you know, it's sad when even WE fear living amongst our own. change starts with one person, but no one wants to be that first person. washington, dc has some of the worse projects i've ever seen, and i grew up in them. since then, the mayor has been effective in renovating these projects and pricing black people out of these areas. now, whites are buying up this real estate quickly and the property values are increasing now that black people are gone. we really have no one to blame but ourselves. by abandoning these communities and not contributing to making them better places to live, we've left them vulnerable for these types of things.

during the civil rights movement, black communities consisted of teachers, lawyers, doctors, factory workers, postal workers, etc. we had no choice because segregation forced us to live together. we had a stronger sense of community and we were unified in fighting a common enemy. after "desegregation", many of the "affluent" black folks decided that these neighborhoods were no longer good enough and they sought out better neighborhoods. better meant wherever white folks lived.

the bottom line is that we need to stop measuring success by what white people have. we need to understand that if we don't invest TIME and MONEY into our own communities, we won't have them. seems it won't be long before we can no longer call DC the "chocolate city". we won't be able to afford to live in the cities our people have built.

YOU ARE RIGHT. DUBOIS IN HIS BOOK THE SOUL OF BLACK FOLKS EXPLAINED THIS CLEAR. WE BLK FOLKS ONCE WERE EDUCATED IN LEARNING THE AIM OF LIFE. WE SINCE THEN BECAME WHITE EYE'D AND NOW WE SEE THINGS THROUGH THE WHITE EYES. OURSELVES, BEAUTY, HOMES, MONEY. WE CANNOT CHANGE THIS UNLESS WE CHANGE OUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE PRICE OF THINGS. THEN SOON WILL BE RACE UNITED AGAIN. BUT THAT IS CLEARLY IMPOSSIBLE GIVEN THAT OUR RACE IS INDUCE INTO TELEVISION, AND THE MEDIA. BUT I LIKE YOU CONCERN. OH YEAH IS IT FEAR OR IS IT ANGER. ANGER OF LIVING IN THAT CONDITION, ANGER OF GETTING NOWHERE IN THIS NATIO OF SO CALLED RICHES. LEAD A HAND AND SOON WE CAN LIVE AGAIN.