Quality of Life Begins at Home
When I hear that the black community presents plans for quality of life to improve in Austin, the first thing I think of is:
Excellent! They are setting up goals and strategies to help reduce unwed teen pregnancy. They want to help pursue and fight the criminals in their communities. They seek to perhaps combine their resources to self-fund families on the edge, to perhaps move the ones worth saving out of dangerous and filthy apartments to proper homes. They might try to combat the prevailing glorification of violence, avarice, and irresponsibility in youth culture. They aim to assist blacks with their first-time business plans and support established companies by helping them with loans and investment advice. They are going to identify the rot in their neighborhoods and try to remove it. They are going to attempt long-term renewal projects that go beyond the superficial and provide lasting dividends.
Alas...
Following months of forums and discussions, the group gave the city 58 recommendations. City officials then created subcommittees to reevaluate those recommendations. After months of compromise, community and city leaders have agreed on an implementation plan.Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder said it's been a great effort between the community and the city, but "It's also been a challenge because, in reality, these issues that we're addressing require financial commitment and financial investment."
Culture and Arts Committee Cochair Lisa Byrd said the committee focused on six areas, including health, safety, employment, neighborhood sustainability, culture and police.
[...]
In the end, initiatives in all six areas were set. Some include developing a program to recruit more African-American health care professionals, examining psychological screening to ensure the police department does not hire individuals with patters of racist tendencies, promoting Austin's African-American culture, history, and restaurants on the Convention and Visitor's Bureau Web site and merging the African-American Chamber of Commerce with the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce on recruitment initiatives.
Copyright ©2005TWEAN News Channel of Austin, L.P. d.b.a. News 8 Austin
Now, I'm not going to deny that it is possible law enforcement officers in the Austin Police Department have treated blacks badly due to their race. To the extent that it happens, that certainly is a quality of life issue. But most of this stuff (PDF) looks like piddling, pedestrian crap and not just because the city government won't go balls-out to fund everything desired. The basis of this presentation are the answers provided by community forums to two questions:
- Do African Americans experience challenges different from others in Austin?
- What can local government do to retain & attract African Americans so that Austin maintains a diverse economy & culture?
Self-reliance and personal responsibility seem divorced from this kind of viewpoint. Read the PDF for yourself to see the suggestions.
"Name the theatre at the Carver Museum after the late Boyd Vance"?
"[R]ecruit more African American health care professionals...who will increase utilization and face-to-face patient consultation and education"?
"Ensure that input is solicited from African American businesses and organizations regarding the use of funds devoted to business and economic development"?
"Bring the physical environment of East Austin up to the level of the physical environment in other areas using the arsenal of tools available to the City"?
"Develop a page on city’s website that is dedicated to African American
educational issues and resources"?
This is a 51-page presentation and there are more ideas in it than the ones above, some of which do seem potentially effective. Of course, the bulk of them are to be financed through the various levels of government, imposing upon the rest of us additional tax burdens such as new city government jobs, grants, advisory committees, and low- or no-interest loans.
C'mon, folks. Don't turn to the government to force us to solve your problems. There are other ways.
Comments
Forcing the community/government to provide diverse focus on minority classes only serves to strengthen the divide between the classes.
In other words, counter-productive.
Are the other sites around town going to be renamed to represent, as a %, every minority present in town - with the exception of whites, of course, because although a minority, whites were the oppressors and reminders of whites offend the sensibilities of sensitive minorities?
What a load.
Posted by: William Thrash | October 28, 2005 01:52 PM
Drizz,
this is the same-old, same-old from the Black, er, African American Community. The same snivleing, complaining, beggars that have permeated our.....um, urban neighborhoods for decades. Take a listen to black talk radio in your neighborhood, chances are you'll hear more conspiracy theories than a middle-east open air market. There's more talk in those circles about the "white devil" and what blacks are owed than outsiders can't even begin to imagine. It's about time these neighborhoods show some self-reliance and stop counting on other's pocketbooks to dig 'em out.
Used to be a time when you'd hand a black family a Bible, a chalk board and the right to learn to read and they'd do it en masse. Now you'd be lucky to reach a 70% graduation rate. Used to be a time when Black men would die to vote, now they're owned by a certain party. Used to be a time when Black men fought hatred and bigotry and firebombs to start their own business, today black men sit on their stoops and drink 40's all afternoon.
Ah, the effects of the welfare state.
Posted by: somasoul | October 29, 2005 12:31 PM