Posted on 07/22/2007 3:10:58 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
'Ghetto Bus Tour' Showcases Chicago Projects
Sunday , July 22, 2007
AP
CHICAGO The yellow school bus rumbles through vacant lots and past demolished buildings, full of people who have paid $20 for a tour of what was once among the most dangerous areas of this or any other city in the United States.
But for the woman with the microphone, this "Ghetto Bus Tour" isn't just another way to make a buck from tourists. It's the last gasp in her crusade to tell a different story about Chicago's notorious housing projects, something other than well-known tales about gang violence so fierce that residents slept in their bathtubs to avoid bullets.
"I want you to see what I see," says Beauty Turner, after leading the group off the bus to a weedy lot where the Robert Taylor Homes once stood. "To hear the voices of the voiceless."
Turner, a former Robert Taylor Homes resident, has been one of the most vocal critics of the Chicago Housing Authority's $1.6 billion "Plan for Transformation," which since the late 1990s has demolished 50 of the 53 public housing high-rises and replaced them with mixed-income housing.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Sorry, I don’t agree.
The black community is responsible for the black illiteracy, crime rate and illegitimate babies.
Why blame someone who’s been dead for years.
The Real Peterman comes to mind
Ultimately, the Blacks themselves are responsible for all those things.
However, it’s undeniable that President Johnson, using massive amounts of money obtained from working Americans, set up a financial system that enticed Blacks into a deadly trap that they won’t be able to escape from for generations.
Why blame someone whos been dead for years.
So I take it you don't hold Hitler responsible for the holocaust because he's been 'dead for years'.
What excuses. They destroyed these building on their own, I’m not blaming anyone but the people that lived in them.
sounds to me like she’s ripping off the “Kramer reality bus tour” from Seinfeld. Did she give the tour takers muffin stumps to eat?
‘Dis air kondishuner be blowin hot air’
“Most of the people on the East coast live in older housing than those projects. Stop making excuses for those people.”
The Robert Taylor housing project was completed around the time I entered my freshman year in high school. My high school (DuSable) was right across the street from this new housing development.
Many of my friends lived in the ‘projects’. You will be surprised to know that there were flower and vegetable gardens in the front and back. Residents voluntarily took turns cleaning the common area. During my 4 years of high school the ‘projects’ (at least the ones I visited) rivaled any middle class high rise in cleanliness and livability. Of course, like any other high rise, if you had a criminal record you were not allowed in. Have a drug history? Don’t apply (drugs weren’t much of a problem back then). Garbage around the area got your name or address in one of the bags? Goodbye. Kid got arrested? So Long. Too many complaint from neighbors or a ‘floor manager’? Next waiting applicant. At that time many fathers were in the home. My mother and father were on the waiting list.
After high school I went away to college. After a few years I noticed a difference in the make up of the residents. Many of my friends (a couple names even you will recognize)left the projects along with their families. Wanna know why?
The projects became a dumping ground for societal rejects. Anybody and everybody who could not live in society on their own were dumped there...along with their ‘under the radar’ friends and relatives. Give ‘em free housing, free food (stamps), free medical (card) and a government social (secretary} worker to hold their hands. Of course with this influx of new denizens, mostly single mothers and a string of live in boyfriends, conditions rapidly deteriorated until nobody, regardless what they did, would not be evicted. Welfare even sent rent payments directly to the Chicago Housing Auth. if rent was not paid.
I was a Landlord for many years. The condition of any building is determined by the Landlord. You can find a scummy building in any neighborhood. If the landlord does not screen his tenants or evict the bad ones, that place will stand out in any neighborhood.
For the above reasons I blame the landlord not the people living there. Anyone could have known what to expect from the type of people that CHA (landlord) filled its buildings with.
What’s the old parable? ‘...but you know I was a snake’.
Programs of the Great Society were available to everyone including poor whites from Appalachia, recent Jewish immigrants from Russia, Vietnamese boat people, southern and inner city blacks.
Why is it blacks were hurt by those programs and everyone else was helped?
Personal responsibility needs to be considered.
‘Why is it blacks were hurt by those programs and everyone else was helped?’
Many Blacks were helped by these programs. However, it is so easy to point to (by color) the ones who weren’t.
You keep focusing on the ‘Great Society’ programs instead of the real problems. Recall LBJ’s manipulation of the SCOTUS membership to help achieve the desired results.
A couple of points.
I question whether everyone else was helped. I know I wasn’t, in fact the money forcefully extracted from me hurt my family. I also doubt the recipients of my hard earned money appreciated, or spent it as wisely as I would have. I also question whether they benefited from it, or just accepted the free ride. History tells us they most likely accepted the free ride. The USSR’s 70 year experiment shows the horrendous results of these types of programs.
The Blacks are simply a few decades ahead of the rest. Birth rates among unmarrieds are an indicator. Poor whites are now catching up to Blacks.
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