POTD: South Portland Under Construction

That’s the problem drew, projects do exist outside of “my precious market ecomony” giving the residents no incentive to better themselves. Poor people need a place to live, but why in projects on prime real estate?

As to your belief that there is no drugs/crack being sold around Myrtle, what about the bust about a year ago in Walt Whitman Houses of a ring of drug dealers/gang members? See the link below: http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?&aid=39176&search_result=1&stid=9

This is NOT to say that all people in the projects are criminals. But your belief that there is no drug/crack dealing is wrong and your assumption that white people are racist because they have concerns about crime and drug dealing is wrong too and reveals your own stereotypes, based I’m sure on your own personal experience as all stereotypes and generalizations generally are.

I really think your argument that the whites in the neighborhood who complain about crime from the project does a disservice to blacks and other minorities by assuming that they do not have the same concerns. I’m sure that the hard working families your refer to in the projects don’t like the drug dealers either. If they spoke up and complained, does that make them racist. Is the Black 9.34am Anonymous poster a sell out because he said it is not a black white issue but a quality of life/crime issue?

Also, if the projects were moved, why is that racist? 1. They are a failure and a ghetto now; 2. other renters who live in the neighborhood, of any race, that get priced out have to move – why the preferential treatment for the projects? Sure, public/subsidized housing is needed to give poor people basic shelter, but do they have a right to dictate where it will be?

Drew, it’s funny, but if you read the thread, no one says that all black or poor people are crack addicts. You make that assumption on behalf of the “gentrifier” and assume that all gentrifyiers in the area have a “fear of poor black people” and assume they are crack heads. You are the one who stirred the pot on this thread by making such assumptions as to what people are thinking about an entire group of people when they said that crackheads sometimes creep over from Myrtle Avenue. To think there is no crack in that area is naive. Why then when I walk down Myrtle or am in FG Park do I often find mini zip lock crack bags and vials on the ground? Let’s not be silly, you can still get crack in FG and many parts of the City, but enough with the assumption that all gentrifiers (white or black) think all poor black are criminal crack heads. I can understand concerns about displacement due to gentrification, but unfortunately, that’s the way it works when a run down neighborhood with little in the way of services gets developed or redeveloped. Property values increase and so do rents.

Although this thread is already archived, I just have to clarify a couple of things. Firstly, there is no such thing as reverse racism; racism is racism, no matter at whom it is directed. My comments, however, are not racist. The assumption that the people who live in the Myrtle Ave projects are crackheads is racist. The vast majority of the people who live there are hard-working, normal citizens who happen to need low-income housing. I have been living around these projects for a long time and there are simply not crackheads roaming about. I believe that the type of gentrifier to whom I originally responded has a fear of poor black people and believes many of these people to be something they are not. I have a problem with the wealthy pushing the poor around just because they suddenly find a neighborhood to be cool. It just so happens that in America, that tends to mean white people displacing minorities. That doesn”t make me racist.

Good on you Anonymous from 9.34am. I am happy when I hear black or other minorities knock down clearly reverse racist comments. Just because people, white, black or green, gentrify a neighborhood and don’t want it to be full of crackheads and criminals doesn’t mean they are racists. I think it does a disservice to minorities to assume that they do not care about the same quality of life issues as whites, or that if they do that they are sell outs.

Fort Greene started out as an affluent nabe, so what is all this talk about anyway?