Faith's Edge

Wow. That is a fascinating article. It's hard to know what to make of it. It has been engrained in you and I that people with resources need to return to our country's urban centers. ENGRAINED. There seems to be a sad irony in the fact that lower-income black folks are being pushed out to the suburbs, the very places whites ran to in order to have safe, whitebread neighborhoods which were not very accessible to blacks. Our reality is that while younger white people generally have broadened viewpoints and are not afraid of living in the city (and are actually drawn to it), social economics have not caught up with changing viewpoints. We can change our minds, but we still have to live with the devastating consequences of our history.

Yeah, I was thinking about the "Three R's" (reconciliation, relocation, redistribution...check out ccda.org if this is unfamiliar to you) when I read this. The problem is, only one of the R's (relocation) is happening. Without the other two, people get hurt. It brings me back to a community association meeting I attended here last week. A group of middle class white folks bitching about afforadable housing being built in their area with no minorities in the room to voice their opinions (and I know for a fact that minorities are in the area).

while we're on the subject of cities, I'd like to point people to my friend BJ's blog (there's a link on mine). He's got a great poem on there about life in the city and the hope of the kingdom of God working in urban areas.

Yes, I read BJ's poem and it really applies to this issue. For those who don't know, BJ's blog is "what's your wood worth"...the link to the right.

Thinking about the other 2 R's, reconciliation and redistribution, I wonder what it would look like if white folks entered a place respectfully for a change! What if existing black-owned businesses were supported, instead of putting a starbucks on every corner? What if people entered a neighborhood humbly, and decided to join their neighbors in what they're already doing, rather than undoing and redoing?

The more I think about this, the more upsetting it gets. I think a lot of this is unintentional on the part of white people, but that's the problem! We are the ones with the power to keep changing our minds about where we want to live, but we are not INTENTIONAL about it.

k, this comment is for the previous post. i have not figured out any opinions i have about race and cities and such well enough to make them public. i'd rather not sound like a complete idiot.

anyhow, seems to me that both in mark and 1 samuel there are examples of God's different sense of what power means and different sense of what to be afraid of. neither the wind or goliath were to be feared for they held no real power within the kingdom (be it jc's 2nd kingdom or king david's doohicky). don't know if that helps, but it's what i'm getting.

the discussions about leaving the church are old. they are new to nick maybe, but they are reruns. i think the pup report is probably more powerful than we may expect for it actually provides a way to get around the discriminating, hate-filled bits of the BoO. my opinion.

D :: Great article. Kind of scary, but not much different than what is going on in parts of SF. The African American population is going down in the City probably for similar reasons. With all due respect to our White allies (Spouses included ;-), these kinds of subtle race/class issues again remind me of the importance of our "Brown" presence in leadership to keep these issues from disappearing into the new Yuppie consciousnesses.