Bridges to nowhere

In a politically-correct world, this one goes untouched by white folks.

But it’s such a complete farce, somebody has got to touch upon it.

Ideas abound at Building Bridges meeting

"I hear it all the time, 'I'm going to get out of the city. The city's in trouble. Things aren't the way they used to be.' And we can cut and run to the Back Mountain, we can cut and run to Mountain Top, or we can choose to stay and fight. That's the choice I've made. That is a choice that I think collectively we have made - or you would not be here tonight."

While it’s not entirely clear which of the two presiding clerics the preceding quote should be attributed to, it is evidently clear that he inadvertently described what is known to demographers as “white flight.” That is, the out-migration of white folks from urban centers to the more bucolic suburban areas.

Therein should be the starting point of the people looking to build bridges to wherever it is or whatever it is they hope to arrive at.

Put as bluntly as possible, as the demographics of this once Lilly white city began to appreciably and noticeably change, the disturbing emergence of now nearly epidemic black-on-black crime shot through the roof and has longtime city residents grousing about the good old days.

I read both of our two daily newspapers every each and every morning. And so do most of the folks that drop by this site from time to time. And the seemingly non-stop reporting of high-profile crimes committed by one particular demographic group are there for all to search, peruse and draw conclusions from.

What is needed to build anything upon is less self-sympathetic hand-wringing and more painfully honest introspection. That’s your cornerstone of your yearned-for rebuilt community foundation. Hiring more police officers and having seminars with elected officials will do far, far less than some long overdue self-policing would.

But what do I know? I’m just some aging white boy who remembers the days when people were not gunned down with sickening regularity in Wilkes-Barre as well as Luzerne County.

Building bridges atop faulty premises?

Yeah, bridges to nowhere.

Later