In Thomas Sowell’s book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, he talks about the history of African-American migration into the American inner cities in the late 1800’s and the early 1990’s. Slowly over time, free blacks and white people who had lived there since the beginning of the country’s history began leaving those same cities because of the wave of new people who were different culturally.
Typically, the fall of these areas into violence is blamed on racism and the legacy of slavery, and for good reason, because discrimination played a massive part. However, his book discusses two additional factors: culture and bad public policies.
The norms and patterns of behavior of what he hilariously – and honestly – calls “white rednecks” rubbed off on southern African-Americans, and when they moved into cities like Chicago, they brought that same culture with them.
Source: PricEconomics.com
Not a lot of people are familiar with the history of African-American immigration into the urban communities, so “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” is eye-opening.
And we’re looking at a great emigration like the one at the beginning of the 20th century once again, as people of African descent are looking for a better life in a new area.
Following years of shootings, violence, poverty, and poor public policy in Chicago, black people are leaving en masse for the second time. They’re packing their stuff and, ironically, leaving for the southern states which their great-grand-parents fleed from one hundred years ago.
Since 2010, 46,000 African-Americans have left Chicago, leaving many people to ask: “What’s going to happen to this city?” All of the ambitious, hard-working, intelligent people are emigrating to the south. And why shouldn’t they?
Would you stay? In addition to parts of the city being impossible to live in because of the violence, Chicago lost a good portion – 1/3 – of its manufacturing jobs in the 1980’s. It isn’t looking good for Chicago.
The only way you can live there is if you’re making a lot of money. Otherwise, you have to get used to ducking and avoiding windows whenever you hear a balloon pop.