate...