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Racist 'Retail Redlining' Is Still A Big Problem In America
TBI ^ | 4-18-2013 | Emily Badger

Posted on 04/18/2013 3:08:12 PM PDT by blam

Racist 'Retail Redlining' Is Still A Big Problem In America

Emily Badger, The Atlantic Cities
April 18, 2013

David Mekarski, the village administrator for the south Chicago suburb of Olympia Fields, told a startling story this week at the American Planning Association's annual conference about a debate he recently had with a restaurant official.

Why, he wanted to know, wouldn't quality restaurants come to his mixed-race community, where the average annual household income is $77,000, above the county average?

The reply: "Black folks don’t tip, and so managers can’t maintain a quality staff. And if they can’t maintain a quality staff, they can’t maintain a quality restaurant.”

A gasp then rippled through the room in front of Mekarski. "This is one of the most pervasive and insidious forms of racism left in America today," he says.

There's a term for the phenomenon he's describing: retail redlining. The practice is a more recent and less studied variation on redlining as it's been historically recognized in the housing sector. In the context of retail, grocery stores, and restaurants, redlining refers to the "spatially discriminatory practice" of not serving certain communities because of their ethnic or racial composition, rather than their economic prospects.

It's a newer phenomenon in part because there are more upper-income minority communities in America today. Households that can afford the same stores and restaurants as comparable white communities now want to know where the retailers are. The practice is tricky to study, though, because these types of communities are still relatively few in number (with hard-to-find comparison communities), and because it's difficult to distinguish a retailer's "unconscious racism" from its legitimate business reasons for locating a store or a restaurant.

(snip)

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: Illinois
KEYWORDS: bs; chicago; economics; illinois; olympiafields; race; redlining; retailredlining
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To: blam

As always, saying the truth gets you in trouble with the PC police.
Government is always trying to force businesses to operate at a loss, by hiring incompetents, or serving people who won’t obey the rules of society.


21 posted on 04/18/2013 3:22:35 PM PDT by I want the USA back (Pi$$ed off yet?)
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To: GeronL

I think just discussing this would be considered racist. /sarc


22 posted on 04/18/2013 3:22:37 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I can neither confirm or deny that; even if I could, I couldn't - it's classified.)
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To: Slambat

Why prove anything?

People who bring the question up are the ones with the problem.


23 posted on 04/18/2013 3:23:55 PM PDT by Shadow44
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To: Secret Agent Man

“Since when is it racist for a business to determine where it wants to do business?”

When race is the predominant factor in the decision, I suppose.


24 posted on 04/18/2013 3:24:22 PM PDT by Blackyce (President Jacques Chirac: "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure.")
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To: blam

I heard Canadians don’t tip very well, either.


25 posted on 04/18/2013 3:25:07 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: Amberdawn
You don’t say. It isn’t hard for black criminals to enter a high income black neighborhood to commit crimes.

I'd be willing to bet it's a lot more difficult to find people there willing to hide them and lie to the police about whether they've seen them after the crime has been committed.

26 posted on 04/18/2013 3:26:14 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: blam

Why is the presumption that the restauranteur is not asserting fact?

Why is it connoted that locating in a particular place is dependent on race [and not labor economics?] Couldn’t it also be a million other things?

Correlation does not assert causation. They teach that in middle school in my grand daughter’s school.

Baldness and old age have a strong positive correlation... but that does not mean baldness causes old age or that old age causes baldness. 70% of car accidents happen within 5 miles of one’s home. Does being close to home cause accidents? Of course not... 70% of driving occurs within 5 miles of one’s home.

Lurking variables ...

They’re counting on the ignorance of the citizens they govern.


27 posted on 04/18/2013 3:26:30 PM PDT by Principled
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To: Vision
Well, if you prejudiced white people would quit keeping black entrepreneurs from developing restaurant chains and placing them in black communities...huh?..oh, we don't do that?

Never mind.

28 posted on 04/18/2013 3:27:16 PM PDT by Aevery_Freeman (Demarica: Land of the need, home of the slave!)
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To: blam

             

29 posted on 04/18/2013 3:29:28 PM PDT by tomkat
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To: Blackyce
Doesn't it seem that race is the predominant factor in every decision? -- Well, for the last five or six years.
30 posted on 04/18/2013 3:30:22 PM PDT by Aevery_Freeman (Demarica: Land of the need, home of the slave!)
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To: Aevery_Freeman

Fish or Cut BAit!


31 posted on 04/18/2013 3:33:49 PM PDT by Conserev1 ("Still Clinging to my Bible and my Weapon")
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To: Secret Agent Man
Beyonce could open up a chain of “Bow Down Bitches” restaurants.

"Chow Down, Bitches"?
32 posted on 04/18/2013 3:34:06 PM PDT by LostInBayport (When there are more people riding in the cart than there are pulling it, the cart stops moving...)
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Comment #33 Removed by Moderator

To: blam

in Myrtle beach there was bike week and then blacks would come in on their rocket bikes and have their black bike week for 4 days.

For the 10 days in the city there was 1 arrest in the Harley crowd and that was being drink.

In the 4 days after there were over 200 arrests restaurants closed down for the event, stores closed their doors.

When the city tried to ban black bike week the NAACP said it was due to racism.
When store owners, restaurant owners , hotel owners were asked why do you close your business they all said that the bills were never paid, they ordered drinks or meals, got tabs and then ran out, there were sometimes 20 in a room of a motel which was against the motel owners laws and rules.
Police told of drugs, drunks, fights, black women bearing all up and down the strip, wearing next to nothing which I suppose would be nice if they were not all bearing 200 pounds of a massive rear load.
There was speeding, wheelies and the locals had enough.

in the end the city had to close it all down because of black groups not understanding that they have a problem in their communities and the law and it was not racism but people fed up of idiots acting like idiots


34 posted on 04/18/2013 3:35:44 PM PDT by manc (Marriage =1 man + 1 woman,when they say marriage equality then they should support polygamy)
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To: chaosagent

So post a sign on the door and menus that says all checks include a tip.-— period.


35 posted on 04/18/2013 3:36:45 PM PDT by Average Al
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To: Lancey Howard

It’s not really a part of the culture in Australia either. IMO, it’s silly. Restaurants should just pay their employees and let tips be ACTUAL tips rather than a necessary part of the compensation. Or at least include a percentage “tip” in the bill as a mandatory service fee and incorporate it into the menu prices.


36 posted on 04/18/2013 3:37:39 PM PDT by Blackyce (President Jacques Chirac: "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure.")
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To: Secret Agent Man

why doesn;t white women married or going with black guys move to black areas instead of them always moving to white too, why don’t they open businesses in these fine well to do black areas?


37 posted on 04/18/2013 3:37:41 PM PDT by manc (Marriage =1 man + 1 woman,when they say marriage equality then they should support polygamy)
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To: Blackyce
“Since when is it racist for a business to determine where it wants to do business?”

When race is the predominant factor in the decision, I suppose.

But race would only be the predominant factor for business reasons. It's ironic - - a regular "Catch-22". It's like when banks were turning down mortgage applicants with crappy credit histories. Blacks as a group have crappier credit histories than whites and so were turned down more frequently than white applicants. Voila! Must be racism! In reality, it is 2013 and the kind of racism that puts the color green second to any other color is pretty much non-existant.

Of course, reality has never stopped the race-hustling scum and their victim-class minions from hollering "racism!"

38 posted on 04/18/2013 3:37:47 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: blam

it has been said for 150 years:

You can believe the civil war is over when Democrats start tipping in restaurants.


39 posted on 04/18/2013 3:41:27 PM PDT by fnord (My life is like the movie Willard, except with hummingbirds)
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To: Average Al

“So post a sign on the door and menus that says all checks include a tip.-— period.”

That’s what makes the story seem kind of off to me. These chain restaurants are going to turn down potentially profitable revenue streams because a problem that can be easily solved with a mandatory tip policy? Most of them are already doing that for large parties, just do it across the board and put a sign out front to that effect.


40 posted on 04/18/2013 3:43:42 PM PDT by Blackyce (President Jacques Chirac: "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure.")
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