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It’s Complicated
Soon after finally getting racial segregation abolished, black activist groups have started demanding racial segregation – even demanding their own country, in some cases. Many blacks view America as irredeemably racist. Martin Luther King wanted blacks to become full-fledged Americans, but modern black activist groups have adopted distinctly anti-American messages, as evidenced by so many black athletes refusing to stand for the flag before games, and the flag-burning in the picture to the right, and so on.
I find this so very sad. But after seeing pictures from the funeral of famed black civil rights activist John Lewis, I was not only sad but also confused. See if you notice the same thing I did from the picture below:
The black lives matter activists must have been horrified at the pictures of their hero draped in a symbol of racism. Or perhaps they weren’t. If not, then why not? The world must be a very complicated place to such people. Although I suspect many of them haven’t given such things a whole lot of thought.
They like the security, wealth, and traditions of America. They just prefer to be seen as outsiders in a country that they would never leave, because they love it here despite hating it. Or something. Maybe all that makes sense to them. But to me, it seems complicated.
Published in General
Kweisi Mfume represents Maryland’s 7th district which covers Baltimore and Howard County.
He succeeded Elijah Cummings.
Montgomery, Fairfax and Prince George’s = DC Potomac swamp
Fairfax and Montgomery Counties offer better schools. The University of Maryland has a huge footprint in PG but DC has Georgetown, American, Howard, George Washington, UDC, and Catholic. And professionals tend to integrate with professionals. These are the richest counties in the nation.
Arlington City – 2nd
Falls Church City – 3rd
Alexandria City – 5th
Fairfax County – 8th
Montgomery County – 11th
Howard County (to the north, toward Baltimore) – 15th
Loudoun (west of Fairfax County) – 19th
Washington City – 23rd
Fairfax City – 28th
Prince Georges County – 208th
And because these are the richest counties in the nation, the cost of living is very high. PG is relatively affordable.
My bad.
I already agreed.
“Please don’t hurt us.”
But the median home price is $320,500. That’s pretty high.
Affordable compared to what is west and south of them.
I’m still blown away that the median household income is $83k.
If you do a table of household incomes and property values by jurisdiction on the counties and cities I listed, it will make sense. Then imagine 1st generation immigrants living 3 to a room or more to clean those houses and work construction.
Well, it makes sense because of it’s location, I suppose. But it’s way above the national mean isn’t it? According to the American Community Survey, the U.S. median household income in 2018 was $61,937. But on the other hand it’s still not up in the ballpark with it’s neighbors.
hypocrisy and lies
Sanford and Son was a better, more funny, cutting edge show.
why do so many DC workers live in wealthy cities or counties?
Maybe ‘permanent’ federal employees are overpaid?
thank you for correcting me about Anthony Brown. He looks impressive on paper.
please don’t loot our stores
For Los Angeles, that figure was high in 1975
which is why it’s better to look at median household income by state or region but even that is flawed
urban areas generally have higher incomes than rural areas but the cost of living in a city is higher unless it’s delivery, etc
compare that to median college tuition is 36k?
the problem with househould income is that households vary in size
Also in calculating income, do we include or exclude welfare?
AFDC + section 8 subsidy + medicaid + food stamps = ?
That being my point, but also it is telling just how far out of kilter it all is.
Fairfax County median household income is $121,000, twice what it is in PG, for example. People retiring from Fairfax typically buy twice the home for half the price when they return to the world.
PG is the county where someone on a normal income can get by if they have work in the area, and so they do. It is a place where enlightened DC inner city residents can transition to a place that is safe but still affordable where a middle class culture mostly prevails over underclass culture. Military pay adjustments for the DC area have never kept up with the DC area cost of living, so a lot of military either sleep on friends coaches, including a Lieutenant Colonel of my acquaintance who slept for a year in a friend’s living room and help his family with expenses rather than establishing a bachelor pad. And that often happens in PG.
There is nowhere in the DC area where incomes are as depressed as, say, AOC’s Bronx, where median household income is around 27,000.
Still, I think there is a subtext to this discussion that I am missing. Fairfax County is 9% black, and include a very high proportion of lawyers, doctors, judges, nurses, and other professionals. I guess the question becomes, if one adjusted all the numbers for cost of living, how would DC area black communities compare with other communities across the nation. For me, having lived in PG and Montgomery and Fairfax County over decades, the issue is that, like the military, there is a culture in the DC area that allows people traditionally considered disadvantaged and labeled as lacking the raw materials to rise socially and economically to rise socially and economically. As the first college graduate in my family, I identify with people who are overachieving while recognizing that all levels of human achievement deserve respect and dignity. I have met heroes of all colors and surnames and achievement levels. Opportunity matters. I have sat with a Charter school teacher who escaped the inner city and was passionately working to pay that back to a new generation and heard his disappointment that the first black president, shutting it down.
We may need a second thread to solve all of these problems. ;-)
I have watched Charles Murray and Thomas Sowell and many others try to get closer to truth by wrestling those issues, and every study makes its own peace with them depending on the question at hand.
The ecosystem is way more toxic than that. Lawyers (way more than you can imagine), lobbyists, a few thousand generals, every company that wants to do business with the federal government, SEIU and every other union that has or wants to have clout, most of the country’s think tanks, the Smithsonian museums, federal Department and Agency headquarters, the Pentagon, Fort Belvoir, Andrews Air Force Base, the Navy Yard, Fort Meade, Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Langley, Goddard Space Flight Center, many major universities, and, most important of all, Kilroy’s, host of many Ricochet Meetups.
You forgot the NSA. They have their own exit off 495. [Or is it the BW Pkwy?]
No Such Agency.
I saw a BBC video or two on black Americans who have decided to move back to Africa. Well, I think they are exaggerating their problems here but then I haven’t walked in their shoes and maybe they do prefer being where they don’t have to identify as ”black” because everybody else is, too. And some of Africa has growing economies to start businesses in and are free of violence. But then they PICK the best spots and away from war zones, as well as going there with more money so they can enter the higher income levels. Well, much luck and I wish they could take all the ”malconented” with them. It might help both continents.
And as for graffi sprayed on park property (which is happening to the bases of knocked down statues)….no WAY should they be “preserved” which has been suggested somewhere. Tear the whole thing down,not just the easy part. The rest of us don’t want to look at sloppy multicolor barely legible kindergarten quality paint just like you didn’t like the statues. And no, they weren’t “tall” to make you look “up,” they were mounted like that for a wider view from further out. Like how flags etc. are raised. It has to do with optics.
Brilliant analysis, as well as congent and concise! Well done!