Race In Des Moines (Washington, Oakland: pre-schools, income, live)

[El Rhino]

Originally Posted by xube

I have seen less white faces at a Klu Klux Klan rally. .

So you attend Ku Klux Klan rallies?




Also, Des Moines is about 80% white and Iowa is over 90% white. Who do you really think is going to run things and be the most visible racial group here? I guess if you're intolerant of white people and white culture, Iowa is certainly not the place for you.



It's posts like this that keep us coming back day after day.

[capitalcityguy]

I guess we shouldn't be looking for xube to be authoring any books in the near future on success or/and the power of positive thinking?

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by capitalcityguy

I guess we shouldn't be looking for xube to be authoring any books in the near future on success or/and the power of positive thinking?

Especially when part of the criteria is that a majority of businesses and a lot of the services in a metro area that's 88% white in a state that's over 93% white are.........white. I mean Iowa's black/hispanic population has only become noticable within the past 20 years. Sure there have been blacks in Iowa and Des Moines since inception, but as recenly as 1980 it was just a few small percent. I honestly wouldn't expect many black owned businesses, and that's in no way racist - it's just based on simple numbers.

There certainly may be issues with race and situations in Des Moines - but what's being said in those posts seems like either some cliche cop-out, or just venting.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by ckhthankgod

Didn't Des Moines have a Black mayor at one time? Also, I don't think that interracial crime necessarily means that it is racially motivated, unless it's pretty obvious. For the overwhelming majority of cirme in this country, it is intraracial. When 86% of White victims and 94% of Black victims are victimized by those of the same raceaccording to the Bureau of Justice from 1976-2005, maybe it's the criminals from within that people need to worry about the most.

Are there places were things can be tense in iowa? From what I know, it seems like Waterloo and Dubuque have at times been tense in that way.

Yes, DSM did have an African-American mayor, Preston Daniels, in 1997. DMPL Local History - Des Moines Timeline. I wouldn't go as far to say as DSM is paradise though.

You have a good point about interracial crime. Not every interracial crime is racially motivated. On that not, very few interracial crimes occur compared to intraracial crimes.


I know Waterloo had some tensions. Waterloo was one of the places that had riots during the 1960's.

[cf_baby]

I just wanted to say a few things. I live in Cedar Falls Iowa, right next to Waterloo. I go to Cedar Falls High School -a meca for creating the best football players in the state. Right now, and for the past 4 years I have been the only black guy in my grade. My class size is around 390, for this size most people would think the percentage of minorities should be bigger. On a regular basis I am told random racist jokes and I can hear people talk about how blacks are so ghetto. I moved to Cedar Falls to play football but besides the football I hate the school. I hate the faculty. I hate the staff. I hate the students. I can feel I am treated differently than everyone else. Is school supposed to feel like you can never trust anyone. At lunch since no one really looks like me, I try to sit by my teammates. However almost every other day, randomly, the caucasion players start talking about race. The topic of blacks and mexicans and bosnians, is brought up again and again. One day at practice this summer, a kid came and called me a Nigg* (not in the playing way). So i punched him in the face. The coach took me to the principle (who is a racist and bias). and guess who got in trouble and who didnt get in trouble. I was charged with minor assault and had to take anger management classes, while the person who called me a nigge* was sent back to practice. The next week my parents and I felt this was unfair and deserved justice. So we called the local paper and had them print a story about the football incident. Later the boy, whose name was in the paper dropped the charges, because i gues it was hurting his image as a perfect catholic man. I thought Id share this story with you because in order to make a full decision about a topic you need to know the whole story. So in the case of racism in Iowa, it's here, it's always been here, and it needs to be addressed.

[El Rhino]

Can you post a link to the story?

[Tek_Freek]

Another single poster comes, complains, leaves when called on a story.

Same old blah, blah, blah. Most likely a pack of lies.

[El Rhino]

Yeah, it's definitely not the first time that's happened in the Iowa forum. I remember one lady who claimed that her son went to U of I and someone came and drew swastikas and racial epithets all over his door with feces. If that actually happened, Jesse Jackson & co. would still be down our throats - same with the story above.

[Chicago60614]

There are and might be problems - but it's hardly like this is some special "Des Moines issue". Go anywhere outside a few select areas and you're going to see the same trend.

Oh yeah, Chicago is so diverse.....except that outside a few neighborhoods everything is basically 90%+ one race or the other. It's the same in most areas. People tend to group based on income levels, and unfortunately race is pretty tightly tied to income levels. I have multiple black friends who have done very well for themselves, and when their families moved out of the more poor areas and into a nice upper middle class neighborhood, sent their kids to school, etc. - they more likely than not were moving out of a majority black area. They've all said they're basically outcast from the black community, and feel like they have to put up with crap and fight to melt into the "white community" or basically be on their own. I don't know how many times I've been at parties or hanging out with my black friends, and it's always the "token black" in the group. They're really nice and I love them all - but I know they have to put up with a lot of crap from whites AND blacks just to be successful. It's unfortunate.

[urza216]

Originally Posted by Chicago60614

There are and might be problems - but it's hardly like this is some special "Des Moines issue". Go anywhere outside a few select areas and you're going to see the same trend.

Oh yeah, Chicago is so diverse.....except that outside a few neighborhoods everything is basically 90%+ one race or the other. It's the same in most areas. People tend to group based on income levels, and unfortunately race is pretty tightly tied to income levels. I have multiple black friends who have done very well for themselves, and when their families moved out of the more poor areas and into a nice upper middle class neighborhood, sent their kids to school, etc. - they more likely than not were moving out of a majority black area. They've all said they're basically outcast from the black community, and feel like they have to put up with crap and fight to melt into the "white community" or basically be on their own. I don't know how many times I've been at parties or hanging out with my black friends, and it's always the "token black" in the group. They're really nice and I love them all - but I know they have to put up with a lot of crap from whites AND blacks just to be successful. It's unfortunate.

You're so full of it First of all, there are a number of affluent 50%+ black areas in Chicagoland but you wouldn't know about them because you're an Iowa-bred northsider. I'm white and I've have spent most of my time around all those areas that you are scared of and only THINK are "90%+ black".

Yeah, there are black people like what you described but but this is definitely a bigger problem in other areas of the country. Chicagoland is home to Olympia Fields - the wealthiest majority black community north of the Mason-Dixon line (it's around 80% black). I went to grade school in Olympia Fields. The house I spent most of my years growing up in was a couple blocks away from the village limits. Beverly and Kenwood (where the president of the United States is from, hint hint) are very affluent neighorhodoods with sizable black populations. And no, there not 90%+ anything.

I attended an integrated high school and what that one poster from De Mois said about the "black hallway" is quite frankly, a little chilling. Yeah, social groups tend to be very segregated but it was never on that level AT ALL.

I'm not saying segragation isn't a problem. It obviously is. I'm just saying you're a cynacism makes little sense in the context of a Chicago-Des Moines comparison. And that 90% thing is simply not true. Either you're lying/exagerating or misinformed.