Benton Harbor Michigan:
Detroit Michigan
Zimbabwe, Africa
United States of America
What do these 2 cities 1 country & maybe another Country have in common?
Benton Harbor, Michigan
The Benton Township police are still largely white, although now they have a Black chief of police, Jim Coburn, and the city of Benton Harbor has a Black Mayor and city council, black police chief and other civic officials. It was apparently the 1966 Black revolt which caused many whites, both business and political leaders, along with white citizens generally, to bolt the city of Benton Harbor and make the trek to St. Joseph and other predominately white cities in the county. Thousands of whites left the city, apparently no longer feeling safe and in control of Benton Harbor. Races in Benton Harbor:
Black (92.4%)
White Non-Hispanic (5.4%)
Two or more races (1.7%)
American Indian (0.8%)
Hispanic (0.6%)
Jesse Jackson visited the town, allegedly to help restore peace. According to the Associated Press, Jackson told a gathering of 200 that they should "turn tragedy into triumph" and stated "we'll turn this crisis into an opportunity."
The type of opportunities for which Mr. Jackson is most famous are racial shakedowns which result in large donations to his organization and/or the award of lucrative business opportunities to his family and friends.
Following one "peace keeping opportunity" Mr. Jackson's family ended up with a very lucrative beer distributorship in Chicago.
God help Benton Harbor.
One police officer told Adversity.Net that Jackson's remarks were remarkably muted and non-confrontational. The officer also told us that the police are very grateful that so far Al Sharpton has not made a threatened appearance in Benton Harbor.
Benton Harbor, when it was white-ruled, had been the most prosperous city in Berrien County. It was a major tourist center, business capital, and industrial center. All during the 1930, 1940’s and 1950’s, Blacks from Arkansas, Tennessee, and other Southern states flocked to the city to work in its industrial and manufacturing plants. The Blacks had no political power, but at least they had jobs and opportunity. There was a burgeoning Black community that traded among itself, created their own culture, and made the best of it.
It was apparently the 1966 Black revolt which caused many whites, both business and political leaders, along with white citizens generally, to bolt the city of Benton Harbor and make the trek to St. Joseph and other predominately white cities in the county. Thousands of whites left the city, apparently no longer feeling safe and in control of Benton Harbor.
Consider that there is only 2% unemployment in St. Joseph, while over 50% unemployment in Benton Harbor among youth and adults alike, many of whom have not had a job in years.
This is how the locals want to solve Benton Harbor’s problems.
I’m surprised that asking the Federal Government to bail them out. After all Benton Harbor was a prosperous lovely city. The “White” Federal, State & Local Government must have caused all the problems. Has anyone ever thought “the people” caused the problems and if they tried they could solve the problems.
1. Write Gov. Jennifer Granholm: email: jennifer.granholm@michigan.gov P.O. Box 30013, Lansing, MI 48909), and demand that she appoint a special prosecutor to prosecute these racist cops, investigate police behavior in Benton Harbor, and compensate the victims and/or their families of police murders.
2. Send donations to the civil rights groups which are protesting this racist police brutality, the Southwest Michigan Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality, P.O. Box 19962, Kalamazoo, MI 49019, and the Benton Harbor BANCO, 1940 Union, Benton Harbor, MI 49022.
3. Support the boycott against the Whirlpool Corporation and its products until it works to end economic apartheid and racist redlining of the Black community of Benton Harbor.
4. Support the boycott against the tourism industry in St. Joseph, Michigan.
Detroit Michigan:
Population increase
The development of the automobile industry led to a massive increase in industrial production in the city. This in turn led to rising demands for labor, which were filled by huge numbers of newcomers from Europe and the American South. Between 1900 and 1930, the city's population soared from 265,000 to over 1.5 million. The landscape of the city also changed dramatically. Once known as the "Paris of the Midwest" for its tree-shaded avenues, the city took on a more blue-collar appearance as its riverfront became lined with factories and grain silos. At the same time, Detroit's downtown flourished architecturally, largely under the leadership of Albert Kahn, who designed a number of Art Deco skyscrapers. The city also experienced a cultural flowering, with a major expansion of the Detroit Institute of Arts and the founding of other institutions.
Labor disputes
With the factories came high-profile labor strife, climaxing in the 1930s as the United Auto Workers initiated bitter battles with Detroit's auto manufacturers. The labor activism established during those years, which brought fame and notoriety to hometown union leaders such as Jimmy Hoffa and Walter Reuther, remains a key feature on the city's cultural and political landscape.
Urban decline
Detroit endured a painful decline in the early 1970's, and was often held up as a symbol of Rust Belt urban blight. After peaking in 1950 with 1.85 million residents, the city's population plummeted when residents moved to the suburbs.
The 12th Street Riot in 1967 and court-ordered busing accelerated "white flight" from the city. Large numbers of buildings and homes were abandoned, with many remaining for years in states of decay. Recent urban renewal efforts have led to the demolition and renovation of abandoned buildings, the razing of old houses for new housing developments, and an expedited process to remove abandoned homes near schools. Abandoned buildings remain in many blighted areas. With the large number of homes razed, sizeable tracts have reverted back to nature to become a form urban prairie. Wild animals have been spotted migrating from their destroyed former habitat in the suburbs to the city.
The percentage of black residents increased rapidly and the first black mayor, Coleman Young, was elected in 1973. Young's style during his record four terms in office was not well received by many white Detroiters.
During the latter half of the 20th century, Detroit's crime figures were often among the highest in the country. Though those figures have decreased in recent years, the crime rate remains high, and the murder rate partly caused by gang-related activity was one of the highest in the United States. Though the 1960s saw the rise of heroin, use leveled off as the population declined. The Detroit gang Young Boys Inc. was formed in the 1970s and introduced a crack cocaine epidemic and produced collateral property crimes. Violence was common as competing drug dealers fought for territory.
In addition to property tax, the city levies an income tax of 2.65% on residents, 1.325% on non-residents, and 1.6% on corporations. Revenue is also obtained from utility taxes, hotel excises and from the Detroit-owned Water and Sewer system that provides most of the fresh water and wastewater treatment facilities within the metropolitan area. Detroit has had to fight off legislative efforts to turn control of the system to the suburbs.
With a decreasing population and decline in the automotive industry, the city's finances have been adversely affected. The city has cut its workforce and closed operations to avoid state-ordered receivership. In addition, Detroit has demanded pay cuts and other dramatic "give backs" from the municipal unions that represent city employees.]
Detroit is hampered not only on continuing decline in its tax base and the lack of private business activity within the city, but also criticism of widespread mismanagement. One example is the city's public school system, where officials failed to provide basic supplies to classrooms while the supplies were available in district warehouses. In 1996, the system's superintendent was criticized for fiscal mismanagement after he revealed an unanticipated $25-million deficit in the school budget.
Kwame Kilpatrick’latest remake of Detroit 12-19-06 is to start remoldling neighborhoods. I wonder if this starts with the crack house that people were killed at (12-18-06). I wonder if Mr. Kilpatrick is proud of the new murder reports that has just been released.
(6-20-08)
I wonder if the people of Detroit are proud of the (soon to be prison bound) Mayor.
1974-1993 Coleman Young
1993-2001 Dennis Archer
2002-2008 Kwame Kilpatrick (Prison)
Kenneth Cockrel Jr.
Present Dave Bing
Zimbabwe:
The economy is now in freefall. Half the workforce is unemployed; hyper-inflation was 252 per cent in 2004, the GDP contracted by 13 per year in the same year. There are four main reasons: a catastrophic decline in the value of the Zimbabwean dollar; the chaos in the vital agricultural and agro-industrial sectors caused by Government policies on land redistribution; the drought that is afflicting the entire region; and the growing impact of the very high rates of HIV/AIDS infection on the workforce. Approximately two-thirds of the population face food shortages. The situation is now extremely serious and the immediate prospects of recovery are virtually zero without radical political change. Under other circumstances, Zimbabwe would have one of the most diverse and best-performing economies on the African continent.
The agricultural base relies on tobacco and other cash crops, including sugar, coffee, cotton and maize, as the main export earners. Livestock rearing is also important. The mining industry produces gold and nickel, mainly for export, as well as smaller quantities of a host of other minerals including silver, emeralds, lithium, tin, iron ore, manganese, cobalt, coal, diamonds and a number of rare metals. Large coal deposits and hydroelectric plants supply the country’s power stations. Manufacturing industry was well developed by regional standards: food processing, metals, chemicals and textiles were the main components. In the service sector, tourism grew rapidly in the period after independence. Worth $200 million in 2002, the industry has all but vanished.
Despite majority-rule, whites made up less than 1% of the population but held 70% of the country's commercially viable arable land. Land redistribution reemerged as the vital issue beginning in 1999. The forced removal of the white farmers caused sharp rises in prices of agricultural commodities such as corn and sugar, and the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy.
Zimbabwe is a republic, with an executive president and a bicameral Parliament. Under constitutional changes in 2005, an upper chamber, the Senate, was reinstated. The House of Assembley is the lower chamber of Parliament.
Zanu PF Robert Mugabe, elected Prime Minister in 1980, revised the constitution in 1987 to make himself President. President Mugabe's affiliated party has won every election since independence on April 18, 1980. In some quarters corruption and rigging elections have been alleged. In particular, the elections of 1990 were nationally and internationally condemned as being rigged, with the second-placed party, Edgar Tekere’s Zimbabwe Unity Movement, winning only 20% of the vote. Presidential elections were last held in 2002 amid allegations of vote-rigging, intimidation, and fraud. The next Presidential elections are to be held in 2008.
(Jeff Koinange)CNN
(CNN) -- Twelve-year-old Beatrice returns from the fields with small animals she's caught for dinner.
Her mother, Elizabeth, prepares the meat and cooks it on a grill made of three stones supporting a wood fire. It's just enough food, she says, to feed her starving family of six.
Tonight, they dine on rats.
"Look what we've been reduced to eating?" she said. "How can my children eat rats in a country that used to export food? This is a tragedy."
This is a story about how Zimbabwe, once dubbed southern Africa's bread basket, has in six short years become a basket case. It is about a country that once exported surplus food now apparently falling apart, with many residents scrounging for rodents to survive.
According to the CIA fact book, which profiles the countries of the world, the Zimbabwean economy is crashing -- inflation was at least 585 percent by the end of 2005 -- and the nation now must import food.
Zimbabwe's ambassador to United States, Machivenyika Mapuranga, told CNN on Tuesday that reports of people eating rats unfairly represented the situation, adding that at times while he grew up his family ate rodents.
"The eating of the field mice -- Zimbabweans do that. It is a delicacy," he said. "It is misleading to portray the eating of field mice as an act of desperation. It is not."
Western journalists aren't allowed in Zimbabwe. CNN gained access via a cameraman who operated under the radar of the Zimbabwean government. Mapuranga said that there are news agencies allowed to film there but that the country was "under siege" by media outlets like CNN and the BBC, "which have shown themselves to be hostile to the people of Zimbabwe."
Critics: Mugabe rules with iron fist
Critics point to one man for the nation's downfall -- 82-year-old President Robert Mugabe, one of the longest-serving rulers in Africa. They say he rules with an iron fist and has reduced Zimbabwe to a nation of beggars.
On Friday, Mugabe downplayed the situation in the country.
"I know we are in difficult times; it's hard times that we are going through. You are bearing a fair share of the burden, we know that [but] Zimbabwe will never collapse," he told a meeting of his ruling political party, the Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front, or ZANU - PF, according to Reuters.
But Shadrack Gutto, of the Center for International Political Studies, said Zimbabwe is on the verge of collapse.
"The reality is it's really grinding down and not improving," he said.
The downslide began, critics say, in 2000 when the government crippled the country's prime commercial farms by running off white farmers and redistributing the land to Mugabe's cronies. At least a dozen white farmers were killed and dozens were injured and hospitalized. Thousands more fled the country and the land. Most of that land now lies empty and abandoned.
Mapuranga said the program was "the greatest thing that has happened to Zimbabwe."
The ambassador said the Africans who had been marginalized by whites before can now own land and control natural resources.
"This generation may suffer, but we are actually laying the foundations of prosperity and Zimbabwean control," he said.
Mugabe's political rivals have been neutralized. The official opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, has been fractured by infighting and disunity. Its leader, former trade unionist Morgan Tvasngirai, just barely survived being convicted of treason after a video was released showing him discussing plans for the supposed "elimination" of Mugabe.
Last year, a few months after the presidential election, the government of Zimbabwe bulldozed homes and businesses in the capital of Harare. It was called "Operation Murambatsvina," which in the local Shona language means "Drive Out Rubbish." The United Nations said more than 700,000 people were left homeless, and critics say they were targeted for their political views.
'We live like animals'
In the midst of the rubble that litters the once-scenic capital, Winnie Gondo, a mother of five, uses any means available to survive. She lives in a burned-out vehicle.
Gondo told CNN she lost not only her home but a twin son, who died from the squalid conditions.
"I've lost everything," she said. "We live like animals here and there's no relief in sight."
Zimbabwe has been reduced to a nation of beggars, Archbishop of Bulawayo Pious Ncube said.
"Life has become extremely difficult in Zimbabwe and a lot of depression ... people are very much depressed and they can no longer think idealistically. They're looking all the time for food -- 'Where do I get my next meal,'" he said.
Ncube traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa, to show a video that he says details numerous cases of police brutality and illegal clamping down on anyone who opposes Mugabe.
The archbishop said that Mugabe wants to hold on to power, in part to avoid the same fate as Charles Taylor, who once ruled Liberia. After being forced from office in 2003, Taylor now is in a prison awaiting trial at The Hague, charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Ncube believes that if Mugabe keeps control, Zimbabwe will continue to sink into an "abyss," and experts agree the only way the nation will eventually get off its knees is when a new president is elected.
"The key will be when Robert Mugabe moves out of the picture as a leader of Zimbabwe," Gutto said.
Until such time, Zimbabwe seems set to remain as a nation of food lines and fuel queues, of shacks and squatters, of rats and rat-eaters -- a nation fast grinding to a halt.
"I can't remember the last time I ate real food," says Elizabeth, the mother feeding her family. "We can't afford anything anymore. We're now just eating these rats to survive."
So what does these 2 cities and country have in common.
Benton Harbor had it all:
Major Tourist Center, Business Capital, and Industrial Center.
What does it have since the 1966 riots?
Detroit had it all:
The development of the automobile industry led to a massive increase in industrial production in the city. This in turn led to rising demands for labor, which were filled by huge numbers of newcomers from Europe and the American South. Between 1900 and 1930, the city's population soared from 265,000 to over 1.5 million. The landscape of the city also changed dramatically. Once known as the "Paris of the Midwest" for its tree-shaded avenues, the city took on a more blue-collar appearance as its riverfront became lined with factories and grain silos. At the same time, Detroit's downtown flourished architecturally, largely under the leadership of Albert Kahn , who designed a number of Art Deco skyscrapers. The city also experienced a cultural flowering, with a major expansion of the Detroit Institute of Arts and the founding of other institutions
What does it have after the election of Coleman Young?
Zimbabwe had it all:
Zimbabwe had one of the most diverse and best-performing economies on the African continent.
The agricultural base relies on tobacco and other cash crops, including sugar, coffee, cotton and maize, as the main export earners. Livestock rearing is also important. The mining industry produces gold and nickel, mainly for export, as well as smaller quantities of a host of other minerals including silver, emeralds, lithium, tin, iron ore, manganese, cobalt, coal, diamonds and a number of rare metals. Large coal deposits and hydroelectric plants supply the country’s power stations. Manufacturing industry was well developed by regional standards: food processing, metals, chemicals and textiles were the main components. In the service sector, tourism grew rapidly in the period after independence. Worth $200 million in 2002
What does Zimbabwe have after the land grab by Robert Mugabe?
The UNITED STATES of AMERICA “HAS/HAD IT ALL”
What will the UNITED STATES of AMERICA have after Barack Husain Obama?
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