Cooley High 40 Years Later

[Troy]

I remember this flick, and it is hard to image it is 40 years old.  The first time I went to Chicago I had to visit the Cabrini-Green housing projects.  I enjoyed the film because it was shot in the projects. 

 

Like Claudine that came before it, which was filmed in Harlem, it showed a side of life that really was not shown in the movies before that time.

 

I grew up in the projects.  Mine were taller, more like Robert Taylor houses on Chicago's south side.  The projects I grew up in are still standing.  Some of the families have been there for generations.  Like the guy in the interview above says we had fun growing up --despite the crime, violence, drugs and poverty.

 

In the middle of this photo is an elevated train which I hates because if you are on the phone or watching TV you simply can't hear until the train goes by. The read arrow shows my window.  The train is Park Avenue.  Yes "the" park avenue.  Just one mile south a 20 minute walk is some of the most expensive real estate in the country.  

 

We used to call that real "white boy" terrority.  Some of the more brazen thugs from my neighborhood would go down there to rob the kids.  Many years later when I had kids of my own, I sent them to school in "white boy territory," and I had occasion to visit some of the homes of their classmates.  I'm glad I did not do this when I was a kid.  I'm not sure I how I would have handled the disparity...  

 

 

 

[Guest An all-time favorite]

Cooley High had an unmistakable and palpable authenticity about it that you could identify with. I wasn’t raised in Chicago. But as an adult I lived in Chicago for a year and recall passing the projects on the Dan Ryan Expressway. And the elevated trains helped identify the city as a character in and of itself in Eric Monte’s masterful script. His writing infused the storeline with black characters that were so different from the comic-like characters we’d seen in the Blaxploitation films that it compelled me to watch the film multiple times during its run. It remains one of my all-time favorites. 

[Kalexander2]

 

WOW, brother Troy, that image brings back memories, good and not so good! I lived on Hill Street about two blocks from Cooley High. The arrow points to Cabrini-Green housing project near Robert Taylor project. With an Oscar Meyer factory in the middle off Wells street. I went to St. Joseph's elementary school on Olean's street dead-end to Cooley High.

 

Can't say I had a lot fun or enjoyed living in Chicago, though. I remember the day MLK was assassinated, the mob riots during my after-school work hours from the window at St. Joseph's; Jesse Jackson escorting the entire Chicago Police Department to Cabrini-Green to arrest my school-mate Johnny Field after he shot two White Policemen and hide in elevator shaft in Cabrini housing. How Black politicians lured hungry Black youths to the basketball court with promises of lunch; only to have the youth's parade in circles singing the national anthem while White newsmen took pictures of the Black children. For media propaganda.

 

The young man who starred in the movie was also a friend of my youth, killed in gang violence. That's when my mother sent me to join a**hole father in Los Angeles. She got spooked I when stopped playing the saxophone to hang-out after school.

 

Today, the place I used to live and the area around, except for the projects, are yuppie condos and town houses Blacks can't even afford. But the Police continue to harass and keep Blacks under control to protect the White residents live around the area now.

 

Or is that arrow pointing to Robert Taylor?

[Troy]

@Kalexander2, the photo is actually of the James Weldon Johnson Housing Projects in Harlem in New York City  (or simply "Johnson," as we used to call the place)  Chicago and NY have a lot of similarities, so I could see why the image may be confusing.  Plus Johnson is much older than Taylor or Cabrini, it was built in the 40's.

 

The projects are, really, the only affordable options available. which is why many residents stay for generations.  They are also afraid the city is trying to get rid of they, but not maintaining the apartments very well.  

 

 

[Kalexander2]

Thank you, Troy, the similarities are confusing. But you are right local and Federal governments are trying to get 'rid' of those housing projects. Chicago and New York areas are prime locations, further development of which will not only drive out the improvised but also make way for the more affluent White residents of those cities.  Damn shame, isn't it?

 

Now, as you may have heard, Ben Carson and Trump is proposing legislation triple rents of housing projects, nationwide. But no-one is talking about proposing eliminating or raising rents on 'red-neck' trailer parts in America. Another damn shame!!

[Troy]

If the rents are tripled in the projects I don't know what they are going to do with all the people who live there now.

 

In New York City there are no viable alternative for people living in federally subsidized housing. We need more projects not less in places like New York, the capitalist system is not working for great numbers of people.  The schools in these communities were gutted generations ago.  White people, and even some middle class Black folks, in Harlem just want to projects leveled and don't care what happens to the people.

 

I dunno, maybe we can just put them on a reservation somewhere, out of the way, like some desert in Arizona.  Or maybe send them back to Africa...

[Kalexander2]

Brother, White folks goal, with no obvious plan(s), must be to supply, add to the prison population. They know Blacks are going to raise-up against further alienation. What better time to throw us all in prison, if for nothing more than to force us into low-pay near slavery employment conditions.  Remember our discussion several months ago? I believe now more than ever there will be a racial up-raising. Blood is going to flow like water; both Black and White, but it's more prevalent now than ever.

 

Matters for Black folk in the U.S. do not look good. Then again, there's never been much hope for us even with our own people leading the way!

 

[Kalexander2]

I'd like to add, not quite sure how many families live a housing project; but can you imagine 2-3 thousand Black families suddenly roaming the streets, out of containment of those projects? Scary part is, White folks are in trouble even in their own homes.

[Troy]

Yes of course the prison industrial complex will be an alternative for some. 

 

Of course there is genocide too.  Not the kind of genocide where you herd people into ovens, but you gun them down for minor infractions, provide poor medical service, pollute the water supply, and limit access to fresh produce, while making processed food a cigarettes widely available.

 

Has anyone ever asked why so many Black women are obese and why we just accept diabetes and hypertension as just a fact of life?

[Kalexander2]

I think, if I may, that this s**t goes beyond all that too. Beyond the Deep State, Freemasonry, Illuminati, extra-terrestrials, and the Bilderberg group. Something else is going on in America, indeed, the world and it's too big for us to even comprehend. My wife who is in the medical profession has offered some chilling explanations which I won't be sharing here; but it has much to do powers of 'big government.'

 

As I've said before; these are interesing times to be alive, but equally scary times. Not knowing what's in store for Black folks or humanity as a whole.

[Pioneer1]

I remember Claudine.....and that bubble bath scene.

Infact, there was a couple of nude scenes in the PG movie.

But like I said in the other thread, this was the 70s where sex and nudity was more appreciated in society.

It's a shame how sexually conservative the society has become since the 70s

I remember the first time I drove to Chicago on my own and ended up GETTING LOST in the Cabrini Green projects.....lol.

I needed gas and had been to the Northside which was shockingly White and segregated and a Black security guard warned me not to stop and get any gas up there because Black people get attacked on the Northside at night, so I drives down the Dan Ryan to what I thought was downtown and ended up smack in the middle of the projects with prostitutes hanging around and helicopters flying around shining lights through windows.....lol.

Detroit's housing projects obvioulsy can't be compared to New York's or Chicago's but we had a few high rises of our own that were either torn down or coverted into apartments.

Diana Ross and the Supremes actually grew up in the Brewsters Projects on the Near East side...but much of it has been torn down now.


Actually I support the IDEA of public housing projects.
I think more of them should be built.

The only problem is when Roosevelt started them and he passed on, they were ALLOWED to fall into chaos because they weren't properly maintained or secured.

Anything will fall apart if you don't properly maintain it...even a mansion.

[Troy]

Wow Brewster projects I would have made a point to checking them out when I was last in Detroit, but it appears they have been torn down.  

 

I agree they should have more subsidized housing, but they should also have kept the standard up. I understand when my building opened you needed to be employed, married, and meed other requirement to get an apartment.  They also need to provide better schools to server the residents.... man they need to do so much it is not even funny.

 

The buildings I grew up in were completed in the 1940's are are one of the oldest housing projects in the city.  The buildings and apartments after almost 70 years the apartments need a lot of work.  

 

Amazioning I heard the 45 administration is talking about raising rents by 35% and cutting the budget by a few hundred million dollars!  These people are animals, they really do not care about anyone other than themselves.

[Pioneer1]

I still remember me and my brothers going to visit relatives who lived in the projects when we were kids.....lol.

I remember the shitty green color of the walls and stairwells that smells like urine.
Virginia Slim cigarette billboards all over the place.
Crack and crack dealing hadn't gotten a foothold in the community yet so pimping and plain old robbing people were HUGE back in those days.

But the thing I really remember was the COMMUNALISM that existed among most of the people.
While the grown folks were talking and visiting, the kids would get together in groups to play and build go-carts and other things in empty lots and after playing we would go from unit to unit eating food at different family's apartments.

I'm almost sure it was the same the way some of you grew up but when I went to the projects every time you met a new kid you never knew how things would turn out....yall could be fighting 5 minutes after meeting or yall could be sharing toys and being friends....lol.

I remember getting into it with one joker and I hit him with my shoe and he took my shoe and ran off with it and I had to hop back to my cousin's place.....lol.

But what was really weird was having someone you just met a couple hours ago taking the entire crew back home and their mother feeding all of us during dinner time!

We didn't do that back in my neighborhood.
You barely invited the friends you knew for years over for dinner.....let alone new ones you just met.

Also, I remember there were still a lot of grown older men living in the projects and they could fix ANYTHING from cars to refrigerators to blow dryers to air conditioners.

People really lived as a "village" and everyone knew everyone who came in.

 

 

As far as the high rent they want to charge now..............


The Republicans have set out to dismantle all of the social and economic gains America has made since Roosevelt...and that includes public housing.

Most wealthy Republican conservatives actually hate anything "public" or supplied by the goverment because it gets in the way of private corporations making a profit from filling the demand.

They don't want the public supplying housing for people, because it's too many options.
They want private housing to dominate so that you will have no choice but to pay extemely high rent and taxes OR be homeless.

This was the situation that greedy rich people had America in before the New Deal.
Paying high rent for substandard housing.
Roosevelt came along and built housing projects that were strong and sturdy in the inner cities to help the people.

So what Republican Conservatives have done for the past 40 years or so is SABATOGE and DEFUND everything "public" and goverment offered to so that it will purposely

This includes the public schools, public housing,  medicaid, the post office, ect......
Anything public they will purposely defund and mismanage it to the point that it is in shambles.....then point at it as an example of how "inefficient" the government is and use it as an example of why it should be privatized.

Who I blame are the Democrats and liberals who ALLOW it to happen and don't fight to increase funding.

[Troy]

Yep that pretty much sums it up.  The historical retrospective mirror my experience

[Kalexander2]

 

@ Pioneer, @Troy: Public housing does protect poor people from natural elements, true; but what about the unnatural elements? 500-1000 poor families living a space half the size of a mall; and less than 200 feet away another 500-1000 poor families and more; all within the space of several city blocks. 

 

In other words, public housing is only a fraction of a step towards meeting the needs of poor people. And since entitles like Ben Carson, opportunistic Black politicians, and local government agendas fail miserably in providing other needs; HUD gets an F- for its efforts.  As far as I'm concerned!!!

[Pioneer1]

@ Pioneer, @Troy: Public housing does protect poor people from natural elements, true; but what about the unnatural elements? 500-1000 poor families living a space half the size of a mall; and less than 200 feet away another 500-1000 poor families and more; all within the space of several city blocks.

Certainly overcrowding can be uncomfortable and lead to hygenic issues; but I don't think overcrowding was the problem that lead to the deteriorating living conditions of most housing projects in the United States.

Look at Japan and China and how densely populated MOST of the communities are overthere.
They probably live together at 10 times the population density of the Robert Taylor or Red Hook.....but had far less crime and violence.

Hell, you can look at the population densities of the neighboring wealthy communities of the Upper West side of Manhattan or the Gold Coast of Chicago with a denser population than in the projects......but the living conditions are still much better.

It's not the population density that's the problem, it's:

1. The mentality of the people and how they're taught to live in society
2. The maintanence of the buildings and property.
3. Security and police presence in the community

All of this is involved in how well people in a given community can live together.

In Detroit in the 70s when all of the projects were still up the crime and poverty was concentrated but contained.

When they began the Section 8 program of moving people out of the projects into the working class neighborhoods around the city......they didn't solve the problem but SCATTERED it all over the city.

So the neighborhood full of detached bungalo houses became just as crime infested and run down as the highrise projects, but with only a quarter of the population density.

[Kalexander2]

@Pioneer1: You missed the point, completely. We not talking about privileged people, or people living the 'apartment' life with hope, knowing that soon one-day they'll have enough saved-up to put a hefty down-payment on a house. No, we'll talking about families living on-top of each-other with barely enough to eat, little and no hope for tomorrow. People who must watch their White neighbors living fine lives while they can only wish for such.

 

Sure, we Black folk are irresponsible, violent, and uninformed (ignorant) but we are human beings, products of our environment, 'chips off the old block' of greed, perversity, and corruption. SO, WHAT! Does that mean we're unworthy of respect, justice, and a future?

 

Frankly, we are just a better version of the Whiteman/woman, more determined to destroy, and run sh*t the completely wrong way. You sound like a complaining Whiteman unhappy because there's no room for him to drive around. 

[Pioneer1]

K2

You missed the point, completely. We not talking about privileged people, or people living the 'apartment' life with hope, knowing that soon one-day they'll have enough saved-up to put a hefty down-payment on a house. No, we'll talking about families living on-top of each-other with barely enough to eat, little and no hope for tomorrow. People who must watch their White neighbors living fine lives while they can only wish for such.

I don't know what stand out point the "we" you refered to was making....but YOU were making several points.

One of which was about the unnatural density of people living together inside a space less than half the size of a mall.

And I addressed THAT particular point with a point of my own.....pointing out the fact that populationd density and overcrowding isn't the biggest problem because there are examples of people living together in relative harmony with far more population density.



Sure, we Black folk are irresponsible, violent, and uninformed (ignorant) but we are human beings, products of our environment, 'chips off the old block' of greed, perversity, and corruption. SO, WHAT! Does that mean we're unworthy of respect, justice, and a future?

Not sure if this question is rhetorical or not......

But if it isn't....why are you asking ME?
 

 

 

You sound like a complaining Whiteman unhappy because there's no room for him to drive around.

 

It's not enough to be a GAY WHITE MASON.....who TROLLS the internet.

But to be a GRUMPY one who's upset because he doesn't have enough room to DRIVE AROUND (and do what....pick up sexy young Black men ???)......takes the cake, lol.

[Kalexander2]

Surely you can do better than that!

 

[Pioneer1]

1 hour ago, Kalexander2 said:

Surely you can do better than that!

 

Ofcourse.....lol.....but that was enough for YOU.

[Troy]

I witness the turn in the projects in the 60's when they were nice places to live. 

 

Sure the mentality of the people is one problem.  I'm not even talking about the majority of people -- who are decent folk, but a large enough minority of people who are completely ghetto and destroy the entire community for everyone.  They throw garbage one the ground because they don;t know better or care.  Nowadays folks carry their household garbage and dump i front of the building rather than placing it in the receptacle inside the building designed to take it.  The blast music, urinate in the elevator, break the locks and intercom when ever they are installed on the front doors.

 

Still the builds and the are terribly maintained and I image some people behave like animals because they are treated like animals. Tearing down the projects would probably be worse for many people because there are simply no better options for many,  There are people trying to get appartements the PJ's.  Nowadays when folks leave the the projects they leave the city altogether.

[Kalexander2]

In December of 1946, war veterans faced a national housing shortage, President Harry S. Truman issued a statement that turned into a legislative policy. He emphasized the importance of his program and called on Congress to focus on the demands of large cities, and to establish positive incentives for the investment of billions of dollars in large-scale rental housing projects. Few Blacks, compared to White veterans, returned with no hope of shelter. Even with the "GI Bill," few had savings for downpayments. 

 

The racial attitudes of the FHA and its effect on minorities, namely Blacks, are more complex and the agency’s bias against these groups cannot be dismissed. The literature on this bias is extensive. Robert Self, in his American Babylon, said that postwar state intervention in the housing market by the FHA and other federal agencies “made financing single-family homes more profitable to lenders (I REPEAT, LENDERS!), more accessible to white buyers, and virtually unobtainable for African Americans. The FHA’s sanctioning of racially restrictive covenants for homebuyers in its early years did constitute indisputable discrimination that hurt potential black homebuyers, though it is difficult to know how much the FHA mimicked prevailing real estate practices and how much it influenced them. 

 

Despite claims that federal subsidies created the modern suburban landscape, the government’s most important instrument for reshaping the housing market pushed against it.

 

Finally, to be sure, Truman was behind the 1947 war that supported Israel invasion to Palestine for their land which was spearheaded by covert actions Louis Brandeis who went on to become the U.S. Supreme Court Justice. That tidbit if background is important to understand the mentalities of those behind Federal Housing Project programs. And let’s not forget Raymond M. Foley the housing commissioner of that time; a staunch opponent of Civil Rights, some even believe Foley was KKK affiliated; though he was a sociologist. 

 

None of this is to infer that FH Projects serve no purpose or ruined by lack of maintenance; it is to suggest that the U.S. knew exactly what would happen, drugs, crime running wild, teen pregnancies, a group subversive policy, and advance agendas such as the 'hidden curriculum' etc. We are the animals of the man make URBAN JUNGLE. 

 

@Pioneer1: Please don't confuse "surely you can do better than that" for any part of your commentary as rational!

[Kalexander2]

Fair-housing advocates plan to file a lawsuit Tuesday against the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Secretary Ben Carson for suspending an Obama-era rule requiring communities to examine and address barriers to racial integration, The Washington Post reported. 

 

Three fair-housing groups have signed onto the lawsuit, which claims the suspension was unlawful because it didn’t provide proper public notice or a chance for public comment, the Post reported. 

 

The 2015 rule required more than 1,200 communities receiving billions of federal housing dollars to draft plans to desegregate their communities — or risk losing federal funds. 

 

Carson, who described efforts to desegregate American neighborhoods as “failed socialist experiments,” suspended the rule in January, allowing local and state governments to continue receiving HUD grants without compliance with the full requirements of the Fair Housing Act, the Post reported.

[Troy]

The historical context is important and fascinating, but it is also very sad.  Generations of people lives have been crushed as a result of these policies. 

[Kalexander2]

Oh, brother Troy, it goes much deeper than that: 

 

In the process of advocating for public housing, African American policy elites had to battle both white and black opponents. The white opponents—the real estate industry, local politicians, and anxious homeowners—were well known, powerful, and responsible for racializing public housing by largely restricting it to blacks in the ghetto. Not as easily identifiable, on the other hand, were black opponents, including the black upper and middle classes, who felt their hard-earned affluence threatened by the proximity of public housing. Although black civic leaders used both class and racial criteria to criticize affluent blacks’ opposition, they stayed within the...

 

However, Racial violence in postwar Chicago united black elites more than the issues surrounding slum clearance and public housing had. This issue generated no split between national and local elites of the sort evident in the debate on the city’s redevelopment program. Nothing represented a greater threat to all African Americans, regardless of class, geography, or affiliation, than violence targeted at a person or persons because of their race. Nothing better dramatized the restrictions that blacks experienced seeking improved housing than the harassment, intimidation, and violence committed by whites to keep blacks in the ghetto. Despite the ambivalence African Americans felt. 

 

The track record of the private housing industry in producing housing for racial minorities was woeful. Between 1940 and 1950, only 100,000 of the 9 million new private housing units produced nationally went to non-whites. Since 1940, black policy elites had recognized the importance of fighting this severe racial disparity. While they accepted the role of private enterprise in producing housing for African Americans in Chicago and other U.S. cities, they decided to confront its racially discriminatory practices. Every facet of the industry—construction, development, and finance—had long discriminated against African Americans, producing residential segregation. Black housing officials in...

 

The above are actual quotes various source notes I keep on hand. And even this fall short of the icebergs tip, regarding White America's plan for our people!

 

I lose patience when people, especially Blacks, take the ploy of these scientific, racist policies less than serious issues planned for my Black community. I've become much more passive about my people in America, since my absence there. While more than 90% still refuse to change reaching for the ever-elusive stars in the sky, instead of inside ourselves. I'm seriously starting to wonder whether I, myself have a problem, wasting my time with these Black concerns!

[Troy]

....that does not even address slumlords in places like the Bronx (in NYC) burning their buildings down to the ground for the insurance. To be replaced, after decades of decay with housing unaffordable to both the people previously displaced and low income people trapped in dilapidated housing projects.

 

If you want to live well you can't ignore the plight of your neighbors, or worse actively try to undermine them.  Poor and desperate people, of any color, do dangerous things.

[Kalexander2]

Yes, brother Troy, everyone's in it for her/his self, to survive; by any means necessary. It's all just disappointing and discouraging to say the least! 

[Pioneer1]

Homelessness all over the United States has skyrocketed for 2 main reasons:

1. Millions of mentally ill people who WERE institutionalized but were discharged or those who SHOULD be institutionalized but are not and instead must roam the streets looking for a way ot survive, and

2. Millions of people who were thrown out on the streets after most of the housing projects all over America were torn down since the 80s


 

 

K2

　

Many of the Black upper and middle class opposition to the proximity to public housing and susidized housing was and is actually justified.

I saw frst hand how simply re-arranging people and shipping thousands of poor and destitute people to working and upper middle class communities RUINED those communities because of an increase of crime, deterioration of the school district, and an overall deterioration of the physical attractiveness of the neighorhoods.

White people aren't the only people with standards and oppose their communities turning into ghettoes.....plenty of Black people feel the same way.


But the White media in the United States has a nasty habit of lumping ALL Black people together and ignoring any differences in idealogy or even behavior between them.

You don't help poor people by moving them next to rich people.
That only breeds envy, contempt, and resentment.

You help poor people by providing them with descent paying jobs as well as making housing, education, and other basic necessities AFFORDABLE for them.
 

 

 

 

Pioneer1: Please don't confuse "surely you can do better than that" for any part of your commentary as rational!

I think YOU'RE confused about my response to your statement......lol.

[Kalexander2]

@Pioneer1: Upper and middle-class Blacks who oppose proximity to low income housing, for whatever reason fall in the same category as your accurate assertion that Blacks ruin communities, deteriorate, and ugly-fy physical attractiveness of neighborhoods. Yes, we do; because that's what we've learned to do. And it is something that will not change anytime soon. Certainly, no more White supremacy will change. 

 

Moreover, the resolution you propose: "you help poor people by providing them with descent paying jobs as well as making housing, education, and other basic necessities affordable for them," is the one thing that'll never happen. Unless we make it happen.

 

 

[Pioneer1]

K2

 

Moreover, the resolution you propose: "you help poor people by providing them with descent paying jobs as well as making housing, education, and other basic necessities affordable for them," is the one thing that'll never happen. Unless we make it happen.

It's about TIME you started saying something I agreed with....lol.

I've been saying for years and years now that the only time things will change for Black people in the ghettos of America is when OTHER Black people with more knowledge and resources stop being afraid of their own people and go into the 'hood to establish justice.

Right now Trump is talking about sending the "feds" into Chicago to curb the violence going on there. Federal authorities are already there....so I'm not sure what "feds" he's talking about other than sending in the National Guard.
But all of this talk could have been avoided if BLACK MEN would have organized to stop the foolishness going on there themselves.

You have the Nation of Islam, the Hebrew Israelites, the Moors and a score of other Black nationalist organizations in Chicago with more than enough Black men with the skills and physical abilities to go in and establish order in the worst of neighborhoods.
What's stopping them?

Look at gentrification and how 10 and 15 years ago White kids started moving into the MOST DANGEROUS neighborhoods of New York and Washington D.C.
The same neighborhoods wealthy Black folks were afraid to even DRIVE through let alone invest any time or money in improving......small framed White folks with glasses were walking their dogs and jogging in skimpy shorts through with no one so much as giving them a mean look.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say White folks got together and decided the only way to calm these negroes down and get them to see how stupid they were and how unqualified they were to govern themselves is to just move out and GIVE THEM the cities to operate.....and then bet money with eachother over how many decades it would take before negroes will be BEGGING White folks to come back and take the cities over again.

But I know better than to even entertain a thought like that......

[Kalexander2]

And I keep telling you – that's never going to happen. Blacks don't care about each other that much.

 

By Feds, DT is talking about U.S. Marshals, and Federal/Local police affiliated task forces which is suspicious at best. Feds taking over policing, the National Guards enter American cities whenever Marshal Law is declared. Suspicious and scary, that is!

 

Bullets and bribes are stopping Black leaders from taking the reins in our communities.

 

Sir, are you in that much denial, it is us men, period, Black and White who promote this sh*t in the first place. Our patriarchy ways of living where only Whites feel safe because laws are made to protect them. They keep most Blacks calm by appointing complacent Blacks in high places, drugs, and loose women/men.

 

Don’t you get it, yet? The inevitable change isn’t going to happen with any plan, process or policy. Change is coming as a direct result of what's already happened, done, and the more we all do will only usher it in quicker. Gloom and doom, YEAH, that's where it's pointing to, thus my pessimism.

[Kalexander2]

When a UPS package arrived at Sean Carter's doorstep that wasn't his, he declined to deliver it to the correct house. Instead, he called the shipping company to request that they come and pick it up. 

 

Why would a Harvard-educated lawyer decline to do something so seemingly simple and harmless? Because, according to Carter, for American black men, it’s not.

 

In a heartfelt, painfully real Facebook post, Carter explained how racism puts black American men and boys in impossibly difficult, and often unsafe, situations.

 

Sean wrote:

 

"'But Sean, why wouldn’t you be a decent person and just take the package to your neighbor? Or better yet, you have teenage sons. Send one of them. That’s the perk of having teenagers — free menial labor.' The answer is because we’re black. And it’s extremely unsafe to send our boys to the home of any family that we don’t know in this predominantly white neighborhood."

 

[Pioneer1]

On ‎5‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 8:31 PM, Kalexander2 said:

When a UPS package arrived at Sean Carter's doorstep that wasn't his, he declined to deliver it to the correct house. Instead, he called the shipping company to request that they come and pick it up. 

 

Why would a Harvard-educated lawyer decline to do something so seemingly simple and harmless? Because, according to Carter, for American black men, it’s not.

 

In a heartfelt, painfully real Facebook post, Carter explained how racism puts black American men and boys in impossibly difficult, and often unsafe, situations.

 

Sean wrote:

 

"'But Sean, why wouldn’t you be a decent person and just take the package to your neighbor? Or better yet, you have teenage sons. Send one of them. That’s the perk of having teenagers — free menial labor.' The answer is because we’re black. And it’s extremely unsafe to send our boys to the home of any family that we don’t know in this predominantly white neighborhood."

 

Sean Carter????

I didn't know JAY Z was a Harvard educated lawyer......lol.

[Kalexander2]

@Pioneer1: ??????????

[Pioneer1]

Sean Carter is Jay Z's government name.

[Kalexander2]

@Pioneer1: ???????????