i'm also very sorry that your cousin was killed and even sadder she was taken from your family so violently and senselessly.
i've been thinking about the events and circumstances you've reported since i first encountered your article about 9:45 am pdt on 8/15; it's now 8/'18 at about 9:30pm and thoughts about these things continue to pop to the surface of my consciousness at least several times every waking hour.
this is my second attempt at responding. i began to do so two days ago but became concerned i might upset you at a time when you clearly need no more of that. after some rereading and in light of new information you provided, i've changed my mind once again. (i also read some of your archived articles and rightly or wrongly--altho hopefully accurately--determined from them you seem to be more rational than emotional and will hopefully understand what i'm about to say is intended to help clarify rather than camouflage.) .
i grew up downriver (in lincoln park) and went to elementary school there and to high school in wyandotte. this was quite some time ago and i haven't been back there since the mid-70s--and prior to that only infrequently (after hs, i moved close to wsu where i lived for the next 4+ years)..
i'm the last person to assert a claim to wisdom based solely on age, but there is one very bittersweet lesson i've sorta learned: change happens everywhere and all the time. so, if i arrived tomorrow in lincoln park, wyandotte, southgate or almost anywhere else in suburban detroit, i'd be more shocked to find those places as i remember them than the other way around--with one huge exception.
whatever other racial problems persist in america 2007, most of this nation's sizable cities (like 100k population+) are no longer bastions of racial segregation. america's most racially exclusive communities aren't found in the deep south but in metro detroit.
according to census data provided in series of articles on this very subject by the detroit news in 2002, 51.7% of wayne county residents are white, 42.2% are black and 6.1% are neither. only 4 of 42 incorporated municipalities in wayne county--ecorse, hamtramck, romulus and river rouge--are home to populations reflecting those proportions.
detroit itself, highland park (i never considered hp separate from detroit but..), royal oak township, southfield and inkster have much larger black-to-white ratios. 85%+ residents of the remaining 32 communities are white--with livonia having the dubious honor of being the whitest large city in both metro detroit and the usa.
you allude to this in your description of taylor:
You have a significant portion of the city's population that are originally from down south mostly Kentucky, which is where my family is from. Some denigrate the city by calling it Taylortucky. Well, the other part of the city is a decently sized Black population, the stats on the News article says 9%, but it is a very concentrated in one area 9%
while taylor's 9% black population comes close to reflecting national demographics, and isn't nearly as badly outta proportion as 28 of 42 wayne county cities with fewer than 5%--lots fewer in most of these--black residents, it's a bit of a stretch to describe taylor as having a 'decently sized black population'. your assertion that blacks in taylor live in one concentrated areas is supported by the fact that 95% of students at one of taylor's 15 elementary schools are white while 69% of students at another are black (enrollment is restricted by proximity). both schools hare roughly 430 students. (as an aside, teachers at the nearly all-white school earn on average more than $28,000 per year than their counterparts.)
it is pretty sad that Taylor doesn't have a single minority police officer on the force,
i dunno for sure, but i'm guessing the municipal employees are required to live in taylor which would diminish the pool of eligible applicants--altho not nearly so badly as those 15 wayne county communities with 1% or fewer black residents.
while it seems to me citizens of taylor as well as members of its police force would benefit by having non-white officers, that in itself would not render taylor pd--or any other police department--racially benign or malicious. seems reasonable to conclude a more diverse department might be less vulnerable to accusations of minority abuse.
one of the more disturbing aspects of metro detroit's de facto segregation is its association with racially abusive law enforcement. less than 50 years ago, dearborn police harassed and/or arrested blacks traveling thru their city at night unless they were in the company of a white person--preferably a resident of dearborn. i've seen members of other metro detroit suburban departments blatantly victimize non-whites on several occasions (for that matter, i've seen black detroit cops and wayne county sheriff deputies do the same thing).
with that in mind, this is one of a few questionable conclusions or observations offered in your original article:
The charges of racism in the city and it's police force go wayyyy back to then as well, so the argument by the protests of Race are bunk.
i'm always suspicious of retracted confessions--especially when quickly obtained and then quickly denied and associated with allegations of coercion--and i'm hopeful the residue tests are sufficiently conclusive to motivate the taylor pd to move on and redouble their efforts to apprehend the shooter(s).
you've not explained your cousin's kid(s?) involvement in events leading up to the shooting. it's possible they're also innocent victims--anything's possible--but it seems more likely they weren't targeted randomly. nothing they did justifies by any means what happened, but the backstory might well provide a basis for trial-worthy indictments.
considering how this played out, perhaps you'll understand why i found this a bit ironic:
Perhaps the Mothers of these two should have been a bit more proactive and knowledgeable about their activities outside basketball and school
you've been very candid in discussing your cousin. i don't mean to be contentious but it seems the same could be said of her.
i have more to add, but i don't wanna use up all the virtual paper allotted to your account.
thanks for permitting us a glimpse inside your world at a time when it could not have been an easy thing for you to do.
JoeUser Forums
