Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Pathological Nigg*s Part III

TwitThis



"You Gotta Rob to Get Rich in the Reagan Era"


Now that I had crystallized the notion of post migration,
pre-crack Black folks, I wondered what work did Black
people do in the Bay when they migrated from the south?

What work did the men DO before crack invaded?

And I found my answer.

During and post WWII they held lucrative, prestigious war time jobs
at the navy ship yards, as longshoreman, bellhops and shipbuilders.
They also worked as Pullman Porters. In fact the policy stipulated
that Pullman porters could only BE BLACK MEN. Real talk.

The war drafted largely white men, Black folks stepped in, and BOOM,
Black working middle class is created. As a result,
Richmond, DEADLY ass-d Richmond was like Harlem '32.

Bay View, DEADLY ass-d Bay view was like Harlem '32.

Oakland
, DEADLY ass-d OAKLAND was like Harlem '32.

Detroit, ....... was like Harlem '32.
When my grandmother came here from TEXAS she worked at the Kaiser
Shipyard in Richmond. I have always known this, but put into this context
it takes on a different significance.

So. Of course, now I am obsessed with learning which industries exsited
in the cities that now have these egregious murder rates.

Philly.

Jersey.

Oakland.

New Orleans.

Baltimore.

Compton.

I see a pattern. And it's making sense.

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Why did Black Civil rights leaders drop the Ball when it came
to Post WWII job advocacy?

Why does the boomer generation blame hip hop rather than
the systematic elimination of jobs that brought Blacks to these
urban centers in the first place?

Why isn't there ever any mention of how different our lives would
be with 40 acres?

Why do people have such a hard time looking at history, recent history,
50 years ago history?

Why is Styles P going so hard lately?

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2 comments:

the prisoner's wife said...

well...because i am a So Cal representer i will speak on that.

Central Ave in LA used to be the harlem of the West. if you read "The Darker the Berry"by Wallace Thurman, he writes about the nightlife on Central Ave. Apparently it used to have a lot of major department stores, shopping, nightclubs, etc. if you see it today, you wouldn't even believe half of those things were even there.

not sure what happened in the 30s, but my grandparents came to Cali in the 60s from Cleveland. two of my grandmother's brothers soon followed. my grandfather & uncles worked at a car wash until they were able to get jobs in the areospace industry (Lockheed, Northrup, and Douglass). the aerospace industry was BIG down here. lots of fairly uneducated people (black, white, other) were able to get well-paying industrial gigs and work their way up. my grandfather, born in '29, never got farther than the 3rd grade, and was (as i learned later) functionally illiterate. he was able to work his way up to a job that needed federal security clearance (painting the Stealth Bombers) that paid WELL. my mom started working for Lockheed in the 70s, and we were doing pretty well financially until she, and thousands of others, were laid off when all the defense contract money ran out in the early 90s. everybody and they momma got laid off RIGHT before the riots (my mom got the ax in 1990), coincidence? a lot of the big plants closed down & moved, only a few skeletal plants remain.

Model Minority said...

everybody and they momma got laid off RIGHT before the riots......
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What a great beginning of a novel!

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