I work in Memphis, hickory hill area 5 days a week, 13 hours a day as a security guard, I go around to apartment complexes and look for crime and report to the police. I have to say, this is the funniest thing to do for a job, black people in their own community turn their heads to drug dealers and bums breaking into apartments and homes.

I was in the civil rights museum a week ago, walking through it I felt sorry for the things that whites did to blacks in the past, even though I was not alive then and should not be blamed for anything that happened then. By the end of the tour of the museum, I felt sad, sad not for what whites did to blacks back then, or for blacks themselves, but for the blacks that gave everything, such as Martin Luther King, for all the work he did as well as the black community for fighting for their rights to be equal and free. What I see now is the black community screwing up everything they fought, strived, and dreamed about. This generation has lost their vision!

Your neighborhoods are not safe, you’re not watching your neighbors in seeing if they are breaking the law and turning them in, you’re not even trying to clean up your neighborhoods. You just drop your trash on the ground and expect someone else to pick it up.

I drive around in my patrol car and wave to everyone in the apartment complexes and do not get a wave back. I get a stare back at me like I am a no good white boy trying to start trouble. The thing is, I have job security because the black community will not take a hold of their responsibility in helping clean up their own community.

Keep blaming me for the black community being suppressed, its only making job security for me and I am laughing all the way to the bank.

 

As a white person, I can with a clean mind say that it is no longer anything the whites have done to the blacks. It’s all the blacks’ problems now. Hell the Jewish community came back from the Germans and became powerful, no hand outs for them.

 

The thing about your remarks is that you continully use the word black people as if all black people are a like and they are not, there are some of us who care about everything you care about, crime, safe neighorhood,clean neighorhoods the city as a whole however not all are the same just as not all white people are the same, I live around predominantly whites in my neigborhood and sometime I see unclean yards,drug addiction and some criminal acts but I don't said all are a like only those individuals,I believe you meant well by your conments and some what you said about those individual are true but I happen to know a whole lot of church going individual that are clean and concern and care about that very problem that you mention,however we don't have all the answer just yet.

As you said you ''sometime see...'' when I drive around memphis hickory hill area that is all I see. Damn crack heads in the middle of the street asking fo money. And my neighborhood is mostly just whites, the first black people moved down the street not to long ago. The street that I live on used to be clean, just a nice area. A couple black people moved in down the street. And their always in the goddamn road, and everytime freaking time I pass them they yell obscenties. Like I said this usta be a very nice quiet area. Now car are being broken into houses getting vandilized. And they all need to get a job and stop draining welfare. Memphis needs to fall into the Mississippi River.  And dude at the top yo be careful out there bro. Jokers will shoot you in the back steal yo money for crack without even flinching.

 

Concerned, when you live in some white neighborhoods it is very apparent that most of the whites aren't bad, that is not the case in most black neighborhoods, BUT, that is because of how those black neighborhoods became so monochromatic. It is easier to be black in a white neighborhood than be white in a black neighborhood, the harrasment to whites in Memphis is extreme, like it was to blacks into the seventies. Whites do not realize how priviliged they are JUST by virtue of their skin color even though some of them had their ancestors out this into place. They just don't think like that or realize it. It doesn't make them evil or wrong, just ignorant of the symptom and the cause.

To some extend you are right, however I still experiences some resentment and sereotypical stares at me being a black male--- I realize there are some fears, and the stares do not translate in harrasment or violent most of my neighbors are good citizens, I have learned that one must earn repect -repect is not just given. We must remember that Memphis is monochromatic because of the white flight which started in 1970 into today. Even through I like to think of Memphis in positive and friendly terms; we however have our problems that I believe one day soon will be resolved by the citizens of Memphis, I love Memphis, I have lived here most of my life and not all of my experiences here had been bad-- most of my memorials or good , I think Memphis is worth fighting for---don't you?

Robert Frost: Challenge Quote
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I... I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

 

     I have been a resident of Memphis my entire 51 years of life and there is crime, corruption, drugs, and a school system that is in serious need of revising. These things are in all cities. There are parents that are not teaching their children any values. The children do not respect other people, hell they do not respect themselves. And it is a known fact that just because you can make a baby does not qualify you to be a parent. What ever happened to MORALS. When I was a child my  neighbors were my extended family. We all looked out for each other and the adults could talk to each other when a child was not behaving appropiately and the situation was taken care of. There were not parents cursing each other out and making threats because someone informed them that their child is doing something wrong. There are some people that do not care about anyone but self. Blame it on the drugs, why not? Who can answer this question for me truthfully: Why are you addicted to drugs? The answers will vary, yet who told the truth and answered I started using drugs because that is what I wanted to do. The same thing applies to criminals, rapists, crooked politicians and the list goes on and on. People do the things they do because that is what they wanted to do, it was not a MISTAKE. I have lived in South Memphis the majority of my life and I have experienced some devastating times in my life but regardless of how hard times were I never robbed anyone, stole, sold my body, embezzled money. I worked and raised 4 children and taught them how to love and respect each other and  respect all people.       These are not things that apply to one particular race of people, they are of every race.   

 I have been a resident of Memphis my entire 51 years of life and there is crime, corruption, drugs, and a school system that is in serious need of revising.----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I strongly believe the urgecy of these matter cannot be understated, even you use the word Serious, this is a major problem in our city. It translates into low rate of business in the city. That translates into few resident employed and unsafe schools which compromise our education etc. Mayor Herenton said in his resignation letter that ('From everyone who has been given much, much will be required. And from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.' (Luke 12:48, The Holy Bible). Well the Mayor is not a lone in responsibiliy of our city. all Memphean have been given and entrusted with our great city. So much is asked of us ,it is  as one has said "it is not what the city of Memphis can do for you but what you can do for the city". However I feel some of the citizens of Memphis has grown apathetic to our failing school system and the increase of crime in our neighborhood , as you said, what happen to neighbor looking out for the each other and the neighborhood?. I  strongly feel that some of us have turn our back on our city and our responsibily to it which has been entrusted to us. We must change our attitude and realize we are our own worst enemy and face that it is our problem. It will take people with good charater and good discipline like yourself  who know the past to enlight some of us in the present and know (IT TAKES A VILLAGE), so I am letting you know you are not alone in your observation of our city and times we live in. All of us must reflected back in time in order to understand the present, for we will be held accountable the actions or lack thereof in the much we have be entrusted with.

Chinese Proverb:
A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.