Aesop's Fable of the Ant and Grasshopper Come to Life: Zip Code 53206 in Milwaukee

Everyone knows the fable of the grasshopper and ant, perhaps Aesop's most important moral lesson -- that of future-time orientation. What happens when a society no longer rewards those who practice the virtues of the ant, and instead redistributes what the ants have worked so hard to create/save, giving it to a grasshopper population. 

A grasshopper population that keeps growing, while the ant population decreases...

Zip Code 53206 -- a hellish world not even Aesop could have warned against in one of his fables

You get zip code 53206 in Milwaukee [RACE AND VIOLENCE IN THE 'WELFARE MAGNET': 2/3 of young men in one Zip Code have been or are incarcerated, WND.com, 5-20-13]:

The details from this neighborhood, and its city, aren’t what you’d find on a chamber of commerce brochure either.

An official report from the Milwaukee police department reveals more: In the city, the homicide rate for black residents is 27.9 per 100,000 compared to 9.7 for Latinos and 1.7 per 100,000 white residents.

Of known 2011 homicide suspects in Milwaukee, 93 percent are black, while 4 percent are white and Latino. The city itself is 40 percent black, 17 percent Latino, and 37 percent white, according to Census figures.

University of Wisconsin Milwaukee sociology professor Aki Roberts shared his view of these troubling patterns with WND.

“Milwaukee’s discrepancy does appear to be larger than the national average. Part of the reason may be that Milwaukee is one of most racially segregated cities in the United States,” he says.

Roberts added, “In 2011, the black unemployment rate in Milwaukee was 22.4 percent compared to 9.6 percent for whites and 16.7 percent for Hispanics,” which “parallels the racial disparity in homicide rates in Milwaukee.”

However, as the homicide report shows, the black murder rate is 14 times the white murder rate, while the black unemployment rate is double the white unemployment rate. From a different angle, Hispanics and blacks have a similar unemployment rate, yet the Hispanic murder rate is one third of the black rate.

The relationship between unemployment and crime is murky at best. Harvard sociologist Christopher Winship tells WND, “Research on the relationship between unemployment and crime, although considerable in quantity, has produced ambiguous results, with some work showing a positive relationship and other work a negative relationship.”

There have been times when severe unemployment has occurred while crime rates drop. “Most surprising, crime rates went down during the Great Depression. In the current recession they have been at 40-year lows,” Winship points out.

Milwaukee is among the 20 most violent cities in the country. By far, the largest number of homicides in Milwaukee occurred in one much-discussed Zip Code, 53206.

A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee project says, “The 53206 Zip Code neighborhood serves as a bellwether for poverty changes in Milwaukee and nationally.”

The report also notes, “In the 1990s prior to welfare reform in Wisconsin it had the largest number of families receiving AFDC.”

In 2011, 17 of the 86 homicides in Milwaukee occurred in 53206. Between 2005-2009, there were 95 homicides in this Zip Code out of 473 in the city as a whole. That’s 20 percent of all homicides, occurring in a Zip Code with less than 5 percent (28,210) of the city’s 594,833 population.

Blacks comprise 96 percent of the Zip Code, Latinos are 2.1 percent, and whites are 1.6 percent.

There would have been far more homicides had some of the hundreds of non-fatal shootings resulted in their intended outcome. Between 2006-2009 there were 501 nonfatal shootings in 53206, comprising 27 percent of all nonfatal shootings in Milwaukee.
Between 2010 and 2011, there were 873 non-fatal shootings in Milwaukee, and 182 (20 percent) were in Zip Code 53206.

Overall, Milwaukee is also one of the 10 poorest cities in America, and the state of Wisconsin was once known as a “welfare magnet.”

Like a demented Pac-Man, this chart (from City-Data) shows who the 'grasshopper'  population is in zip code 53206

Over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, Wisconsin’s welfare benefits grew to be more generous than benefits in neighboring Illinois. By 1985, a Chicago family of three on welfare (AFDC) could increase their monthly cash benefit by roughly $200 by moving 90 miles to Milwaukee. By 1989, Wisconsin’s governor at the time, Tommy Thompson, worried that the state was becoming ”a welfare magnet.”

A Democratic state senator named Joseph Andrea complained that Wisconsin benefits were too high, and that welfare had no work requirement. Milwaukee was one of the Wisconsin cities that became a magnet to certain Chicago residents throughout the l980s.

By 1991, nearly a quarter of Milwaukee’s new AFDC cases were families that had moved to Wisconsin within just the prior three months. With close to a quarter of new welfare cases arising from people who had recently moved into the state, harsh skepticism mounted. There was also evidence that people posing as state residents were collecting welfare and simply returning home to Chicago with their payouts.

As Professor Lawrence Mead wrote, “stories of fraud and abuse fatally undercut Wisconsin’s liberal welfare consensus.” Wisconsin soon pioneered rigorous welfare reforms, which became the model for the 1996 AFDC overhaul.

The Zip Code 53206, with the highest murder rate in Milwaukee, also had the highest level of welfare dependence. Prior to Wisconsin’s welfare reform, 53206 “had the largest number of families receiving AFDC,” according to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee report.
Striking numbers of those born in that pre-welfare era went on to have encounters with the law: A 2007 report by UWM’s Employment and Training Institute noted that, “Nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of men ages 30-34 from Zip Code 53206 have been incarcerated in state Department of Corrections facilities or are currently incarcerated.”

The Milwaukee homicide report also shows that most people involved with murder are no strangers to the criminal justice system. Seventy six percent (65) of 2011 homicide victims had prior arrest and/or citation. Ninety percent(74) of known homicide suspects had prior arrests/citations. The same pattern is found among nonfatal shooting victims and suspects.
In addition to poverty, the UWM report reveals the broad scale of social disorganization in 53206. Among the findings of that report:

• Nearly half of housing loans are for investors

• 60 subprime lenders operating in Zip Code 53206

• Over 90 percent of family income tax filers are single-parent

• [A] majority of workers at 53206 jobsites are white, even though the resident workforce is black

• 90 percent of jobs in the Zip Code are held by non-residents

Considering that just 1.6 percent of those living in 53206 are white, it is perplexing that a majority of workers are white.

Milwaukee public radio reporting revealed that local residents attribute the violence to a breakdown in family structure, unemployment, and a loss of hope. Some blame the construction of a freeway in the 1960s, which displaced families and communities, according to Claiborne Benson, the Founder of the Wisconsin Black Historical Museum.

Benson said, “The expressway divided us straight in half and where we had families together it created separate clusters of neighborhoods so it caused irreparable harm to the African American community.”

Benson, who founded the black history museum, describes how pleasant the 53206 area used to be, in the not-too-distant past.

“I would pass this intersection as a young kid – how nice it was 40 years ago, 50 years ago,” he recalled.

Benson noted that 50 years ago “you would’ve been hard-pressed to find anyone here not of European ancestry.”

Isn't the condition of zip code 53206 in 2013 a more fitting tribute to black history in the city then any 'history' Mr. Benson can cobble together and display in a museum?

Grasshoppers ran off the ant population - as Mr. Benson points out, the ant community in this analogy once populated the exact same environment of zip code  53206 without the deleterious side-effects - in this area of Milwaukee, yet survive through a redistribution of wealth from the very community they drove away. 

Come to think of it, none of Aesop's Fables accurately describe the above situation. 

Few lessons can be culled from history to describe it either. 

How Did the University of Chicago Survive the Black Undertow in the South Side of Chicago? By Taking Tom Buchanan's Advice...

How did the University of Chicago survive the Manifest Destruction of black migrants to the south side of Chicago?

Only through the creation of a private security force – some say the second largest private police in the world to only that of the one found in Vatican City to guard the Papacy – was the U of Chicago able to keep the school in the south side of the city.

Yeah, Tom Buchanan was right about the 'rising tide of color' stuff

Well, that and some nifty zoning planes to ensure the rising tide of color (black migrants from the south) didn’t overwhelm the area and drive away a white middle-class with the crime they imported to the city [A brief history of the UCPD: "There are no firm records, it may surprise you, on the history of the Department.", Chicago Maroon, 5-25-12]:

A greater culture of safety and protection can be traced to the University’s role in urban renewal in Hyde Park and Kenwood and the creation of the South East Chicago Commission (SECC) in 1952. The 1950s saw a greater concern in safety in the area, as neighborhood residents grew increasingly concerned with the state of dilapidated buildings and unsavory businesses. “In February of ‘52, there was a faculty wife assaulted and robbed on the Midway,” said Mason, who also served as the executive director of the SECC from 1982 to 2009. “That seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Numerous faculty members and senior staff members went in to see the Chancellor…and de- manded that something be done. Either move the University out of this horrible area or do something to clean [it] up.”

The institution of force was the primary mechanism to save the university; this same mechanism was instituted in Detroit (Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets – STRESS), but it failed because the city had already been abandoned by too many of the people whose blood had helped build it.

White people.

White flight.

Robert Beauregard’s Voices of Decline: The Postwar Fate of US Cities includes a powerful quote about why cities shouldn’t be abandoned. William Zeckendorf, president of the real estate firm of Webb & Knapp believed “too much had been invested in the cities to abandon them.”

Lecturing in 1951 at the Harvard School Design, he said: “How can we keep cities that represent the toil and sweat and invested labor and capital of generations from becoming ghost towns.”
 He would close his talk by saying, “I don’t believe that cities are lost unless we are prepared to abandon them.” (p. 118)

Detroit was lost, because the people whose ancestors had toiled, sweated and invested their labor - and the capital of generations - to build, abandoned it.

But back to the University of Chicago.

In Jon C. Teaford’s “The Rough Road to Renaissance: Urban Revitalization in America, 1940-1985,” we learn the demise of the south side of Chicago predated the institution of Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” – meaning the blame for the dysfunction blacks brought to Chicago can’t be placed upon social/welfare programs.

In a short period of time, Teaford makes clear the leaders of the U of Chicago would have to enact decisions to save their university from the coming of the Black Undertow:

 At first the area’s dominant institution, the University of Chicago, refused to cooperate with the conference, but by 1952 worsening neighborhood conditions were causing a loss of faculty and students, thus requiring the university to intervene. A community activist reported that the trustees and administrators were “forced to admit that if they didn’t engage in community action, they might end up with a $200,000,000 investment in a slum, without anybody to do research or any students to educate.” Responding to the problem, the university was instrumental in organizing and funding the South East Chicago Commission headed by the university’s president. The commission stepped up pressure on the city to halt illegal conversions [illegal conversions of single-family dwellings into apartments and the threat of white flight as blacks moved into the area was the catalyst for the creation of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference], and the university’s private police force patrolled Hyde Park, supplementing the inadequate municipal protection. (p. 118)

From “The Metropolitan Revolution: The Rise of Post-Urban America” we get an even clearer picture of how the University of Chicago was saved from the very threat F. Scott Fitzgerald’s supercilious character, Tom Buchanan from “The Great Gatsby,” warned about when he quoted ‘Goddard’:

Meanwhile, the University of Chicago was embarking on an even more ambitious program dedicated to saving its neighborhood for the middle class. Located in the Hyde Park district of Chicago’s South Side adjacent to Bronzeville, the university was in the path of the expanding African American community; by the late 1940s, an invasion of poor blacks seemed imminent. Responding to this threat, in 1952 the university established the South East Chicago Commission, which drafted a plan for spot clearance of the area’s most blighted structures and rehabilitation or conservation of the remaining buildings. The idea was to eliminate dilapidated housing with rents affordable to low-income blacks and upgrade or preserve the remaining dwelling units for middle-class occupants.
 In 1955 demolition began, and the following year the commission secured approval for $26 million in federal urban renewal funds. The neighborhood was not to be lily-white; middle-class blacks were not to be excluded. But Hyde Park was to remain a bastion against lower-class invaders. One comedian joked: “This is Hyde Park, whites and blacks shoulder to shoulder against the lower class.”

The measures to keep the University of Chicago safe from the black underclass – only attracted to Chicago, as they were Detroit, for the economic opportunities white people created – predate the introduction of the “Great Society” of the 1960s by a decade.

But that doesn’t compute.

Weren’t black people on the verge of becoming the model minority in America before then? Then why did the University of Chicago have to take such drastic steps to remain in the south side of Chicago as the entire community went black?

What seems like a throw-away line in Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” has lasting permanence when you consider the culture blacks brought to the south side of Chicago that the University of Chicago effectively fought against:

“The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be – will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.” “We’ve got to beat them down,” whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.

The Vatican has the largest private police in the world, with the task of protecting the Pope, Vatican City, and the Cardinals of the Catholic Church; the second largest private police force in the world, found in the south side of Chicago, is still tasked with protecting the students, administrators, and faculty from… the rising tide of color that gave it its birth.

All of which was prior to the institution of the Great Society…

Tom Buchanan was right, and the University of Chicago took his advice in fortifying the school from the rising tide of color that utterly submerged most of the south side of Chicago in a cocoon of violence, misery, and vice.

All of which was prior to the institution of the Great Society…

CBS and NRA News Profile "The War in Chicago"

Ginny Simone is a reporter for National Rifle Association (NRA) – NRA News – who on April 17 of this year debut her investigation into the violence in Chicago. She, or one of her producers, titled it “America’s Deadliest City.”

The violence in Chicago-- almost entirely a non-white problem

Though the report was about as race-neutral as one can expect from the NRA – which proudly showcases Colion Noir’s videos as an example of enlightened Conservatism Inc. on all things black – it did include this powerful quote from Jim Arceo. A retired Chicago police officer, Arceo said:

“It’s disgusting. I was proud to be a Chicagoan. And now, it’s like, you see it crumbling. It’s terrible. And I see no hope for it. I don’t see anything getting better. It’s just dying.”

What has happened to Chicago is disgusting, but it merely serves as a microcosm, a powerful lesson of our nation’s problems.  If you can still call 2013 America a “nation.”

James Kirkpatrick, writing in the introduction to the upcoming Second City Confidential: The Black Experience in Chicagoland (Available on the Fourth Anniversary of the start of SBPDL, May 22), put the importance of Chicago this way:

“As the largest city in the Heartland, “Chicago” occupies a unique position in the American psyche.  New York looks across the Atlantic and Los Angeles across the Pacific, but Chicago looks to America itself, the vast continental empire that it fed and supplied with its plants and industry.”

Presently, Chicago sits at the nexus of yesterday/tomorrow for the rest of the nation -- a city where law and order is protected by the white population, whose institutions are now assigned to protect the very people uprooting civilization there.

The latest Paul Kersey at VDare.com is all about Chicago[Mexican Drug Gangs Only Part Of “The War In Chicago”, Paul Kersey on May 19, 2013]:

The War In Chicago, the 48 Hours special with Maureen Maher and Armen Keteyian reporting that aired Saturday May 18, was a breakthrough—of sorts. It even had a logo that would make George Zimmerman blush: three hoodie-wearing thugs (eat your heart out, Trayvon Martin), one brandishing a gun, with a DEA Agent facing them. 

Strikingly, the report candidly admitted that the city’s drug problem—heroin—is almost entirely driven by Mexican cartels; that only 26 percent of the more than 500 homicides in 2012had been solved; and that in wake of the murder of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton—you know, the black girl that Barack and Michelle Obama tried to make the face of the gun control movement—the police surge launched by the city to try tomake the streets safer is already threatened by budget concerns: 

But like many big cities, Chicago has serious budget problems. The extra police on the streets is costing the city millions. Can they afford to keep up the fight?There are lines of demarcation in every city. For this uniquely American city, the death of Hadiya Pendleton may well be one of them. 

Since her murder on Jan. 29 in Chicago, the number of extra police on the streets has doubled to 400. Officers are working seven days a week, but this is a relative peace that comes with a price: an estimated $1 million a week in police overtime. 

The CBS special quoted a 28-year veteran of the DEA, Jack Riley, as saying: 

"We've got people dying ... and I'm not rolling over, I have not thrown the towel in," said Riley, who thinks he knows why so many of Chicago's children are dying."I wanted to retire a few years ago ... my wife's naggin' me every day... get outta the job," he said. "I can't do it!" 

… Riley says many Chicago shootings are carried out by the area's roughly 70,000 gang members who are going to war over one thing in particular: drugs.

Is this America? 

Yes—the very heartland of this nation…if America can be called a nation anymore.

 No, America can no longer be called a nation. More importantly, any effort to stop crime in Chicago is going to run into a problem: the perpetrators are almost all non-white [Addicted to guns: Is there a cure for Chicago's crippling dependence on firearms?, Chicago Reader, 5-8-2013]:

In parts of the city, it's far too common for lives to be shaped by the persistent threat of conflicts and the culture of resolving them with firearms. In fact, gun violence has come to seem as much a part of Chicago as the seasons. In the last 20 years, more than 12,000 people have been murdered in the city, more than 9,000 of them with firearms. Tens of thousands of others have survived being shot. 

Over the years, police, politicians, and community leaders have proposed all kinds of solutions, from banning high-powered squirt guns to bringing in the National Guard. Along with the weather—violence tends to spike during the warm months and mild stretches of winter—the size and deployment of the police force is always at the center of the discussion. 

Will Black Detroit Accept the Robocop Statue?

Back in 1987, Robocop took the world by storm. Though only a movie, the fictional story of Officer Alex Murphy's transformation into a cyborg (engineered with three primary directives -- Serve the public trust, Protect the innocent, and Uphold the law), has now been brought to life [Get a peek at the life-size model for Detroit's RoboCop statue, Detroit Free Press, May 13, 2013]:

Why would black people want a Robocop statue in their city? It symbolizes the antithesis of the Joe Louis "black fist" statue...

RoboCop’s prime directives: Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law and look super awesome as a larger-than-life statue.

Photos of the ten-foot-tall model of the RoboCop statue that will become part of the Detroit public art landscape are posted on the Imagination Station’s Kickstarter campaign for the project.

The Detroit cop Murphy-turned-robot from the 1987 cult movie looks appropriately imposing in his pre-casting form. The statue will be cast in bronze in the Motor City by the famed Venus Bronze Works.

Early this year, one of the project’s coordinators said the crafting of the statue could take up to a year. That would result in a spring 2014 unveiling, an event that could attract visitors from across the globe and cast and crew from the original “RoboCop.”Go here to see the pics to learn more about the artisans who are bringing the grassroots project to full metal life.

The city of Detroit is 84 percent black. A monument to black people exists in Detroit -- the Joe Louis "black fist." It's a fitting emblem of black power.

The movie Robocop would have you believe all the crime in Detroit is courtesy of white people, masterminded by the father from That 70s Show. In the real world, it was black crime that drove white people away from living and working in Detroit.

Hilariously, it was primarily white people who went around city hall and decided to use Kickstarter to raise the funds and bring an iconic movie character to the Motor City. 2,718 people made individual contributions to raise $67,436 necessary for the construction of the statue.

Sadly, no such location for the statue has been finalized yet in the former Arsenal of Democracy, though a cyborg fighting crime in a city under the control of an emergency manager is delicious irony:

The 10-foot-tall cyborg enforcer (a statue, not the real deal) was born out of a 2011 crowdfunding campaign that went viral and raised over $60,000. Apparently, thousands of people wanted to see the lead of 1987 science fiction movie "RoboCop" resurrected and returned to the city he was built to save. In the film, RoboCop becomes the hero of the Detroit of the future, which is plagued with extreme crime and violence.

The project has attracted its share of naysayers -- some thought it was a trivial, or disrespectful project, given Detroit's actual struggles with real financial and crime problems. Others became impatient when RoboCop didn't appear on the scene immediately. With the help of Across the Board Creations in Canada, a statue has been created out of foam, wax, clay, and steel:

But while the mood around the Motor City Monday is grim, and a statue certainly won't be helping cash flow, we can't help but be curious about when this zany project will find solid ground -- literally. As of now, RoboCop's home is still up in the air, as organizers search for a location where it will be "invited in, easily visitable, insured, maintained and secure."

 But why would Black Detroit invite in a symbol of law, order, and stability? They have already constructed the "black fist of doom" (the Joe Louis Statue), which symbolizes black power for all the world to see. 

How could the police guarantee that it would remain safe and secure?  That the overwhelmingly white - yes, it would be white people visiting the statue - tourists to see the Robocop statue would be safe and the site undisturbed by panhandlers and those scrapping metal?

When the black city government commissioned and erected the Joe Louis "black fist" statue, they made perfectly clear the type of monument they are willing to pay homage to; why would the black-dominated city government of Detroit and the black citizens of the city dare find the very symbol created to restore order - though it was only a Hollywood film - they helped destabilize a suitable monument to erect in 2013 Detroit?

At some point soon, a black leader - speaking on behalf of Organized Blackness - will call the Robocop statue racist. A manufactured crisis will emerge, and someone, somewhere will have to apologize.

After all, the "black fist of doom" in Detroit is there for a reason.

Few will want to believe it, but as comical as it sounds, the Robocop statue is a direct refutation of black empowerment.

Turn Old Tiger Stadium Site in Detroit into Complex Showcasing 'African Culture'? Isn't 84% Black Detroit Already Showcasing Enough "African Culture"?

An 84 percent black city.

An actual "artists rendering" of Urban Cafe Detroit, to be built on the empty Old Tiger Stadium Site... it will showcase "African Culture" in an 84 percent black city already boasting enough "African Culture"...

Joblessness, abandonment (white people, who were 85 percent of the city in the early 1960s), and high crime - courtesy of the black population - is all an example of what a metropolis fueled by black empowerment can create.

2013 Detroit. 

Right, Louis Farrakhan?

2013 Detroit is a city showcasing African culture in a city that was almost 100 percent white only one hundred years ago (in fact, it was the economy white people created that attracted black migrants to the city; conversely, it is the black culture these migrants imported to the city that drove away whites).

Now, an ambitious developer has the bold idea to try and break new ground: be the first developer to develop an African-American development from the ground-up [Developers Want To Turn Old Tiger Stadium Site Into Entertainment Complex Showcasing African Culture, CBS Detroit, 5-17-13]:

An ambitious Detroit businessman thinks he has a bombshell idea for transforming the empty lot where Old Tiger Stadium used to be.

Francois DeMonique told WWJ City Beat Reporter Vickie Thomas he wants to see the site at Michigan Avenue and Trumbull transformed into a unique hotel and entertainment complex.

“I love this city and I believe in this city. I’ve put a lot of effort into it and my company, which is Urban Café Corporation, we are dedicated to being a part of the new face of Detroit. This may be just the first African-American development built from the ground up,” he said.

DeMonique’s vision for Urban Café Detroit is one where visitors can stay in a hotel, attend a live concert, have a first-class dinner and dance the night away all under one roof without having to drive to separate destinations.

“We’re anticipating the Old Tiger Stadium site, but there are other options and sites that we are currently in negotiation with, private enterprises and private owners,” he said.

The look of the building would be aesthetically pleasing, DeMonique said, with a streamlined, avant-garde look that will instantly raise the profile of the area in which it is built. He said the facility will influence the city’s skyline and “lift the spirits of Detroit’s residents and visitors.”

DeMonique, who’s been working on the project since 2009, said the complex would focus on “celebrating the positives of many nations around the world” from the perspectives of art, dance, music, cuisines and the other aspects. He described the venue as being “the place to be for locals and a must-see establishment for tourists.”

The hotel will be the jewel of the complex, DeMonique said, featuring its own 200-seat upscale restaurant, full-service bar, candy store, exercise room, spa, hair salon and a business center.  The third through seventh floors will have 20 suites per floor, each featuring a theme-specific decor designed around the unique cultures of various African countries. DeMonique said the designs and concepts will cover all 100 suites, showcasing different countries of Africa and the Caribbean.

  DeMonique is too late. Modern-day Detroit is already an entire city fueled by both black culture and the idea of black empowerment.

A book on baseball (The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 2002) helps describe how the culture black people imported to Detroit - which subsequently drove white people, business, and hope from the city - supersedes any hope of turning the old vacant Tiger Stadium lot into a complex showcasing African culture.

Detroit 2013 is the ultimate example of African culture in America:

Any post-war illusion that sustained economic growth would solve Detroit’s social problems was shattered with the decline of the automobile industry in the late 1960s as well as the 1967 Detroit riot or uprising, depending upon one’s point of view. Frustration over growing unemployment, allegations of police brutality, and de facto segregation exploded in July 1967 when police raided a “blind pig,” or after hours drinking establishment. Before National Guard troops restored order, 43 people (again most of them African Americans) were dead, 7,000 were arrested, and $22 million in property was destroyed. Most observers interpreted the growing racial segregation in the Detroit area as due to white flight into the suburbs following the 1967 violence. By the 1980 census, Detroit was losing population and the city was predominantly African American, while the metropolitan area continued to grow in the overwhelmingly white suburbs.

Mayor Coleman Young is often blamed for exacerbating Detroit’s racial divide. Elected in 1974 as Detroit’s first black mayor, Young was a vocal critic of the white suburbs and champion of black Detroiters. The city’s racial divide, however, was already well established before Young arrived. Nevertheless, national perception of Detroit as a city characterized by urban desolation and black lawlessness was fostered by an influential magazine piece and book by Z’ev Chafets focusing upon the city’s Halloween-eve Devil’s Night fires as representative of decadence in Detroit. Little wonder that when the makers of the futuristic Robocop (1987) wanted to create an urban wasteland with rampant crime, Detroit was selected. (p. 137-138)

 Detroit is a city where black lawlessness has created urban desolation, only exacerbated by having a city government almost entirely composed of (elected or appointed) black people and a tax-base supported almost entirely by black residents -- who elected the black officials in charge of the custody of the city they inherited through a low-level racial war against whites.