Blogs For Victory

Yeah, right. This from Antioch, California which is in Contra Costa County (Obama 68%, McCain 30%):

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.

Now that police unit is the focus of lawsuits by black families who allege the city of 100,000 is orchestrating a campaign to drive them out.

“A lot of people are moving out here looking for a better place to live,” said Karen Coleman, a mother of three who came here five years ago from a blighted neighborhood in nearby Pittsburg. “We are trying to raise our kids like everyone else. But they don’t want us here.”

City officials deny the allegations in the lawsuits, which were filed last spring and seek unspecified damages.

Across the country, similar tensions have simmered when federally subsidized renters escaped run-down housing projects and violent neighborhoods by moving to nicer communities in suburban Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles.

As a rather idle set of questions, I wonder for our white liberals here on Blogs for Victory, just when was the last time you got a hug from a black person? For me, it was a bit more than 12 hours ago, as I write this. When was the last time you lauded – by name because you’ve known her for years and watched her struggle – a hispanic, single mother as the ideal of what an American can do when determined to work hard? When was the last time you shot the breeze with someone who didn’t look like you? Attended a religious service where more than half the congregation was non-white? Gave a ride to a black person who just came up and asked for a ride? Had a gay guy hit on you and just passed it off as if nothing had happened? Called a black wino “brother” as you handed him a fiver? Worked for a black man? Worked for a black woman? Worked with openly gay people and didn’t give a twopenny damn about it? Was the only white person at a party? Was given a lift by a black gangster when your car was broke down at 1am in the middle of the most African-American community in your locality? Have mixed race relatives? Have friends who have mixed race grandchildren? Compared photos of your own grandchildren with those of your black friend, who’s grandchildren are from a mixed-race marriage?

Just wondering – wondering, that is, if there is really anything other than words and attitude in your views on race in America?