Detroit, America's first big city reconverted to prairie, is one-third Muslim. The city is in its sixth day of mourning for the death of Fadlallah, a mullah listed by the US Government as a terrorist for the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine corps barracks in Beirut (241 soldiers were killed). The pic is an "before and after" image of the St. Cyril neighborhood in Detroit, that captures the idea of vast tracts of urbanized land returning to nature. Progress, some will say.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
The Greening of Detroit
Detroit, America's first big city reconverted to prairie, is one-third Muslim. The city is in its sixth day of mourning for the death of Fadlallah, a mullah listed by the US Government as a terrorist for the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine corps barracks in Beirut (241 soldiers were killed). The pic is an "before and after" image of the St. Cyril neighborhood in Detroit, that captures the idea of vast tracts of urbanized land returning to nature. Progress, some will say.
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I've ranted about the Catholic church in the comment section of this blog before and I will take this opportunity to do so once more. A Papist writer by the name of E. Michael Jones has written an entire book (link-link-link) claiming that the destruction of the Catholic ethnic neighborhoods and cities of the North like Detroit was a WASP plot to break these neighborhoods and destroy their link with the RCC. The problem with EMJ's thesis is that by the time of the Civil Rights movement Detroit, Chicago and most other major cities were either in the hands of Catholic politicians or the politicians had to pander to the ethnic Catholic vote.
The image of St. Cyrils is appropriate since they did this to themselves. The Catholic mayor of Detroit during the late 1960's actually marched through the streets of his city with Martin Luther King (wiki) and instituted an affirmative action program for most city departments. As late as the late 1980's Michigan, which has a huge number of White Democrats, voted for Jesse Jackson in the Democratic caucus in that state.
The White voters of Detroit did this to themselves.
The sad fact is that few people link apparently inoffensive actions (like instituting affirmative action policy) with total loss of their homes and investments in real estate, businesses, society.
Most people, when it comes to joining the dots and extrapolating, are pretty limited and really incapable of either taking an interest in the long term, or understanding long chains of cause-and-effect.
Hence it is pretty easy to manipulate them.
Anon.
Most people, when it comes to joining the dots and extrapolating, are pretty limited and really incapable of either taking an interest in the long term, or understanding long chains of cause-and-effect.
Hence it is pretty easy to manipulate them.
Anon.
If somebody would have said in 1965 to the good people of St Cyril that affirmative action would have the effect of an atom bomb on their neighborhood, he would be considered not only bigoted racist but deranged.
J said...
The sad fact is that few people link apparently inoffensive actions (like instituting affirmative action policy) with total loss of their homes and investments in real estate, businesses, society.
Yes, but if you look back at my original post I stated that Jesse Jackson won the MI Democratic caucus in 1988. By 1988 most of the Whites had been purged from the city, major sections of it had already been set on fire, and a massive Black crime wave had swept the metro area. Despite this MI and a lot of other Catholic-heavy still repeatedly vote Democratic.
In American politics there are two polarized camps. One camp is composed of White Protestants (and Mormons) who give 70%+ of their vote to the GOP and the coalition of color which gives 65-98% of its vote the Dems depending on the group. Between these two extremes sit White Catholics, who usually split their vote around 50-50, give or take five points. However, those five point swings typically are enough to swing elections in the Rust Belt. In the 2008 election an economic scare in the October before the November election shifted the WC vote to Obama (link).
Not knowing the consequences in 1960 is understandable. Not knowing the consequences in 2008, after your parents have been expelled from their historic neighborhoods, their houses burned to the ground and entire city blocks reduced to grassland is almost inexcusable.
I think what happened in 2008 will be attempted again in the fall 2010 elections and this will keep the Rust Belt in the Democratic column. The Red states will clean house and elect more conservative politicians, while the Blue states will go back to their vomit. The net effect will be to polarize the country even further.
Not knowing the consequences in 1960 is understandable.
Not a few Americans knew and said what was about happen. People just dont believe in Cassandras.
If they don't change their behavior after six decades, then do you honestly think they will ever learn? They swung to Obama after an economic scare was spread that was aimed at them.
Essentially the entire region is almost a separate nation, with its own founding myth of immigrant Catholics working in massive plants to survive and voting Democratic as group against the establishment.
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