Monday, April 20, 2009

What is So Wrong with Living in the 'Hood?

TwitThis

Former California State Assemblyman and former SF Mayor, Willie Brown

Below you will find a link to yesterday's podcast on Gentrification
and Black San Francisco.

Choosing to live in the hood, in many ways is like choosing to
send your child to private versus public school.


Given the fact that public schools are tax supported, we often move to neighborhoods
in order to send our children to "better" schools. That being said,
this is an interesting conversation
to have in the midst of uncertain
economic times and when many of our high schools have a
50% drop out/push out rate. According to the America's
Promise website,

A report to be released today [April 1,2008] finds that only about half of all students served by the main school systems in the nation's 50 largest cities graduate from high school. Cities in Crisis: A Special Analytic Report on High School Graduation released today by the America’s Promise Alliance and prepared by Editorial Projects in Education Research Center further reveals that in the metropolitan areas surrounding 35 of the nation’s largest cities, graduation rates in urban schools were lower than those in nearby suburban communities. In several instances, the disparity between urban-suburban graduation rates was more than 35 percentage points.
There is an important connection between the health of a
community being tied to the health of its schools.

I have been having an interesting conversation with a reader, Ahmed, that I am

working on using as a part of a post. Basically the conversation is about
whether middle class Black people in Harlem, BK, and Chicago, who move to
working class neighborhoods, want to displace the current residence,
more so than White folks who move to the same neighborhoods. And for that
matter do intentions matter in race Capitalism demands that land goes
to the highest bidder.

Highlights from the Podcast:
  • Medicine for Melancholy
  • The North is as bad as the South, for African Americans
  • California is a hot bed for testing Neoliberal Policies even though it is "seen"
    as being progressive
  • Can Black people gentrify Black communities?
  • Faith confronted SF Mayor Newsome about Gentrification in SF
  • The Civil Rights Industrial Complex
Enjoy.

Thoughts, comments and suggestions are always welcome.

5 comments:

Nexgrl said...

I'm sorry that I missed this. Because of the time difference I was unable to tune in. I currently live in SF. I live in the hood and I'm considered middle class on paper. I was raised in the same neighborhood in which I reside. I looked in the suburbs when trying to choose where I wanted to purchase a home. I don't like to drive, and I'm not a fan of commuting, so I chose to remain in the city. The hood was the chosen place because the weather is consistently nice. I don't have children, so the state of the neighborhood public schools wasn't an issue. I went to catholic school, and if I had children/a child, I would choose private school over public. This comment is more like a post, so I'm stopping here.

Unknown said...

Girl please.

If you can't speak your heart anywhere else, you can do it here.

That gentrification post has brought FOLKS out the woodwork. I have receive 4 emails so far...normally I get emails re the "relationship" Girl are you gonna be okay, posts.

Wow. Wow and Wow.

I currently live in SF. I live in the hood and I'm considered middle class on paper.
======
Mee too. At least when I was employed:) Lols.

Remember that awful shit w/ law school.
Im going to grad school in the fall.

Phew!

Thank you for your support and consistent reader ship. What are you reading now by the way. For the Black Books site, do you want to contribute reviews, scour the internet for Black book news, or write from the POV of being a librarian.

You chose:)

the prisoner's wife said...

listened to the podcast (in my car! DLed it). enjoyed it greatly. waiting to get on the babies v dreams one with you.

Nexgrl said...

You are most welcome. I don't get here everyday, but I check in every so often.

modest-goddess said...

I went to Cleveland, OH public schools. These schools have a 33% 4 year or less graduation rate. This proved true in my household. My brother graduated in 5 years. My sister got a GED. I was the only one who survived and had a traditional graduation. My mother could not afford to move to the suburbs or send us to private school. She instilled a love of reading in us but sometimes the peer pressure and school environment is too much. I had a healthy stable home environment but it was obvious that many of my classmates did not have this luxury and it showed in their behaviour.

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