Thread on the book "Philly War Zone", a memoir by a white boy whose neighborhood becomes heavily black in late 60s early 70s Philadelphia. amazon.com/Philly-War-Zon…
The excerpts are from this article on Devin Helton's blog. I strongly recommend you check out the blog and other articles about decline of urban America in the 20th century... devinhelton.com/lost-world-of-…
The author starts of by saying it was the greatest neighborhood to grow up in until it became a racial battleground...
He describes how nice the neighborhood was before the problems started:
He describes the park nearby where he and his friends would play basketball:
He starts to hear rumors about fights between blacks and whites. Soon after he gets robbed by a group of black kids:
Some of his friends chase some black kids off of the bball court that they play on:
The blacks come back for revenge:
Slowly, white families start to move out:
Realtors call and tell them to sell now while they still can:
The basketball courts become a racial turf war:
Racial tension and fights breakout in the school. The authors notices that some of his old black friends no longer talk to him
Crime continues to get worse and there are some black kids killed by whites and vice versa:
Some of the white adults become more sympathetic to the white "gangs"
The author fantasizes about the life he imagined before the racial conflict started:
Soon he can't even go to the grocery store without being harassed
His mom sends his little brothers to the store thinking they are safe but she is wrong:
He feels bad for his little brothers, they can't do of the fun things that he used to do. They can't even go trick or treating safely or go out and play
One day, a group of black kids chase him home and go onto his front porch:
His mom goes out on the porch to try to scare them off and gets punched in the face. The author says that he has never felt so helpless.
Soon after, one of his friends gets fatally stabbed:
Some blacks come outside his friends viewing and chant "dead honky":
The author gets arrested for fighting:
Finally his parents decide to move:
The author reflects on how his neighborhood got so dangerous:
Decades later he takes his young son to drive around the old neighborhood. His son asks why nobody has any paper since everyone is writing on the walls
Got inspired to tweet about this because of this thread by @GodCloseMyEyes . People are very interested in the other side of the story when it comes to "white flight".
Also might be interested: @MysteryGrove @ScottMGreer @anti0xi @BosqueAli @VDAREJamesK @herandrews @WolfgangHutter2
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