Success Used to Live Here: What the Fall of Gwinnett County Means for White America

Gwinnett County: 91 percent white in 1990; 44 percent white today

There's an apocryphal story involving Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta and President Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the United Nations, and an address he gave to the historically Black college Clark Atlanta University in the 1980s. While addressing the subject of the eroding tax-base in the city and the fear of a diminishing amount of resources (funds) to allocate, Mr. Young addressed white flight with this ominous warning:

"No matter where they go, we will follow. No matter how far away they move, we will follow. They can't escape us."

Andrew Young is correct; no matter where white people fled to - from the crime, crumbling business sector, private property devaluations, and poor school systems that accompany a majority Black area -   creating thriving communities in the process, the Black Undertow followed. DeKalb and Clayton County went from being thriving majority white counties to, well, majority Black counties that resembled the Atlanta that whites had fled from in the first place.

The declaration of war set forth by Mr. Young proved true: no matter where whites went, Black would follow; importing the same problems that whites had tried to flee from when an area went majority-lack and eventually overwhelmingly the social capital created in the community to the point of breaking all communal bonds that whites had amassed. 

Back in 1985, Oliver Thomas of the Atlanta Journal Constitution tried to put his finger on why Gwinnett was excelling at such at rapid pace [ Basic reason Gwinnett has prospered is its proximity to Atlanta and Hartsfield, 9-15-1985]:

To say that one of Georgia's 159 counties, Gwinnett, was the fastest-growing county in America during the first half of the 1980s is true, though not quite comprehensible. To say that a decadelong explosion of everything from new people, new housing, new offices and more cars has left Gwinnett staggering under its own good fortune, is also true but vague.

So consider the implications of these very real numbers:

In 1975, there were 115,400 people nestled quietly in Gwinnett, just northeast of Atlanta.

Four years later, people were pouring into the county at the rate of 1,000 per month. By 1984, that migration surge had doubled. Twenty-three-thousand, five hundred new folks landed in and around Snellville, Lilburn, Lawrenceville and Duluth in the 12-month period ended this past April 1, pushing Gwinnett's population near the quarter-million mark.

The reasons for this incredible growth are not hard to comprehend.

While the chamber of commerce may credit leadership, and others may claim white-flight, one overriding reason that Gwinnett quickly mushroomed from rural to urban is its proximity to Atlanta and Hartsfield International Airport.

When the Sun Belt migration began, Gwinnett benefited.

Five years ago, a trailer park sprawled over the northwest quadrant of the I-85 and Pleasant Hill Road interchange. Fronting the park, a general store and a gas station serviced the trailer park's residents and those who motored down the little-traveled two-lane road.

Across the street was a lonely diner, a Waffle House.

It was a heralded chamber-of-commerce event when a freight hauling firm built a terminal on the road between the interstate and Highway 23 to the west.

Pleasant Hill today is a junk food addict's heaven, with McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King and Krystal competing with Shoney's, Mrs. Winners and Red Lobster. They all compete against the once monopolistic Waffle House.

Today the Gwinnett Place mall, with its 150 stores, sits where the mobile homes once were, and an acre of land that cost $20,000 three years ago today brings around $218,000.

This area, around Gwinnett Place, is now considered the nerve center of the county, and residential developers fight to build as close to this mecca as possible. Hotels, office complexes, and more retail centers than imagined just a few years ago have sprouted up near the mall.

 Actually, it was the white people who fled to Gwinnett County and created a thriving community out of pasture land that deserve all the credit for the growth of the county; conversely, it is the departure of white people and the rise of the non-white population in Gwinnett County that are to be credited with its decline.

 Such is the state of Gwinnett County now, which was 91 percent white in 1990, but is now majority-minority [Will Immigration Turn Gwinnett Blue, Governing, Josh Goodman, December 11, 2009:

In 1990, Gwinnett was 91 percent white. Now, it is a different place altogether. "Gwinnett as a whole," says Bannister, "is becoming a majority-minority group of people." In fact, it already is one. In the U.S. Census Bureau's most recent American Community Survey, released this fall, the white population was down to 49.9 percent. Marina Peed, an affordable housing developer who works county-wide, says that "there's no lily white anymore anywhere in the county. I doubt if there's a single all-white subdivision in the whole county."

Today, Gwinnett has large populations of blacks, Hispanics and (perhaps most surprisingly) Asians. The county has substantial populations from Indian and Vietnam, as well as people of Asian (especially Korean) descent who are from elsewhere in the United States.

Not only will immigration turn Gwinnett blue - from a solidly Republican county - it will turn all of Georgia blue in a state where Blacks vote in a monolith for Democrats [Shifting Population could help Democrats in Georgia, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Aaron Gould Sheinin, September 2, 2012]

In January 2001, Georgia’s electorate was 72 percent white and 26 percent black, while Hispanics made up less than two-tenths of 1 percent, according to data compiled by the secretary of state. As of Aug. 1, those numbers had changed dramatically.

Blacks now make up 30 percent of active registered voters while whites are at 60 percent. Hispanics make up nearly 2 percent of the electorate after seeing their registration numbers increase from just 933 in 2011 to 85,000 as of Aug. 1.

Thus, Gwinnett County serves as the perfect microcosm for America: whites were able to build a thriving community - replete with crime-free streets, schools (almost with almost all-white pupils) boasting average standardized test scores that made the system one of the tops in the nation, rising property values, and an abundance of the type of social capital that makes opening and being successful in business almost a guarantee - that became the envy of the region. And just as Mr. Young said, "we" (Black people) would follow, early attempts to break the Whitopia in Gwinnett County with the public transit system of MARTA were met with racial resistance [Racism called regional transit roadblock, Atlanta Journal Constitution, July 3, 1987]:

David Chesnut, chairman of the board of MARTA, said Thursday he fears a regional transportation system is a long way off and "the reason is 90 percent a racial issue."

While Gwinnett and Cobb counties experienced their initial growth from the white flight from Fulton and DeKalb counties, said Chesnut, "I am very disturbed when I hear young professionals tell me they are going to form NNIG - No Niggers in Gwinnett."

Regardless of what politicians tell him, he knows such people are being honest, Chesnut told the Buckhead Business Association.

Chesnut also told the association:

"I don't think I need to call any names of politicians who, when asked to comment on the Bernhard Goetz verdict, say, `I think it's awful that that man would have a gun and would with reckless abandon shoot at those poor black folks.'

"Well, I agree, but I also think that it is terrible that there would exist any condition which would warrant somebody to carry a gun on a mass transit system. We at MARTA are doing everything that is humanly possible to eliminate not only someone carrying a gun on the system, but the cause that would warrant someone to want to."

During the recent deliberations over the MARTA fare increase, which took effect Sunday, Chesnut said the transit system needed to attract more white riders. About 75 percent of the system's riders are black, according to a MARTA study.

A look at the racial breakdown of Gwinnett County from 1960 - 2005: From "WHITE FLIGHT AND SPATIAL ASSIMILATION IN NEWLY MULTIRACIAL SUBURBS: THE CASE OF GWINNETT COUNTY, GEORGIA by JAMES LEE"

MARTA never came to Gwinnett County, but a wave of Hispanics immigrants did. You see, white people want cheap housing - which requires cheap labor to keep costs down - so they had no problem having Hispanics build their new homes in areas devoid of Black people.

But guess what? Black people, following the prophecy set by Andrew Young, followed too [Blacks, Hispanics lead metro population growth, Atlanta Journal Constitution, March 18, 2011]:

The last 10 years saw a boom in the number of black, Hispanic and Asian residents in metro Atlanta, while the number of white residents fell in four of the area’s five biggest counties, according to U.S. Census figures released Thursday.

The surge in minorities as a percentage of the population also occurred at the state level. Georgia added 1.5 million people, an 18 percent increase. The Hispanic population grew 96 percent, followed an 81 percent increase in Asian residents and a 26 percent increase in black Georgians. The white population grew less than 6 percent statewide.

Because Atlanta has no natural boundaries (save unsafe neighborhoods that are 100 percent Black), the spread of suburbs can continue in a 360-degree radius. And where ever whites go and setup communities (remember, in 1990 Gwinnett County was 91 percent white after being nearly 100 percent white in 1980), Blacks do follow.

And the demands for political power won't be far behind [Face of Gwinnett's Leadership Slowly Changing, Atlanta Journal Constitution, August 22, 2011]:

Though 'white club' still dominates, signs of diversity taking place.

Gwinnett long ago made headlines as a majority-minority county, a reality that is readily observed on the streets of the county's southern and eastern communities. Diversity is reflected in the faces of the men and women passing by. Among the children on school buses. In the signage lining some populous corridors.But there's at least one area in Gwinnett County where that cultural and ethnic diversity is noticeably absent: the county's leadership. The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners is all-white and home-grown, and most county department heads are white as well. The same can be said for the county's Board of Education, many city councils and the various chiefs of police."It's been a white club out there," said Harvey Newman, a Georgia State University professor of public management.

In theory, as the districts of all elected officials are redrawn to reflect the population shifts revealed by the 2010 census, minorities should gain greater opportunities to elect the candidates they favor. The Voting Rights Act protects minorities from being disenfranchised by having their populations split among several districts. Where concentrations of minorities exist, political districts should reflect those concentrations.

"It would be a travesty that if after redistricting, the entire County Commission and school board is Caucasian --- it would tell me that something went wrong," said state Sen. Curt Thompson, D-Tucker, who grew up in Lilburn.The math is complicated, however, by the fact that minorities often do not vote in proportion to their share of the population. Gwinnett looks to be no different.In 2010, white people made up 44 percent of Gwinnett's population but 59 percent its active voters; black people were 23 percent of the population and 22 percent of active voters; Asians were 11 percent of residents and 5 percent active voters; Hispanics were 20 percent of residents and 4 percent of active voters.

 It won't be long until the new majority-minority is permanently a Democrat stronghold, with the once all-white, all-white Republican county just another reminder of a past where racial socialism didn't reign. And not one white Republican (oxymoron, right?) will dare speak out on this, a tragic reminder that Gwinnett County is but a microcosm for the nation at large.

And with the drop in the overall white percentage of the population, the inevitable drop in the standard of living (a regression to the mean) has occurred in Gwinnett County [Atlanta property taxes: Gwinnett is Foreclosure Central in metro Atlanta
AJC special investigation: County's appraisals have dropped, but not enough, Atlanta Journal Constitution, December 24, 2010]

Two decades ago, Rebecca Carlson's subdivision in Lawrenceville bustled with hard-working, middle-class families. At Christmastime, neighbors lit up their homes with colorful displays. At night, people could walk their streets without fear.
Then subprime mortgages flooded the market, and Quinn Ridge Forest changed. Some new residents let their grass grow 3 feet high, Carlson said. Others let broken windows stay broken. Many longtime homeowners have sold their properties and bolted.

Now, Carlson said, the house next door is filled with renters who come and go. The police have been called to two nearby homes, one for prostitution, the other for illegal drugs.

"I won't let the kids go outside by themselves," said Carlson, 45.

The decay of the neighborhood tracks closely behind the collapse of the housing market. Gwinnett County has become the foreclosure capital of metro Atlanta -- 44 percent of its 10,301 home sales in 2009 were bank sales -- and that foul wave washed over Quinn Ridge Forest, too. At the moment, three of the 12 houses on the market there are bank sales.

The county looks no better in 2010: with 26,502 foreclosure notices for the year, Gwinnett surpassed Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb and Clayton counties, according to Equity Depot, which tracks foreclosure and other real estate trends in metro Atlanta.

And yet, no one ever dares ask the important question: what are the costs associated with Andrew Young's declaration coming true? Well, here's your answer [Gwinnett County’s dramatic demographic shift illustrates question: “Who are We?”, David Pendered, Saporta Report, September 5, 2012]:

The notion that Gwinnett County is home to a population that’s predominately white and affluent is as out-of-date as the idea that two painted water towers along I-85 in Norcross still proclaim: “Success Lives Here.”

The 40-year-old towers were torn down two years ago. In the decade before their demolition, 40,000 whites had moved out of Gwinnett. Now, the county’s population is predominately non-white, and less wealthy and less educated than it was in 2000.

The demographic shift in Gwinnett speaks to the broader question of “Who are We?” That was the topic Wednesday, at the quarterly meeting of the Atlanta Regional Housing Forum.

Out of the entire two-hour program, the most stunning report was provided by Lejla Slowinski, executive director of the Lawrenceville Housing Authority.

Slowinski provided a snapshot of Gwinnett’s population that gave some real heft to the demographic report on the metro Atlanta region that was delivered by Michael Rich, an associate professor of political science at Emory University who heads Emory’s Office of University-Community Partnerships.

Slowinski prefaced her remarks by saying she would talk later about ways in which Gwinnett’s civic and government leaders are leveraging the county’s diversity. But first, she said, she wanted to provide a bit of context about Gwinnett.

Speaking without any visual aids, such as a PowerPoint slide show, Slowinski riveted the audience’s attention with a cascade of nuggets derived from the 2000 and 2010 Census reports. The data shows that Gwinnett isn’t just changing – it is a changed community:

• Per capita income has fallen by $7,000;

• The proportion of whites in the overall population has fallen to 49.3 percent from 67 percent;

• No single Census tract has a white population of greater than 90 percent;

• 32 percent of households speak a language other than English;

• 61 percent of students in the county school system are non-whites;

• High school graduation rates for non-whites rose to 70 percent from 50 percent;

• 25 percent of Gwinnett commuters spend at least 45 minutes a day in the car.

Sources other than the Census provide additional insights:

• 18 percent of Gwinnett’s children live in poverty;

• The county’s poverty rate rose from 5.6 percent in 2000 to 13 percent in 2009;

• The number of foreclosures in Gwinnett has topped Fulton since 2009 (Fulton formerly had the region’s highest number of foreclosures).

One relevant point is that Gwinnett’s government and school board are trying to serve the human needs of this population with an ever-decreasing amount of tax revenues.

At the Piece by Piece annual meeting last week, Gwinnett County Commission Chairman Charlotte Nash said the county’s digest has dropped 25 percent during the past five years. That decrease has reduced the amount of property taxes collected by the county and school system, which is the main source of funding for both governments.

“The population has continued to diversify,” Nash said. “According to the 2010 Census, Gwinnett was the most diverse county in the southeast. That very different from what it was 20 years. It’s created language considerations, and the demand for additional types of flexibility in terms of how we deal with the community.”

Slowinski said the Gwinnett County Chamber of Commerce works diligently to reach out to, and serve, the minority business community. The number of firms owned by Hispanics and African Americans is still a small proportion of the overall mix, but it’s growing, she said.

Success no longer lives in Gwinnett County; diversity does.Those water towers that came crashing down in a controlled demolition boasted about the climate of the county when it was brimming with white families; now, the social capital is all but gone; the great social experiment in diversity continues unabated.

And a county created by "white flight" from Black people, now see "white flight" from what silence on racial matters (yes, it is white people that are responsible for "good schools," and "safe, crime-free subdivisions") will wrought [White Flight in Gwinnett?, Atlanta Journal Constitution, November 15, 2005]:

Mary James, an empty-nester from Snellville, craves the in-town bustle. Michelle Forren is tired of planning life around rush hour in Duluth. And Louise Stewart is fed up with the Spanish-language business signs, backyard chickens and overcrowded homes in her Norcross-area neighborhood.

Though their reasons vary, all three women plan to join an emerging demographic: whites leaving Gwinnett County.

In what might surprise metro Atlantans who remember the nearly lily-white county of old, Gwinnett's non-Hispanic white population declined for the first time last year, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. The drop of about 1,500 whites came even as Gwinnett, the state's perennial growth leader, added more than 27,000 residents.

One year doesn't make a trend. And some observers question the census estimates. But the figures offer more evidence that the number of whites is at the very least leveling off in Gwinnett, adding a new dimension to a lightning-fast demographic shift that has transformed a once-uniform suburb into what one Washington think tank called a "mini-Ellis Island."

The number of Hispanics in Gwinnett is now more than 12 times what it was in 1990, according to the latest census estimates. The Asian population has increased more than sixfold. And the black population has grown sevenfold. Until recently, the white population was growing, too, just not as fast. The county is now 57 percent white, down from 90 percent in 1990.

Louise Radloff, a member of the Gwinnett County school board for more than 30 years, said the additions have enriched her district between Norcross and Lilburn. It's the subtractions that hurt. Many schools in the area are now less than 10 percent white.

"It's called white flight," Radloff said. "There is a perception that with the diversity, there is low-income and there is crime. We need to learn to cope with these issues and decide that all men are created equal."

Bart Lewis, chief of the research division at the Atlanta Regional Commission, said any "white flight" from Gwinnett is limited. It's a far cry, he said, from what happened a generation ago in parts of Atlanta and DeKalb County, where neighborhoods changed practically overnight as white families moved to outlying areas such as Gwinnett.

In fact, Lewis finds it hard to believe that the number of whites isn't still rising in Gwinnett. Accurate racial breakdowns are difficult to estimate, particularly at the county level, he said.

Lewis sees the shift in Gwinnett as driven more by economics than race, anyway. Lower-income families scouring metro Atlanta for an affordable house or apartment are landing in the aging neighborhoods of western Gwinnett. Most of them happen to be minorities, Lewis said.

"What I think you're really seeing is an evacuation of more-affluent households of one race replaced by less-affluent people of another race," he said.

For those paying attention, Gwinnett County is the apt metaphor for modern America. And, wherever white people go, wherever they create thriving communities, the warning set-forth by Andrew Young remains:

 "No matter where they go, we will follow. No matter how far away they move, we will follow. They can't escape us."

Success can't live again in America until people dare say the reason Gwinnett County was once the fastest growing county in the nation, and why it now is failing.

Four letters. One word. Race.

Democracy in America

Victor Hill: The Face of Democracy in America

Recall that in 2008, 96 percent of Black people voted for Mein Obama in the presidential election. Obviously, four percent of Black people made a huge error in the voting booth and were incapable of reading the ballot correctly; this is the only reasoning one can conceivably conjure when confronted with the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll:

Obama continues to lead Romney among key parts of his political base, including African Americans (94 percent to 0 percent), Latinos (by a 2-to-1 margin), voters under 35-years-old (52 percent to 41 percent) and women (51 percent to 41 percent).

Romney is ahead with whites (53 percent to 40 percent), rural voters (47 percent to 38 percent) and seniors (49 percent to 41 percent).

Yes, presumable GOP candidate Mitt Romney is currently polling at zero percent with Black people.

Gotta love that, considering it was Valerie Jarret - senior adviser to Mein Obama - who told Black journalists of all the wonderful things that he has done to specifically help Black people:

the Obama administration's successes, among them funding for historically black colleges and universities; health care reform, which she said will disproportionately help African Americans; and reducing disparities between penalties for possession of crack and for powdered cocaine.

It was in an interview with Black Enterprise that Obama bragged about how his policies have successfully impacted Black entrepreneurs and small business owners, so who can blame Black people for looking upon the tag-team tandem of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with absolutely zero excitement.

But it is in another election that was held in Clayton County (Georgia) that we got to see how wonderful democracy is as a system of government. For those who have seen Gone With the Wind, you might recall that Scarlett O'Hara's beloved Tara was located in Clayton County. Once an almost all-white county (home to some of the first Chick-fil-A restaurants) as short as 30 years ago, Clayton is now almost 70 percent Black.

And it was the fine citizens of Clayton County who took to the polls on Tuesday, August 21 and cast their ballots in favor of Victor Hill for sheriff -- a position that he first won in 2005 (and, as the first Black sheriff of Clayton County, promptly fired all white officers and had them led out with snipers on the roof) -- despite having 37 felony counts pending against him (Hill wins another term as Clayton County sheriff, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Rhonda Cook):

Former Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill has reclaimed the office he lost four years ago despite 37 pending felony charges that accuse him of using his government office and his 2008 campaign to enrich himself.

With only one precinct uncounted, Hill was ahead. But the charges he's facing make it uncertain whether he will take office in January because the governor could suspend him until he goes to trial.

"Don't be sorry for me. Be sorry for Clayton County," Kimbrough said. "I'll be fine but there are a whole lot of people's lives that will be affected by this and maybe they have to see this for themselves. It's something I've heard a million times; only in Clayton County. It is what it is."

Hill, in an emailed statement, thanked God and the voters for letting him "serve once again."

"As promised, I want to advise those who prey on others by breaking into homes, robbing businesses and drug trafficking to stop or leave Clayton while you still can. Your presence is not wanted and your lawlessness will not be tolerated," Hill said.
This year's contest was a rerun of the runoff for Clayton County sheriff of four years ago, the buttoned-down Kimbrough vs. the controversial Hill. Only this campaign was extraordinarily nasty even before a field of eight candidates in the July 31 primary was reduced to the two.

Hill insisted that Kimbrough, who holds a law degree from Emory University, was behind the 37-count indictment returned against Hill in January. Hill said Kimbrough assigned deputies to follow him and to go through his trash and then handed over documents to a special prosecutor just to keep Hill from returning to office.

In campaigning, Kimbrough struggled to get across the message to voters that, as sheriff, he had no role pushing for an indictment that came out of the findings of a special grand jury overseen by a special prosecutor, the district attorney for Walton and Newton Counties.

Special prosecutor Layla Zon obtained an indictment of Hill on charges of racketeering, theft by taking, making false statements, influencing a witness and violating his oath of office, all allegedly while he was sheriff. He is charged with taking tens of thousands of dollars from his 2008 re-election campaign and from the county, using his government car and county credit card for vacations with a female employee of the office.

"People have forgiven him for his missteps and he's said, for this second time around, he's become more mature and he's learned from his mistakes, but he still has the indictments against him," said Pat Pullar, chief executive of Atlanta-based political consulting and training firm Talking Points 4 U.

"He'll have to overcome that as well," said Pullar, who is also vice chairman of the Clayton County Board of Elections and Registration.

Since there was no Republican running, this run-off decided the sheriff's race.
In 2008 when Kimbrough and Hill faced each other Kimbrough bested Hill, who was the incumbent.

Hill, a former homicide detective and state legislator, was among those elected in 2004 after Clayton voters dismissed virtually all incumbents.

 Democracy in action. The embarrassingly leftist (almost openly communist) Atlanta alternative newspaper Creative Loafing published a hilarious look at life in the demographically changed Clayton County back in 2006. We have also targeted Clayton County for abuse - the concept of the Black Undertow was invented when thinking about how the new Black majority in the county remade Clayton into their image, which mirrored that of majority Black Atlanta - but it is this article from Creative Loafing which slams home what democracy actually means (Clayton County's tribulations
Dunderheads, dumb growth and race in the southern suburbs, July 23, 2008):

Bad news in Clayton ranges from the bizarre to the sordid. Aside from [Clayton County Commissioner Eldrin] Bell's self-inflicted wound, word came this morning that another lawsuit had been filed against Victor Hill, the controversial sheriff. This one, a discrimination suit filed by a white employee, contains explosive allegations that Hill misused funds seized from drug busts and vending machines he operated in the department's headquarters and jail. The suit alleges that he used the money to purchase provocative artwork for his office that depicted "African American cowboys" and "a lynch mob scene portraying Caucasian people with shotguns."

It's just another day in the headlines for Clayton County. The schools are on the verge of losing accreditation. The district attorney is a barrister who had little experience with criminal cases when she was elected. The sheriff fired 27 deputies on his first day in office, under the watch of snipers he'd dispatched to rooftops. And there's the irony that Bell was at a party thrown by Galardi, who had successfully sued the sheriff for setting up roadblocks almost every weekend near the newly opened Pink Pony South.

But shortly before the 1996 Olympics, residents noticed the face of the county beginning to change. Between 1990 and 2006, it underwent a dramatic shift in demographics – from 75 percent white to 64 percent black.

"Back in the 1950s, Forest Park was one of the fastest-growing municipalities in the country," Hatfield says. "Clayton County was growing dramatically. But that was a largely self-selected population that wanted to get out of Atlanta and the problems of the big city. Over the recent years, the population growth has been from those seeking lower-cost housing, and they've had relatively larger numbers of children."

Much as Atlanta faced a transition from white leadership to black in the '70s, Clayton County's new demographics brought a changing of the guard that began in the 2004 elections. It just happened less gracefully than it did in Atlanta.

And Victor Hill, a former Bell protégé, was elected sheriff.

Hill set the immediate tone when he fired 27 deputies on his first day in office, including four of the highest-ranking officers, all of whom were white. He called the officers in on the pretext of swearing them in; instead, they were relieved of their badges and service weapons and taken out of the sheriff's office inside inmate vans with police snipers posted on nearby rooftops.

Clark Talmage Stevens, chief of staff for the commission and a former adviser to presidents Carter and Reagan, told the New York Times it was "an embarrassment" and "blatant mass political firing." He added: "This is all over the country, like we're a bunch of goofballs."

It was also expensive. The firings wound up costing taxpayers $7 million in settlements and court costs.

Then, in 2006, Lee Scott made a run for county commission against a white incumbent, Michael Edmondson. He distributed fliers with Edmondson's face superimposed over a Confederate flag. Scott lost, but the changing of the guard was nearly complete. With the exception of Edmondson, the white Democrats who'd controlled Clayton County government were all cast out. The political leadership finally mirrored the demographics.

It's hard for an outsider not to notice the role the Scotts have played in Clayton County's political circus. They're close allies with Hill, often contributing to each others' campaigns. And Bell has openly bickered with Lee and Jewel Scott. But he reserves his harshest criticism for Hill, who was once his driver.

"If Victor Hill was [white], we would have already run him out of town, hung him in effigy, and we would've cussed his grandma out even if she were already dead," Bell says. "We would have not tolerated it. I'm worried about the fact that we vote for race over the ability to lead."

Yes, the new Black majority in control of Clayton County are goofballs; they're also grossly incompetent. And yet, all those in seats of power were elected (or have benefited) from the racial demographic changes that have re-made Clayton County from a majority white county into just another Prince George's County.

 No Scarlett, there won't always be a Tara. And frankly, the new Black majority doesn't give a damn.

They just re-elected Victor Hill, a man who upon seizing democratic power as sheriff fired all white officers and had snipers on the roof when they were escorted out of the building.

Black people support Obama 94-0 in the newest poll released by NBC/WSJ, meaning Mitt Romney has zero Black support.

Democracy in America.

"The Day the EBT Cards Run Out": A Glimpse of the Chaos from Clayton County

The Reality of Clayton County, again.

The Black Undertow: Best Represented in Clayton County, Georgia

We write about that wonderful county located in Metro-Atlanta a lot here. Whether it is a Black sheriff firing all the white police officers and putting Black snipers on the roof as they are marched out, humiliated in the process; whether it is the first county in America in 40 years to lose its academic accreditation; whether it is the county in all of Georgia with the lowest property value (and some of the worst academic test scores by the children who live there), highest foreclosure rates, and highest rates of crime; or whether it is the city that now gives us a glimpse of the impending "DAY THE EBT CARDS RUN OUT", Clayton County is just the gift that keeps on giving.

The overwhelming majority of Clayton County is Black, with nearly every elementary, middle and high school in the county providing free lunches to Black students whose parents - okay, parent - lack the financial acumen to provide monetary assistance to their children and feed them, themselves, on their own dime.

White people have fled Clayton County. In 1980, they represented 91 percent of the population. They built an economic infrastructure out of nothing, only to see it erode once they fled from the Black Undertow pouring in from Atlanta:

Between 2000 and 2009, Clayton County had a significant change in its racial and ethnic composition, a much greater change than experienced by the state. The county’s African-American population rose 9.9 percent, and its Hispanic population rose 4.8 percent to make-up 62.1 and 12.2 percent of Clayton County’s entire population, respectively. The county’s White population declined 11.0 percent, and in 2009 comprised 30.4 percent of the county’s total population.

Clayton County offers the most stunning visual proof of what happens when white flight meets the Black Undertow; once thriving schools become academically inept, because the students who made those schools academically thrive are gone, their parents moving them to safer cities; the business infrastructure collapses - sustained by the purchasing power of white people who made the county economically viable and attractive to big box stores and business investments - and ultimately replaced with empty strip malls replete with dollar stores, nail and hair salons, and payday loan stores. That is the economy of the Black Undertow.

Here is the story that signifies all that Clayton County became, courtesy of The New York Times:

On his first day at work, the new sheriff of Clayton County called 27 employees into his office on Monday, fired them and had snipers stand guard on the roof as they were escorted out the door.

A judge on Tuesday ordered him to rehire the employees.

The sheriff, Victor Hill, 39, defended the firings and said he had the right to shake up the department in whatever way he felt necessary.

Sheriff Hill also said it was necessary to fire the workers the way he did, including taking some deputies home in vans normally used to transport prisoners because the deputies were barred from using county cars.

Sheriff Hill was among a spate of black candidates elected last year in the county, which was once dominated by rural whites. The fired employees included four of the highest-ranking officers, all of them white. Sheriff Hill told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that their replacements would be black.

That was in 2006.

Clayton County is a reflection of what Black people are capable of... destroying. The Black Undertow obliterated a once thriving county in a matter of two decades. As of 2009, 25 percent of Black people in Clayton County were on EBT/Food Stamps, not to mention that almost every school in the county provides free lunches to the predominately Black student body.  Indeed, all of Metro Atlanta has counties where more than 20 percent of the Black population (in some cases, 40 percent) are sustained via EBT cards.

An image we will see on The Day the EBT Cards Run Out; Clayton County provides a glimpse

And then, something happened in Clayton County earlier this week that offers us that tiny glimpse of the pandemonium that will soon ensue across the entire nation when EBT/Food Stamps no longer work:

Anger and frustration from dozens of Clayton County parents who say their children are going hungry after their food stamps were suddenly cut off.


State officials admit that something went wrong down in Clayton County at the office that administers food stamps and Medicaid but they're still not sure what.

Parents say they can't buy food without those food stamps.

Terry Clark says she stood in line for more than six hours at Clayton County's Human Services Office because food stamp help for her six children unexpectedly ended.

"There's no telling my kids we can't eat. I'm not taking no. We don't deserve that. Nobody should go hungry here in Georgia," said Terry Clark.

State officials say the office was overwhelmed Tuesday with dozens of families facing a similar problem. The food stamps are just not there.

"Me and my kids they haven't ate since this morning. I was supposed to get my food stamps yesterday and I got nothing," said a mother.

A state spokesperson says what happened was out of the ordinary and unexpected but she said they don't know yet what went wrong -- what was the glitch that lead to this mess?

"Our budgets have not been increased, they've been decreased," said one official.

The office director admitted there were problems as he tried to calm fears.

In a statement, a state spokesperson says, "We have both state and county staff working to understand the cause of the problem today. We are working to ensure people receive their food stamps as soon as possible."
"I'm a cancer patient. I need these pills to survive," said Candace Bennett.

Candace Bennett says her cancer medications have nearly run out and after spending all day at the office. Her Medicaid and her food stamps are both still on hold.

State officials say that the Clayton County office was closed Monday because of furloughs and that could have contributed to the lines. They are investigating whether some sort of paperwork or computer problem might have lead to some families getting their benefits cut off by mistake.

In 2010, Atlanta had a Section 8 voucher riot. 30,000 Black people rioted for the chance to sign up for Section 8 vouchers that won't be available for five -to- seven years. We learned in the tragic Brittney Watts story that all of the violent crime in Atlanta is monopolized by Black people; the same can be said of virtually all of the surrounding counties.

Atlanta Public Schools (APS) has just had a hilarious Black cheating scandal exposed that the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce tried to help cover up, because they know new businesses will not want to move into the city if accreditation is lost. Where will these new investors in the city too busy to hate send their children? A school run by cheating Black teachers, trying to help academically inept Black students meet the standards set by their white counterparts in the lily-white (peaceful) suburbs?

Atlanta will be the city where Black-Run America (BRA) dies. The Day the EBT Cards no longer work... Clayton County has given us a glimpse, just a glimpse of the anger that will appear. All across this country exist counties where a majority or near majority of Black people subsist on EBT Cards/ Food Stamps.

Dallas, Memphis, Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Nashville, Birmingham, Mobile, Cincinnati, Portland, Seattle, Denver, Houston, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Orlando, Columbia, Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Minneapolis... all with populations of people who subsist on EBT/Food Stamps. The Day the EBT Card no longer provides free food to a certain segment of the population that believes it is their right, their duty to continue receiving welfare and other amenities from the government, is the moment the experiment of BRA officially ends.

Again, a once thriving county in Georgia (when it was white) offers a glimpse of the future for those cities, towns, and counties that allow the Black Undertow to take over. White Flight happens first; commerce and business investments next; and you are left with Black people in control of every level of government, courts, police, the schools, and the Chamber of Commerce.

The Reality of Clayton County is the reality of the power of the Black Undertow. White people can continue building new cities out of the wilderness, but they will inevitably be abandoned when it is no longer feasible to raise children in a healthy, crime-free environment.

Clayton County Food Stamp Snafu Angers Many: MyFoxATLANTA.com

Will "White Flight" be declared Illegal? News from the "City too Busy to Hate"

Will "white flight" be declared illegal? Why don't people move to majority Black cities?

In the state of Georgia, the Black Caucus is suing majority white cities ostensibly because of White Flight and the lack of tax dollars being shared with the city of Atlanta. The Black Undertow has been unsuccessful in turning these cities and counties into mirror images of Clayton and DeKalb County, because Dunwoody, Sandy Springs and Johns Creek have kept property values high, keeping a Black influx from transpiring.

The sad fact is the state of Georgia is broke. With an astounding number of Black people moving back to the South after failing in virtually every other city they went to during The Great Migration, the stress levels on an already broken infrastructure are going to become shockingly apparent. As this incredible article from Newsone.com admits, Black people are reliant on local, state, and federal government for employment and entitlements at levels disproportionate to other racial groups:

Poor and working-class Blacks, on the other hand, are caught between a rock and NO place—the “hard place” option no longer exists.

Simply put, the current economic crisis is much deeper than job and business creation. Both can be undertaken and still feature exploited workers with no health benefits or a living wage.

So what options exist for the Black poor and working class?

First, at the very least, poor and working-class Blacks need to organize. They should not be seduced by political slogans of hope.

Black youth, whose unemployment numbers are approaching a staggering 50 percent, for example, have to be aware of Arab young people using the “white man’s magic” (cell phones, Internet, FaceBook, and Twitter) to revolt against oppressive regimes. In doing so, some Arabs have made references to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.

Yet, Black youth have failed to capitalize on the growing trend of using technology for political mobilization to address staggering unemployment and other issues that impact their lives.

According to a recent Target Market News Report, Black-Americans spent $9.4 billion dollars on cell phones and connectivity services in 2009.  This is regarded as a growing market. Even so, cutting-edge smart phones do not constitute Black political or economic power, especially for millions of Black youth for who technology is used primarily in the hot pursuit of foolishness.

Second, the disproportionate number of Blacks employed by municipal, state, and federal government need to wake up to the budget deficit game being played in Washington. It is not far-fetched to imagine the possibility that they may be sacrificed en masse. Beyond these workers themselves, budget cuts also translate into an assault on working and middle-class Blacks.

And finally, for Black folks who did not have jobs in the first place, surviving in the underground and barter economy—as they have always done—is the most viable option. They, like many of their counterparts across race trapped in jobless urban centers and rural areas, are caught in the middle of history.

This above article is an honest look at a problem we have pointed out will eventually manifest itself in America. The Federal Government is already attacking all-white counties and cities, scolding them for not making enough concession to Black Run America. Whose side do you think the government will fall on during a massive Black revolt (which Newsone.com seems to be encouraging)?

An artificial Black middle class has been created in Atlanta, largely due to a massive support network that seeks to improve the quality of Black life at the expense of other racial groups:

Local leaders said black business people come to Atlanta because of the city's strong black middle class, support among other black entrepreneurs and black colleges and universities.

"There are really a lot of proactive efforts to engage small businesses and entrepreneurship here," said Nancy Flake Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Urban League. "The political climate is supportive."

Groups such as the Urban League, the Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council, Atlanta Metro Black Chamber of Commerce and Atlanta Business League have assisted these efforts.

The Federal Government has already made it clear that all-white cities, counties and states are a thing of the past (just ask the Somalians of Minnesota and Maine how great the welfare programs are there). Now the Black Caucus is suing the refugee camps outside of Atlanta and calling for the dissolution of these white flight enclaves.

Atlanta is known as The City too Busy to Hate. In reality, it is a city whose Disingenuous White Liberal class has been one of the most dedicated groups in the erection of Black Run America (BRA) and a metropolitan area that saw its Black ruling political class come under fire in 2009 when it became apparent that they were losing control of the city.

It's a city where 30,000 Black people rioted over the right to sign a waiting list for Section 8 housing that wouldn't be available for five years.

It's a city with some of America's least safe neighborhoods (all Black areas).

It's a city white people fled from, and in so doing established some of the top counties in the nation (they would apologize for this on Oprah). Slowly, and surely, the Black Undertow followed. Gwinnett, Clayton, and even parts of Fayette County all succumbed to the problems that the citizens who fled to them sought to avoid.

The ultimate question is this: Why are cities and counties with majority white populations so desirable and cities and counties with majority Black population so undesirable? 

Now the legal system will be used to break up white flight. As we have seen with Marin County in San Francisco, the legal system is in the pocket of BRA. Strangely, Black people still believe that the legal system operates under Jim Crow. This is why Brian Nichols thought he was a Black Avenging Angel of Death (BAAD), courtesy of people like Michelle Alexander who hold a revered place in Black people's hearts and minds.

The mentality of people like Alexander has harmfully impacted thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Black people. Maybe even millions. Newsone.com has basically called for insurrection in this nation by Black people, following on the heels of Middle East uprisings.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution, like The Washington Post and New York Times, rarely publishes articles that deal with race and crime (unless its a story like the Duke Lacrosse hoax). If they did, the paper would just be a print version of Thug Report.

If Black people follow Newsone.com's suggestion and start to use social media to protest a system that provides free lunches, welfare, cell phones, housing, scholarships, allows Black-only groups to help with creating businesses, and employs a disproportionate amount of Black people in government jobs, how do you think non-Black people in America will react?

As we have said before, Black Run America is going to collapse on itself. Attempting to deprive people of the right to "white flight" by suing majority white cities that exist because majority Black cities (and Black-run municipalities) are unsuitable for raising families is a shocking indicator of the power of BRA.

But it's an act of desperation.

#43. The Reality of Prince George's County

In the United States, one city is known as the Black Mecca – Atlanta. Though the demographics are changing rapidly, the rampant corruption found throughout Hotlanta won’t go away anytime soon. A massive scandal in the city school system – led by Black principals – is threatening the accreditation of that district.

Once you go Black...

What other county in Georgia recently lost its accreditation? Clayton County, a once thriving suburb that is now the mortgage default capital of the United States:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s analysis of hundreds of thousands of county tax appraisals across metro Atlanta, compared with actual home sales prices, turned up an extraordinary phenomenon in Clayton: Of the 1,302 sales last year, 581 were “bank sales” — transactions in which a lender has taken back a home and resold it.


The county’s chief appraiser, Rodney McDaniel, said the declines in Clayton’s 2010 property valuations surprised even him.


“I didn’t think we could go much lower than we did last year,” McDaniel said. “But the foreclosure sales are really driving the assessments this year.”

For property owners, the plague of foreclosures has injected even more uncertainty into an uncertain market, particularly when it comes to county tax appraisals.

 Clayton County is a Black county, run by Black people, who – upon taking power- fired all of the white police and had snipers on the roof of the police precinct as they were being escorted out. This was in 2007, an updated look at what Jim Crow must have been like only in reverse.

Atlanta is home to what many people claim to be the top county for Black people to live in, in all of America – DeKalb County. We have covered the status of that county before and, well, it’s not exactly a shining example of a thriving community.

Other majority Black areas (here is Wikipedia’s list of cities with the largest percentages of Black residents) fair about the same, with the sad news of Camden highlighting the growing problem of Black people relying on the government for jobs and what happens when the money runs out:

His family was a sample of the bloody consequences being felt in the Black and Hispanic families in minority communities throughout New Jersey as a result of the scorched earth policies of the Republican governor, and former New Jersey U.S. attorney.

Christie had suddenly transformed the streets and corridors of cities like Camden, Newark and Trenton into killing fields of minority dreams. Through his brutal programs Christie was rapidly shaping himself into a Republican and tea party presidential contender as well as a feared governor in New Jersey. He was considered by some in Camden to be a “bully,” using the weak to ram through his budget cuts.

The impoverished city of Camden, located in one of the wealthiest states in the nation, has long been a subject of futile revitalization efforts by a long line of Democratic and Republican governors before Christie. But now its head was on the chopping block along with the necks of numerous other urban areas.

Council President Frank Moran argues that the governor should give Camden authorization to implement a wage tax for the thousands of outside workers who come into the city each day to work at the numerous state, county, religious and nonprofit institutions. He said because of these facilities that are tenants in Camden, close to 56 percent of the city’s real estate is tax exempt, leaving the city with no way to expand its revenue income.

To make matters worse, much of the city’s shortfall resulted because Camden’s political establishment miscalculated pension obligations.

Moran points out Newark and other larger municipalities than Camden have wage taxes and that a special exception should be made for Camden because of all the governmental, religious and nonprofit facilities it hosts…


Moran suggested that Delgado and other Camden residents direct their protests to Gov. Christie. The price tag is $69 million in so-called “transitional aid.”

Williamson, leader of the rank and file of the police department, FOP said that the city as well as minorities were being made whipping boys by the Christie administration to make it appear that they are taking aggressive action and resorting to austere measures.

He said the cuts will only make the city’s plight worse by making outsiders afraid to come into the city to do business or set up business.

“The attack on public safety and the educational system will not make anyone more comfortable to move into the city to help jumpstart the city’s economy ... It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that most of the cities hit are Black, Hispanic and Asian.”

 It is sad that Camden is forced to make these cuts and that, like DeKalb and Clayton County, the citizens of the city have few businesses capable of squeezing taxes out of and few employment opportunities (save the post office, government and barber shops).

Perhaps Detroit provides the best glimpse of the future for these three areas with the city beginning a complete rollback of all government services (with a 25 percent graduation rate, the city schools long ago stopped providing academic services). A town without a major chain grocery store is being allowed to go back to the wild.

We’ve discussed Newark - a town that cherishes the celebrity of its mayor to bring in donations to keep that city solvent - but one area that has escaped an honest look at SBPDL is the penultimate Black place to live in America: Prince George's County.

Prince George's County epitomizes the problems that are obvious in the aforementioned cities (and ones found in the archives), but the primary problem afflicting the county is a reliance on high-paying government jobs to fund their version of the American dream. What happens when those jobs go away?

Sadly, the majority of residents in this thriving Black area rely on high interest home loans to fund their dream. These loans mean a lot of these residents are saddled with debt:

Residents of majority-black Prince George's County are much more likely to be saddled with high-interest home loans than residents of predominantly white areas in the rest of the region, placing them at greater risk of financial distress and foreclosure. 

About 43 percent of Prince George's County residents who refinanced their homes in 2005 received high-cost loans, compared with 24 percent of homeowners regionwide, according to Federal Reserve data compiled for The Washington Post by the Consumer Federation of America. Similarly, 43 percent of people buying homes in the county in 2005 financed their purchases with high-cost loans, compared with 20 percent regionally. 

High-cost loans are a large slice of the subprime mortgage market, called such because the loans' terms are less desirable. Fears about escalating problems in the subprime market have shaken broader financial markets in recent days and raised concerns that if foreclosures rise significantly, it could hamper economic growth. The government defines high-cost loans as those with interest rates 3 percentage points or more above a certain market rate…

Housing and civil rights advocates have long said that blacks are pushed to costly loans by mortgage brokers who mislead them into believing those are the only loans they can qualify for. 

"It's sad, but I'm not surprised," Hilary Shelton, director of the Washington bureau of the NAACP, said of the Prince George's data. "It's the same issue all over the country." 

Lending industry trade groups deny race is the only reason for high rates. Doug Duncan, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, said people pay more for loans if they have poor credit, large student loans or want to make a lower down payment. Wright Andrews, a lobbyist for subprime lenders, has acknowledged differences between loan rates but has blamed them on underlying "economic disparities."
Industry officials have acknowledged that predatory lending exists and have urged uniform national lending laws. 

People can find themselves with high-cost loans for many reasons. Prince George's County is the nation's wealthiest majority-black jurisdiction, and housing costs there are high. If homeowners also have high car payments, student loans or credit card balances, that could raise their debt-to-income ratio, forcing them into costly loans. Overspending or paying bills late can also hurt people's credit. 

Credit and credit standards are both included in SBPDL (along with paying back student loans, both upcoming entries) and maintaining good credit to ensure that home loan rates will be low is a risky, acting white proposition. Paying bills in a timely manner is a move that only the token Black dares make, thus why the mortgage crisis has been a minority fueled meltdown.

In a country governed by the rules of Black Run America (BRA), forcing Black people to take riskier loans because they have, on average, worse credit scores and represent a higher probability of defaulting on loans is merely perpetuating racism:

“Federal officials launched an investigation Wednesday to determine whether 22 mortgage lenders have been discriminating against qualified African-American and Latino borrowers by denying them government-insured loans.


The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said the inquiry is in response to complaints filed Tuesday by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition accusing 22 banks nationwide of violating fair housing laws.

The coalition said the lenders denied Federal Housing Administration-insured loans to borrowers with credit scores that met the federal standard of 580 to be eligible for the insurance against default, but the lenders set higher credit score thresholds.

The Washington-based NCRC claims those requirements disproportionately harm black and Hispanic communities, since many minority borrowers’ credit scores fall between the federal threshold of 580 and the higher benchmarks set by the banks.”

 We have seen the future and it will be. The mortgage crisis brought on by aggressive attempts to increase home ownership to Black people and the subsequent failure of these same Black people to pay the mortgages (many times with no down payments, low interest rates and small monthly payments) is actually the fault of evil white male bankers, who were secretly plotting to bring down AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.

Now these banks are being sued by Black people, whose poor credit regrettably made them ineligible for low-risk loans.

Tea Party enthusiasts must understand that the principles they promote run directly anathema to those of BRA. There is a reason the Tea Party is monochromatic; a lot of Black people rely on the state for their well being. Cutting that off, as we see in Camden, is grounds for nothing but nasty words toward the Republican governor of the state.

Prince George's County, long the destination of mobile Black people, relies on a steady supply of government jobs to maintain the growth and keep its citizens employed. Even this isn’t enough:

“Back in the 1970s, Woodley Timberlake was part of the mass migration of black Washingtonians to Prince George's County, an exodus fueled by the quest for the American dream -- a home with a back yard, quality schools and a safe neighborhood.

Timberlake, now 65 and a retired federal worker, felt proud as blacks captured political and economic power in the once-majority-white county. But two years ago, when his daughter and her husband planned to return to the area with their baby girl, Timberlake urged them to move to a safe community with good public schools -- not Prince George's. His daughter chose Fairfax County. 

A generation ago, civic leaders and scholars cast Prince George's as a rising mecca for middle-class African Americans, a place where they could pursue an affluent suburban lifestyle that had long been the province of whites…

Prince George's is also recovering from a recession that has driven foreclosures to the highest levels in Maryland. Although county leaders are hopeful about rising math and reading test scores and last year's dramatic decrease in crime, Prince George's public schools remain among the worst-performing in Maryland, and the number of homicides, robberies and car thefts rank near the top in the state.”

Cities rise and fall. They can be burned to the ground, rebuilt and a mighty conflagration can bring ruin yet again. But once a city changes hands from the population that built and sustained it, and turned over to a different population, the results are simply as outlined above.

Mall envy exists for a reason. Public transportation is failing for a reason. And a lack of retailers in predominately Black areas happens for a reason:

Prince George’s County – sometimes derisively abbreviated as “PG” – is the undisputed Mecca of the Black middle class.  It holds the largest concentration of affluent and educated African Americans in the nation, well ahead of Black cultural hot spots like Atlanta, Philadelphia or Chicago.  Income is high due to a settled federal workforce in a Washington, D.C. suburb and countless government contractors with job stability.  In recent years, before recession took hold, Prince George’s County was in the midst of economic revival from the explosion of town centers showing off name brand retailers to the ambitious development of an awe-inspiring National Harbor on the Potomac.  It is where many professional Black folks move.


Most recently, Prince George’s finally got its wish: the opening of a brand new, fully-stocked Wegmans grocery store.  Residents had, understandably, complained for years about the lack of prominent, organic food retailers in the county, citing a pattern of racial redlining that forced the county’s majority Black population to travel miles into predominantly White counties to shop at spots like Whole Foods, Wegmans and others.


When the County seemed to move forward, even as unemployment and foreclosures gripped it, news of an unfolding political scandal took it two steps backward.  Federal prosecutors accuse County Executive Jack Johnson of engineering sophisticated kickback schemes with various developers and businesses in the county.  It got worse when Johnson and his wife were caught on wiretap allegedly flushing a $100,000 check down the toilet when FBI agents knocked on the door of their Mitchellville home.  Leslie Johnson, federal court documents allege, stuffed nearly $80,000 in her bra.

It tells you all you need to know about the state of Black America when the top county for Black people (Prince George's) can't even get a major retailer to set up shop within its borders. It tells you something about the state of Black America when the top Black county has a population with such poor overall credit that special loans had to be made in an effort to ensure home ownership in the first place.

It tells you all you need to know about the state of Black America when Prince George's has schools that consistently put up poor marks and ranks as one of the worst academically in all of Maryland. 

Poverty isn't the cause of crime, though conversely, a cities well-being does reflect its demographics.With segregation at a purported all-time low, one would expect a nation living in harmony. Such is not the case. Stuff White People Like (SWPL) white people live highly segregated lives far away from Black people.

Here is an awesome Web site that breaks down the top cities for SWPL white people and points out how few Black people are to be found. 

Black areas - as we have learned today - aren't a hotbed for thriving economies. 

In many cities, Black people rarely live in areas with white people.

So here is the ultimate question we can ask from the information available to us: does a majority Black city or county exist that is thriving? If not, is this why cities or counties that see massive white flight eventually turn into facsimiles of Clayton County?

As the nation becomes increasingly brown, white people surreptitiously look for areas with little diversity. Mobile Black people look for safe places to raise families and frequently select former whitopia's.

In time, those whitopia's become just as unappealing as the cities those mobile and economically viable Black people escaped from, only perpetuating the cycle of ruination.

Perhaps this is why that joke from The Boondock Saints resonates so deeply...

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes the reality of Prince George's County. If the best county for Black people in America isn't that different from a place like Clayton County, then what does that truly mean?

Watch a video on Prince George's County here.