Flag Wars....Sodomites harass poor & middle class Blacks to get their homes. (pos. barf alert)

PBS POV ^ | June 17, 2003 | Linda Goode Bryant

[quietolong]

Shot over four years, "Flag Wars" is a poignant 90-minute account of economic competition between two historically oppressed groups, seen through the politics and pain of gentrification. The setting could be any city with a once stable working and middle class black community, now aging and economically depressed, in danger of losing control of their neighborhoods as wealthier home buyers gentrify block by block. In this case, the neighborhood is in Columbus, Ohio and the home buyers are largely white and gay.

The resulting conflicts are a case study of differences in perception. Where realtors and buyers see run-down homes, black residents see evidence of institutional racism that steered resources away from this community. What newer residents see as a beneficial effort to renovate and restore value, veteran residents see as an assault on their heritage and a threat to their ability to hold on to their homes.

The events in "Flag Wars" unfold against a backdrop of racism, homophobia, and tensions between privilege and poverty. Mix in government zoning boards, the court system, lending institutions, and civic leaders, and you've got a film that literally hits people "where they live." "Flag Wars" explores the complexity of gentrification, and the contradictions between intention and result, belief and action. It goes beyond merely assigning blame or labeling people as "good guys" or "bad guys" to examine the relationship between housing, heritage, and public policy.

More at

POV Flag Wars Web Link

[quietolong]

Just saw this show for the first time the other day. And As this one resident says liberals Shows there true colors

Rubin, Olde Towne East resident:
"I get very concerned when I see well-intentioned white people show their true colors. And the more you push a liberal, the more they — they will really come out. Very interesting. So, now a writer said that liberal and progressive people have a great s se of justice, but little sense of injustice. And — and I think that's the case that we see here."

You somewhat need to read between the lines on this story.

What you have here is this group using Zoning , Historical districts, city ordinances and taxes. To harass the poor & middle class Blacks to get them to sell there homes.

There are also several sub-plots going on here.

One of which is city bureaucracy run amuck.
At the beginning of the show the Environmental Court Judge just tows the cities line. By the end of the show. Even he looks sick of the city bureaucrats.

Also the story of the underlying conservative streak running thought the Black community.

Here also is a opportunity to reach out to and bring these African-Americans into the conservative smaller government camp. Change need to start somewhere.

Why the Barf Alert.

Well if you watch the show. You will see some disgusting behavior. That can turn your stomach as it did some of the Blacks. When they got together to talk about what was happening in there neighborhood.
And besides how would you like to come home to a street filled with in your face rainbow flags.

[hang 'em]

What Would Willie Green Do (WWWGD)?

On the one hand we have your white homos moving in to an area to take homo jobs away from black americans. The black homos are afraid to complain because of multiculti prejudice.

On the other hand, said homos are probably displacing mexican homos and taking their jobs, which are being outsourced to foreign countries like China, India, BelaRus, and Mexico (whence said foreign homos are sourced.)

I really don't know how to do a satisfactory sociological analysis of this, so I think I'll just walk down to the dock and hop in the canoe (which at least has the advantage of being a Native American invention closely related to Algore's 1.5 gallon toilet.)

[Badeye]

Hard not to conclude the setting was choosen because of Ohio's importance in the coming election cycle.

Personally, I think living in a large urban area is the height of foolishness, on multiple counts, but thats just my opinion.

I wouldn't move back into a "city" for any amount of money.

[WhiteGuy]

Ok Tony.........................

Reasons you pinged me on this one.....

1. I'm on your ping list
2. This is about Cowlumbus
3. This article stresses a group that is largely white, (perhaps I should change my name to "Largely WhiteGuy?)
4. You think I'm gay
5. You knew you'd get a pointless and only marginally funny reply
6. None of the above

Seriously, I really don't see much wrong with the private improvement of the neighborhoods mentioned.

I can understand the concerns about all the rainbow flags and the public activities that sometimes accompany them, but It's better that the crime and deterioration that was eliminated.

I do take issue with the generalization the author made about the percentage of gays moving in being large.

Sincerely,

LargelyWhiteGuy (not gay)

[Badeye]

Fairfield County is nice country.

[Hat-Trick]

Where's Jesse, Kweisi, Uncle Al, the NAACP, the ACLU, the CBC, and all the usual suspects, who normally show up to defend their constituents?

What's that? Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot. These are working, middle-class blacks who just might be conservative. Nevermind. My bad.

[Hat-Trick]

Ping!

[mhking]

There have been complaints among black communites about gentrification for years. In the minds of the "displaced" black home owners, the "eeevil" developers are "taking" their homes from them. (of course, if the "victims" didn't sell in the first place, the issue would be moot)

[shrug] It ain't (as this PBS special tries to color it) a black versus gay or anyone else for that matter. The issue, ultimately, is one of money. Period. Those who have it, want to purchase property from those who don't. Those who don't, if they want the money more than the property, sell the property. It's that simple.

The larger question (and one that is playing itself out in several neighborhoods here in Atlanta -- Castleberry Hill and East Atlanta immediately come to mind) is the overall cultural, social and economic change that takes place in a newly-gentrified neighborhood. And that's an entirely different coin, but it, too, is not one of black versus white or any other group -- it is a matter of having money (and in that case, disposable income to frequent the new businesses that are established in the gentrified neighborhoods) versus not.

Black conservative ping

If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)

Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.

[Badeye]

Ironically, at a certain age (16–21) all I could think of was how I wanted to leave, move to a BIG CITY and be all hoity-toity, go to fancy parties, hang out w/sophisticated people, blah blah blah.

In some cases, that old adage "the grass is always greener" applies. But my experience is a little different: in a metro city, you've gotta go to a park to even see any grass! :-I"

Pretty much my experience from that age. I've live on both coasts, down south, up north.

Always ended up back in Ohio. Now I'm looking for property in upstate New York for the summer, and something down south or out west for the winter.

But I'll most likely always have the "home of residence" here.

Won't open another company here due to Bobby "Tax Em!" Taft, however.

[cyborg]

Gentrification is right up there with 'disenfranchised' for words that make me want to barf.

[tang-soo]

that's serene, sane and normal like where I grew up.

You mean the home of the Lancaster Gay-les. Sorry Tony I couldn't resist.

[WhiteGuy]

Homo-activists (especially the ones producing stuff for PBS) always like to overstate their numbers in an effort to make the public think they're mainstream. Probably even German Village isn't majority queer. But man, the voices that squeal the loudest always get the coverage! From reading The Other Paper or Alive any given week, you'd think this whole town was like Castro Street in San Fransicko


Good points, I agree.

There is definitely an agenda to inflate the numbers.

I know of more than a handful of folks, who are not gay but "empty-nesters" who are selling the house in Arlington or Dublin and moving to the areas in discussion in an effort to enjoy the "urban living" lifestyle with a greatly reduced amount of yardwork.

It will be interesting to see our mayor's efforts to increase downtown residential turns out, could be more of the same.................

[Dutchgirl]

After a decade of "white flight" my neighborhood was designated as an historic district about seven years ago. The city put up special signs and started maintaining the streets. A police sub station was put in.

Homeowners now have to go through a city planning agency before installing fences, changing doors or windows, or any other remodeling to change the exterior of the house, such as enclosing a porch, or converting a garage.

In return for the extra burdens of living under these laws, homeowners have seen their property values triple...along with their taxes and insurance rates. One neighbor who had paid $20,000 for a two story home that he intended to subdivide into cheap apartments, slapped on a coat of paint, sanded the floors and sold it for $120,000--less than three years later. It's for sale again, for a quarter million.

Because of the affordable housing in my neighborhood, Lutheran Social Services had been placing refugee families from Bosnia and Cambodia into what was threatening to become a mini-ghetto. That has stopped. For some reason the gay community is attracted to art deco and bungalows, but the gay bars have been here for years.

I don't see this as anything other than the laws of supply and demand. I don't think that black families deliberately allow their home's value to decline, and I don't think that homosexuals "target" black communities, any more than they would "target" Bosnians and Cambodians.

I like the changes