It takes a hurricane

From Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, a disturbing analysis of Katrina's forcible relocation of many of the residents of the worst bomb-crater neighborhoods in New Orleans. The removal improved not only the lives of those who moved away but also the lives of those who stayed behind.  I don't know of any way to look at these results than to conclude that there is a poor black culture that can be improved--and can be prevented from dragging down the cultures it touches--only if it remains a locally diluted minority.  If you belonged to that culture, what could be a harder message to accept?
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2 comments:

  1. E Hines3:38 PM

    It's not too different from a version of internal exile that's critical to some prison sentencing/rehab for drug offenders: you can't go back to that environment; you have to live somewhere else as a condition of parole.

    Works there, too, at least better than letting them go back into the environment that led to their addiction.

    Eric Hines

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  2. Ymar Sakar12:00 AM

    Too many slaves creates a problem for the aristocrats. That's what. PP gets to farm them for profit and to reduce the numbers.

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