White People Ruin Neighborhoods

This post from Prince of Petworth is one of the most offensive things I've read in a while. Many of the blog comments echo my sentiments, but I cannot believe how incredibly racist this writer is. If a white person wrote this about black people, it'd be an outrage. What a complete double standard

What's terrible is that the poster--BJ--has a few valid points (i.e. people moving into neighborhoods should be active in their community, be friendly to their neighbors) that people should discuss. But they're veiled by such venomous anti-white statements that they're almost beyond recognition.

And perhaps the worst part of these comments is that they truly do represent the beliefs that other city residents hold. DC was better 30 years ago. White people are taking over a black city, and ruining it. All white people want is more dog parks and bike lines...they don't care about incorporating into the existing community at all. I've heard these comments and others like them far too often lately, especially with DC's recent, racially-charged mayoral primaries.

It actually sickens me to see how openly racist comments like these are. The true fact of the matter is that racism is alive and well in the United States...and blanket statements about all white people or all black people mask the much more inimitable racial undercurrent in our country. Are most racists as openly extreme as the PoP guest poster? No. They're the people who would never use the n-word, but would also never consider a resume from an job applicant named Lakisha. Or the people who would never post anti-white statements on a blog, but who don't ever call the police because they assume white cops will only respond to complaints from other whites.

Instead of opening up a forum for true discussion of gentrification issues, all BJ did was open a big can of worms, with mudslinging on both sides. Sad. I hope one day, when we talk about making DC a better place to live, the discussion doesn't have to revolve around race.