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Ho hum! Another mass shooting in Philadelphia It was just Kensington, so who really cares?

It was August 17, 2020, when The Philadelphia Inquirer published the article “Even the pandemic doesn’t slow down Philadelphia’s drug markets: It’s unclear why COVID-19 hasn’t had much effect on Philadelphia’s drug market. But that’s not to say the drug supply here is or was predictable, even before the pandemic.” The article included a photo of what appears to be a young male shooting up — his back is to the camera — out in public, in broad daylight, on Kensington Avenue, right by the SEPTA train station. The street, one of Philly’s thoroughfares, is shown as being littered with trash. I noted that I was waiting for news that Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw organized a major sweep to clear the area, at least temporarily, of the drug dealers and junkies infesting the area, but I never heard of one.

After shooting in Kensington, some accuse city leaders of not doing enough to improve area’s conditions

Five people were critically wounded in an attack one political leader called the latest example of Philadelphia’s failure to address the depths of Kensington’s public health catastrophes.

by Ellie Rushing | Sunday, November 6, 2022

A shooting of nine people overnight in Kensington, a section of Philadelphia beset by gun violence and an open-air drug market, renewed community leaders’ criticisms of city leadership and heightened calls for a plan to address the neighborhood’s compounding crises.

The shooting Saturday near the intersection of Kensington and Allegheny Avenues, ground zero for the city’s opioid epidemic, left all of the victims seriously wounded after police said at least three people jumped out of a car and fired more than 40 shots into a crowd shortly before 10:45 p.m. Eight men and one woman, ranging in age from 23 to 40, were struck and taken to Temple University Hospital.

Four of the men remained in critical condition as of Sunday evening, police said.

No arrests have been made and no weapons were recovered. Additional details were scarce, including what may have motivated the shooting.

Screen capture from The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 19, 2022.

I would say that the motivation is obvious: one gang clique of young men[1]We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes … Continue reading put out a hit on another clique of young men, and the police simply need to figure out which clique was targeted and which clique was responsible. It’s quite possible that not all of the people wounded were among the specifically targeted, and that even none of the wounded were among the targeted clique; these fine but misunderstood young gentlemen apparently accept that there will be some collateral damage as they set out on their missions.[2]Will Bunch, the Inquirer’s most off-the-wall leftist columnist, wrote: These twin blows came at the very end of a brutal autumn in which the right’s unified messaging — in so many ways the … Continue reading

Actually, I feel kind of sorry for Inquirer reporter Ellie Rushing. Her byline is on so many of the crime stories in the newspaper that it’s got to be at least a little bit depressing!

As we have previously noted, the Philadelphia Police Department believe that three of the teenaged suspects in the Roxborough High School shooting murdered another young man the previous day.

There is no neighborhood as burdened by shootings as Kensington, a section of the city plagued by an open-air drug market and high rates of deep poverty. Along the Kensington-Allegheny corridor, there are sprawling homeless encampments, and people in addiction openly use drugs.

Law enforcement officials have said dealers sell heroin, crack, and other drugs on more than 80 blocks in the neighborhood.

If the police know of these drug sale areas, why aren’t they sweeping through and arresting the dealers? Oh, that’s right:

Law enforcement officials say they cannot arrest their way out of the crises there.

They could at least try, since the city is apparently not doing anything else to solve the problems.

Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw tweeted:

In other words, the Commissioner knows that the people of that neighborhood, and the city in general, do not believe that the Philadelphia Police Department really care about Kensington. Given that the Inquirer can report that drugs are being sold openly on “more than 80 blocks” there, and the police aren’t doing anything about it, what other impression would people have?

Of course, if the police did make a bunch of drug busts, District Attorney would refuse to prosecute the arrested seriously.

Miss Rushing wrote about the frustrations of Philly’s worst, most crime-ridden neighborhood, without showing any understanding about her subject. Kensington is the way it is not because of poverty, but because of the culture in that area, a culture which says that it’s perfectly fine to go out and blast away at your perceived enemies. Eastern Kentucky is just as poor, if not poorer, than Kensington, but while there is certainly crime here, and Kentucky’s firearms law are less restrictive than Pennsylvania’s, we don’t have the mass shootings or rampant killings seen in the City of Brotherly Love.

Miss Rushing was one of the Inquirer writers who told us that there were no gangs in Philadelphia, just those “cliques of young men”, and if she didn’t write those specific words herself, her name is still on it, demonstrating for us that those writers, Jessica Griffin, Ximena Conde, and Chris Palmer along with Miss Rushing, are simply in denial of what is going on in their fair city.

That, or they actually do know the truth, but are unwilling, or unable due to their editors’ dictates, to actually say it out loud.

The “city leaders” from Miss Rushing’s headlines really can’t do much to “improve (Kensington’s) conditions” because the people there are responsible for them. Yes, many of them are poor, but that doesn’t mean that they have to use drugs or tolerate drug use among others. The area’s open-air drug markets exist because the residents of Kensington allow them to exist. The filthy homeless camps and junkies strung out and laying wasted in the middle of the sidewalks exist because the neighborhood allow them to exist. The area is full of crime because the people who know who committed the crimes won’t tell the police, so crime continues, and gets worse, because there are few consequences.

Kensington’s consequences are the fault of Kensington’s people. The “city leaders” cannot change that; only the people themselves, hopefully encouraged by church pastors, block captains, and the mothers in the area concerned about their children, can change things.

References

References
↑1 We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes had “beefs” with other cliques, so we must replace the term “gang-bangers” with “cliques of young men” or “clique beefers”. District Attorney Larry Krasner and his office seem to prefer the term “rival street groups“
↑2 Will Bunch, the Inquirer’s most off-the-wall leftist columnist, wrote:

These twin blows came at the very end of a brutal autumn in which the right’s unified messaging — in so many ways the Powell Memo brought to life — is embraced by the icons of mainstream media like the New York Times, Washington Post or NPR. The fearmongering over cherry-picked crime stats or supposed migrant caravans, or an emphasis on high inflation over low unemployment, or cheap gas over deadly climate change that’s hatched in conservative think tanks and promulgated on Fox News has proved catnip to journalists so eager to prove their balanced objectivity — that they aren’t in the tank for Biden coming off the Donald Trump nightmare.

With 449 homicides in Philly so far this year, on a pace for 529 for the year, and total shootings at a higher pace this year than last. I’m not sure how “cherry-picked” those crime statistics are. The Inky’s writers seem to be living in denial.
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In which I tell you, very politically incorrectly, how to solve all of Philadelphia’s problems

I really, really, really wanted to write about something else this morning; I’ve spent so much time on the homicide rate in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia that I felt in a rut.

Then the Memorial Day weekend happened, and I had two stories entitled Killadelphia in a row, as the blood flowed freely in the city’s streets. A three-day holiday weekend, commemorating American soldiers who dies in wars to protect our liberty, our freedom, and our country’s interests abroad, was celebrated by killing other Americans, civilians, because the City of Brotherly Love has run out of that love, because civilization has degenerated into savagery. Even The Philadelphia Inquirer couldn’t ignore it! Continue reading →

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Gentrification is a good thing!

On its website main page Thursday morning, The Philadelphia Inquirer, in plugging a new story, Philadelphia’s gun violence crisis through the eyes of those experiencing it, there was a link to an older story, Philly blocks besieged by shootings have long endured poverty, blight, and systemic racism. Dated September 16, 2021, I had seen it before. The story documents some of the blocks with the highest number of shootings, and tells us what we already knew:

But in Philadelphia, the epidemic of gun violence has been intensely concentrated in just a handful of neighborhoods and several dozen blocks — like the one where Johnson was killed, according to an Inquirer analysis. These shootings have left behind a breathtaking level of fear and trauma among a fraction of the city’s residents, nearly all of whom are Black and brown.

I admit to being wryly amused by the Inquirer’s stylebook, seemingly copied from the Associated Press, which decided that, in reference to race, “black” should be capitalized, but “white” should not. The stylebook led to “black” being capitalized and “brown” being left in lower case. Social justice, racial justice, and just generally being #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading leads to some real stupidity.

As unchecked gun violence has reached unprecedented heights this year, it has continued to disproportionately batter these same communities, where residents also endure higher poverty levels, lower life expectancy, and more blighted housing, the analysis shows.

Naturally, the “anti-racist” Inquirer wants to blame everything but race, unless it’s the racism of white people!

After several paragraphs noting violent areas, including the blocks around the intersection of Kensington and Allegheny Avenues, about which we have written previously, and around which the Philadelphia Police Department has mostly ignored the open-air drug markets, I came to these two paragraphs, two I found very important:

The vast majority of the city’s developed[2]By “developed,” article authors Chris Palmer, Dylan Purcell, Anna Orso, John Duchneskie, and Jessica Griffin meant blocks not devastated by crime and neglect, blocks in which the … Continue reading blocks with housing — more than three-quarters of them — haven’t experienced a single shooting since 2015. Entire swaths of Center City, Northeast Philadelphia, Chestnut Hill and Roxborough, far whiter and wealthier than the rest of the city, have not seen a shooting for years.

Neighborhoods like Graduate Hospital, Fishtown, and University City — where years of reinvestment have ushered in more wealth and opportunity — are just a few minutes’ drive from shooting hot spots. But they rarely experience gun violence.

“(Y)ears of reinvestment have ushered in more wealth and opportunity”, huh? Let’s not beat around the bush here: the writers managed to avoid the word itself in their long article, but the word is gentrification.

Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and businesses.[3]“Gentrification”. Dictionary.com.Lees, Slater & Wyly 2010[page needed] define gentrification as “the transformation of a working-class or vacant area of the central city to a … Continue reading It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and planning. Gentrification often increases the economic value of a neighborhood, but the resulting demographic displacement may itself become a major social issue. Gentrification often shifts a neighborhood’s racial or ethnic composition and average household income by developing new, more expensive housing and businesses in a gentrified architectural style and extending and improving resources that had not been previously accessible.[4]West, Allyn (5 March 2020). “Baffled City: Exploring the architecture of gentrification”. Texas Observer. Archived from the original on 22 June 2020. Retrieved 21 June 2020., [3][5]Harrison, Sally; Jacobs, Andrew (2016). “Gentrification and the Heterogeneous City: Finding a Role for Design”. The Plan. 1 (2). doi:10.15274/tpj.2016.01.02.03.

The gentrification process is typically the result of increasing attraction to an area by people with higher incomes spilling over from neighboring cities, towns, or neighborhoods. Further steps are increased investments in a community and the related infrastructure by real estate development businesses, local government, or community activists and resulting economic development, increased attraction of business, and lower crime rates. In addition to these potential benefits, gentrification can lead to population migration and displacement. However, some view the fear of displacement, which dominates the debate about gentrification, as hindering discussion about genuine progressive approaches to distribute the benefits of urban redevelopment strategies.

But it appears that the residents of these poorer neighborhoods don’t want wealthier, and let’s be honest here, whiter people moving in:

In a plan for a safer, vibrant 52nd Street, worried West Philly neighbors see gentrification looming

Angst is roiling minority neighborhoods as they struggle to balance the opportunities and the threats created by gentrification. “West Philly is the new Africa,” one resident warned at a community meeting. “Everyone wants the property that’s in West Philadelphia.”

by Jason Laughlin | February 21, 2020

The topic of the community meeting — a plan to beautify 52nd Street, to make it safe, welcoming, and prosperous once again — was, on its face, nothing but good news for West Philadelphia’s long-declining business corridor.

Yet the audience of about 50 residents and retailers, mostly African American, grew increasingly agitated as urban designer Jonas Maciunas flipped through a PowerPoint presentation of proposed improvements. Many weren’t seeing a vision of a neighborhood revitalized from Market to Pine Streets. Instead, in the talk of redesigned intersections, leafy thoroughfares, and better bus shelters, they heard the ominous whisper of gentrification.

“It just seems that when white people decide to come back to a certain neighborhood, they want it a certain way,” said Carol Morris, 68, a retired elementary school teacher.

Morris’ declaration opened the floodgates of fear and anger that recent night at the Lucien E. Blackwell West Philadelphia Regional Library. Maciunas and Jesse Blitzstein, director of community and economic development for the nonprofit Enterprise Center, which is spearheading the project, were peppered with skeptical questions ranging from the validity of surveys showing community support for the improvements to the maintenance of trees that would be planted.

There’s more at the original.

As we have previously noted, the Editorial Board of the Inquirer have told us that racial segregation is very much part of the problem in city residents feeling unsafe, and Philadelphia is one of the United States’ most internally segregated big cities. But that very same Editorial Board, less than two years ago, were very wary about gentrification. To be fair — and I so rarely am when it comes to the Inquirer — the Board have at least mixed feelings when it comes to gentrification.

While Philadelphia and the Inquirer haven’t been so blatant as to say so directly, the liberal city of Lexington[6]Fayette County was one of only two counties, out of 120 total in the Bluegrass State, to be carried by Joe Biden in the 2020 election. has. As we have previously noted, Lexington said, directly, that it was concerned about gentrification, and, “Most new owners being more affluent and differing from the traditional residents in terms of race or ethnicity.” The city was concerned about white people moving into heavily black neighborhoods.[7]Lexington’s Hispanic population are not large enough to really dominate larger neighborhoods.

Philadelphia is not concerned about black residents moving in and integrating nearly all-white neighborhoods, and that is what the Inquirer’s Editorial Board said ought to happen. But somehow, liberal cities don’t seem to want that to happen in reverse, don’t seem to want white people moving into majority black neighborhoods.  Yet, as the Inquirer noted:

Neighborhoods like Graduate Hospital, Fishtown, and University City — where years of reinvestment have ushered in more wealth and opportunity — are just a few minutes’ drive from shooting hot spots. But they rarely experience gun violence.

Gentrification seems to reduce violence!

Gentrification ought to be something every city wants. Not only do revitalized properties raise property values around them, but when white ‘gentrifiers’ move into a majority black neighborhood, they are clearly white people who have no racist attitudes toward blacks, people perfectly willing to have black neighbors. Is that not a good thing?

References

References
↑1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.

↑2 By “developed,” article authors Chris Palmer, Dylan Purcell, Anna Orso, John Duchneskie, and Jessica Griffin meant blocks not devastated by crime and neglect, blocks in which the housing was not dilapidated, but they couldn’t quite bring themselves to say that.
↑3 “Gentrification”. Dictionary.com.Lees, Slater & Wyly 2010[page needed] define gentrification as “the transformation of a working-class or vacant area of the central city to a middle class residential and/or commercial use”.
↑4 West, Allyn (5 March 2020). “Baffled City: Exploring the architecture of gentrification”. Texas Observer. Archived from the original on 22 June 2020. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
↑5 Harrison, Sally; Jacobs, Andrew (2016). “Gentrification and the Heterogeneous City: Finding a Role for Design”. The Plan. 1 (2). doi:10.15274/tpj.2016.01.02.03.
↑6 Fayette County was one of only two counties, out of 120 total in the Bluegrass State, to be carried by Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
↑7 Lexington’s Hispanic population are not large enough to really dominate larger neighborhoods.