2013/03/10

What became of Detroit?

Dan Little asks What became of Detroit?

Little thinks that White racism is the root cause:

If I had to single out a single fact out of this complicated story as the most important factor that led to these toxic changes, I would identify the mechanisms of racial residential segregation that Detroit has embodied for almost a century. For decades Eight Mile represented a key racial division in the city, and a plethora of mechanisms of exclusion conspired to maintain this division. If the city could have settled into a racially and economically mixed pattern of residence in the 1940s, much of this story would have been different. Population exit would not have reached crisis proportions; businesses would have been less likely to relocate out of the city; and a schooling system that was very successful in the 1950s could have maintained its effectiveness. This implies that Detroit is victim to the continuing tragedy of America's inability to heal its racial divisions and antagonisms.

Emphasis Mine

And yet, Little ignores the vital role racism plays in Capitalism. This role is that of control. Racism is control both blacks and whites in order to make them fearful of each other.

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