There was another topic and thread that addressed a potential hate crime in Center City. Rather than get too far off of the topic in that thread I thought I would post my thoughts to a new topic.

A link to the old thread is here:

http://phillyblog.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4743

I agree. The problem of racism in Philadelphia is like the elephant in the room. It confronts us every day. I moved to Philadelphia five years ago this week. Since my very first day in Philadelphia I have confronted racism. While this has happened to me before, it was not as often or as blatant as in Philadelphia.

I have lived in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Francisco, Washington DC, Boston and here. I believe that the problems in this city are the most acute. In my mind it’s because in many ways this is the most integrated of the cities I have lived in. People are forced to interact with each other on a daily basis – which isn’t necessarily true in those other cities.

Also, for being the City of Brotherly Love there appears to be a good amount of hostility in the way people treat each other. In my mind, it is somehow tied to the same attitude that makes people toss batteries at Eagles games. People in this town just don’t respect other people outside their neighborhood. Philadelphia is a very provincial city. It has lost the vision, and sense of community that once made it a world-class city. This loss of vision affects EVERY aspect of the way the city does business.

Is there an organization that successfully promotes tolerance and understanding? What can be done to change this situation? I truly believe that it is what keeps Philadelphia from being a world-class city!

Bgandersen, jsut out of curiosity what race were you and where were these incidents. It seems certain neighborhoods are better for people of certain races.

That's definitely a huge part of it. I also think that there's the ghetto mentality where people aer overly protective of their neighborhood and keeping "others" out. When these people leave their neighborhood and venture into more diverse areas like Center City, they take their attitudes with them and unleash them when they meet people of the "other" race they do not like.


I'd say better schools and better parents are a start but that's a long term solution and, unfortuantely, will not be initiated anytime soon. The spread of Center City, whcih si the msot diverse area of the city and least provincial because there are people from everywhere, helps alot since it creates a bigger enclave in the city where people are tolerated. Unfortuatnely, alot of trash does flow into CC because it is the hub and because it is an enclave. I think some more immediate solutiosn such as better patrols on the streets, more arrests of drug abusers, and a general level of "we will not tolerate this" in the traditional nuisance areas like South Street will go a long way. I think to get quality of life you msut draw the line and say such and such is not toelrated. In a city where crackheads wander with impunity down are streets, the general emssage the city sends out is ":anything goes", be it hate crimes or what have you.

CC, although I agree that center city residents tend to be more superficially tolerant of people who aren't like them, I don't know where you get the idea that center city is diverse.

Check out the maps at Penn's neighborhood data site:

http://cml.upenn.edu/nbase/

Center city, compared to the stats for the city as a whole, is disproportionately white. I didn't look at all of the neighborhoods (I'm supposed to be at work, after all), but West Kensington is the most diverse neighborhood I could find.

I think improved public schools are the key to a more integrated Philadelphia, NOT arresting homeless drug addicts and throwing away the key.

Check out Temple's undergrad population: it's a mirror of the city as a whole and it's one of the most diverse and integrated universities in the entire country. Unfortunately, those students (unless they go to magnet schools like CAPA or Central) never see each other until they get to college, even though they may only live a few blocks away from each other.

__________________
Blasted holes in the night til she bled sunshine

Yep, and Kensington is a low income area too. Funny how that works, eh?

Compared to other neighborhoods, it is. Plus, you do have many people of non-White backgrounds who come into Center City to work, shop, play, etc. Generally speaking, people who do not like diversity do not choose to live in Center City. Further, jsut because a neighborhood is diverse does not necessarily mean people get along. I haven't been to West Kensington for a while but in many of the neighborhoods you have people living near each other but still not communicating.
Also, I'm a cynic and I believe all of us harbor some sort of prejudice or another. It may not be racial prejudice, but it may be religious prejudice, prejudice against people of a certain profession, prejudice against people from certain parts of the U.S., etc. This came out loud and clear after 9/11 when alot of people who would otherwise seem level headed suddenly exhibited their innate bigotry against Moslems, Arabs, and anyone who looked Moslem or Arab. That said, while many people harbor some sort of prejudice, it seems at least most people do not exhibit it outwardly. The exceptions to this, of coruse, are the people who are vehemently prejudiced, the people who are mentally deranged and can't use their judgment not to say anything prejudiced, people who are drunk, and people who are drugged up. With this in mind, a place where people are at least superficially tolerant is alraedy 200% better than a place where people express their prejudices openly.

Hi CC. I most definitely agree with you that everyone harbors prejudices, and that most don’t exhibit it outwardly. But I guess I don’t find the politeness of center city residents as reassuring as you do.

Center city people may be polite enough not to stare when someone different steps onto their bus, but just as they’ve learned to ignore the presence of others when they walk down the street, they also look the other way when they know that the neighborhood schools in working-class/lower-class neighborhoods are terrible and non-center city kids are getting shot and killed when they play in the street.

Maybe we have different definitions of diversity. People from all over the city coming into center city to work and play certainly makes center city more diverse than, say, Port Richmond, but that’s exactly the superficial diversity that I’m talking about. Sure, that pizza shop around the corner from your house is owned by Greeks and staffed by Mexicans and delivered by African-Americans, but all those people go back to their homes and families at night, and there’s absolutely no substantive interaction between the white residents of center city and the non-center city Philadelphians who staff the businesses and go to the Gallery and ride the subways.

I guess I’m most troubled by what I see as a very elitist, classist thread running through your argument. You seem to be saying that only the rich people of Center City are educated & sophisticated enough to appreciate and achieve diversity, which simply isn’t true. It also still seems like you’re arguing that Gentrification = Diversity, which is one of the more backwards arguments I’ve heard in a while.

I can sit next to any person on Septa, but that doesn’t mean I know a single thing about how they live or where they come from. The people in Kensington may not always get along, but they’re a lot closer to achieving integration in their neighborhood than any of the people who live in center city. I’d rather see people living together and fighting than people watching each other from afar, falsely thinking they’re making progress because no one is so impolite to talk about race and class issues.

Tenthousandrobots, I respect your opinion. However, the way I see it, you can choose your friends but not your neighbors. I hate racists and I don't choose them for my friends. I can't help who lie in my neighborhood, however. That said, I'd rather live in a neighborhood where people at least do not openly express their inner biogtries than in one where people go around spouting racist junk. That just makes for an unpleasant experience. True, a neighborhood where the majority of people do not hold prejudices whatsoever would be idea but where is such a neighborhood?

I agree that the best solution is to improve the public schools. However, this is unlikely to happen in our lifetime. That's the sad reality. In the meanwhile, we have tons of crackheads running loose. They harrass people for change, they steal bikes, and, yes, they spout racist junk. Having these people running around does nothing but set a bad example for others in the city. People have little reason to take pride in Philadelphia when they see these people out and about. People also ahve littel incentive to be civil to each other when you have these freaks running around being uncivil by shouting obscenities and racist garbage. I think crackheads are the lowest form of life on the planet. The fact that they took to doing crack is a red flag in and of itself. Sure they may have been "driven" to do it by their situation in life but normal people are able to cope with bad luck. These people instead get drugged up and mess their brains up so bad that they can never re-enter normal life even if they wanted to. PLus, given all the negative publicity about crack these people knew what they were getting into when they first did it. I have no sympathy for that. The fact that crack makes people become mentally deranged and spout racist junk only makes matters worse. Besides, doing crack is a crime and these people need to go to jail. I say lock them up and throw away the key.

It seems that you are a drug warrior.

The US has more people locked up in prison just for drug offenses than the entire EU has for all offenses, even though the EU has 100 million more people in it than the US. The US prison population has skyrocketed since 1987, mostly because of harsh sentencing of drug addicts (like what you'rew advocating). Not to mention that the drug laws target minorities at much higher rates than white, even though drug use is about even across racial lines.

And in spite of all of this incarceration, that crack addict on the corner is still there, after all these years. Drug use hasn’t gone down. The government’s been trying as hard as it can to throw all drug users in jail and it turns out that prison doesn’t help the problem. It costs more to incarcerate someone than to treat them for their addiction – and when that person gets out of prison, they’ll still be hooked on drugs and ready to start hustling again when they get out.

I also think it’s a very sad thing when you say that you’re ready to give up on improving schools and instead throw your heart into expanding incarceration. You seem to think you’re taking the high moral ground with your law-and-order view of the world but I honestly think that the position you’re taking is nothing short of immoral.

I’ve said what I need to say. Thanks for engaging me, CC. I’m taking a break from this discussion – it’s turned into the Robot and CC Show. Maybe someone else wants to pipe in and offer their views?

I am interested to see how my post on racism migrated to the homeless and drug addiction.