Census shows Americans fleeing from the East to the Western states
The US Census shows populations fleeing from mostly Eastern states overwhelmed with crime, tax funded welfare programs encouraging many to remain home rather than work, and high levels of taxation that include burdening senior citizens. Originally published in the Southwest News Newspaper Group May 5, 2021
By Ray Hanania
There is a new and tragic “White Flight” taking place, and it’s not just from neighborhoods but from whole states.
In the 1960s, whole neighborhoods transformed nearly overnight from White to Black in Chicago when realtors exploiting the racial fears that were brewing in the country. They would move a Black family into a White neighborhood and then go house-to-house telling the White families to flee.
Although the Whites all portrayed as running because of race, the truth is most fled believing the realtor claims they would lose their life’s savings.
The tragedy is, the realtors were not all White. Many were black and the motivation of all was to make dramatic profits from the home sales.
These days, though, the flight is driven by anger, one fueled by anti-White rhetoric and policies that are founded on assertions of racism and hatred and fueled by news media stories about Police shooting Blacks and people of color. Some of those shootings certainly are wrong and the criticism is justified, but the reality is most were not and involved gangbangers carrying guns who were engaged in crimes.
There is racism in this world but not everything is racism endnote everyone is racist. Most Whites I know what racism, believe that blacks and Hispanics should be treated fairly and equally, but seem upset when the issue is exaggerated and turned into a political weapon against them.
I didn’t have any slaves. I didn’t beat up anyone of color. In fact, when I was young, I was beaten up by gangbangers who were Black. Standing on 79th Street near Wood Street hitchhiking to Rainbow Beach one a car filled with teenagers jumped out and beat me to a pulp and calling me racist epithets.
The victims today are homeowners who are watching as the judicial system is twisted and distorted to benefit the criminals, who hide behind race and racism.
This week, the 2020 Census announced that the nation’s population has shifted and I think I know why. Over the past decade, racism has become the number one battering ram. You’re racist if you do this, or racist if you do that, or racist if you think this, or racist if you think that. No one cares about having a discussion or debate about these issues because no one is allowed to. Anyone who dares to bring up the issue of reverse racism, or tries to push back against claims that all Whites are bigots and racists is automatically denounced as a racist.
They look back 30 and 40 years to find something you did that might suggest you were a racist, like painting your face black for a Halloween Party. No one cares that people wore “Arab Face” masks for Halloween, or dressed as Native Americans, or wore Asian masks back then. That’s not racist enough to be a controversy.
The 2020 Census shows that seven states, California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, have lost significant populations to flight. Most of those fleeing are White, running from states that seem to put an emphasis on the concerns of minorities while treating the “majority” as criminals because of exaggerated feelings regarding race.
Five states gained significant populations, Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina, and Oregon.
Some of the population shifts have to do with Baby Boomers who are running from the exorbitant taxation taking place in places like Illinois, but they are fleeing because of the rising crime, too.
Illinois is a good example of how many residents feel that their concerns are no longer important, that individuals classified as being in the “majority” suddenly are the bad people and the only concern is for individuals living in the poorer communities that tend to be dominated by people of color.
And I don’t mind discussing or debating this issue with anyone’s accept that no one wants to debate or discuss anything. If you mention the word race in a way that doesn’t fit the manner accepted by the race “activists,” then you are a racist. They become the judges, the jurors and the executioners.
The mainstream news media is falling in line because they profit from controversy and anger. “If it bleeds it ledes” is the news media mantra meaning that tragedy sells. Love, compassion, understanding and commonsense “do not sell newspapers.”
Fear, racial politics, and a system that favors one side over the other instead of bringing people together, is the fuel driving today’s changes.
(Ray Hanania is an award winning former Chicago City Hall reporter and political columnist. This column was originally published in the Southwest News Newspaper Group in the Des Plaines Valley News, Southwest News-Herald, The Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers. For more information on Ray Hanania visit www.Hanania.com or email him at rghanania@gmail.com.)
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.
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