Crime & Section 8
December 30, 2008
You mean when you move dead beats into a neighborhood, rather than being uplifted by the nicer neighborhood, they bring the neighborhood down? Who would have thought?
As more and more black renters began moving into this mostly white San Francisco Bay Area suburb a few years ago, neighbors started complaining about loud parties, mean pit bulls, blaring car radios, prostitution, drug dealing and muggings of schoolchildren.
In 2006, as the influx reached its peak, the police department formed a special crime-fighting unit to deal with the complaints, and authorities began cracking down on tenants in federally subsidized housing.
The story makes this seem like a black-white issue. Which is ignorant. If you moved white people from the trailer park into Antioch, you'd seen similar increases in crime and associated drama.
Few will admit this: The dregs of society will remain dregs. Moving bad people into a good neighborhood doesn't make the bad people good; it makes the good neighborhood bad.
Of course, the very same people I will offend with my comments work very hard so that they don't have to live around the dregs. Diversity is great when it's a slogan. Diversity is great when it's not in our neighborhood.