Moving

Why within the Hell Are Black Folks Transferring to Crimson States?

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at an annual Republican Jewish Coalition leadership meeting November 19, 2022 in Las Vegas.

democrats. You lose your audience. Literally.

Worse, you lose it to states virulently hostile to your audience and dripping with policies contrary to what you preach.

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In a large reverse migration of blacks, four of the five states with the highest black population increases since 2010 are Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida, according to Brookings data. Despite U-Haul voting restrictions, blacks drive to Texas, Georgia and Florida. A new Republican majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court is considering redistribution and voting restrictions that were declared illegal by the court’s previous Democratic majority. Florida banned an African American postgraduate degree. Texas and Florida end diversity, equality and inclusion in state agencies and restrict racial education in schools.

Some observers, like New York Times columnist Charles Blow, are hailing the migration in the hope that it will turn the South’s red politics to purple. That’s reason to believe it may happen, as Georgia elects a Democrat to the White House for the first time in almost 30 years in 2020 and sends its first black and Jewish senators to Congress. North Carolina voted for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008. Florida voted for Obama both times.

But just fixing that gets Democrats off the hook because, as they say in basketball, they’re not protecting the home court. Blacks’ willingness to live in the crosshairs of conservative politics says a lot about what they have been fleeing on the so-called liberal North and West Coasts.

On its website, the Democratic National Committee party boasts of decades of “standing by the African American community.” It states that Democrats will promote racial justice with “equitable” government and public policies. The party says it will “push for societal transformation to make it clear that black lives matter.”

The story goes on

But look around and all you see is black people being driven out of the bluest cities in the bluest states.

While Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida have gained 1.3 million black residents since 1995, New York, Illinois, California and New Jersey are the top four states with black population losses, according to Brookings, amounting to at least 1, 5 million blacks. Recent reports in the New York Times and Washington Post detail the massive drop in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

In these cities, the cost of living chews on blacks more than Southern politics, in addition to the grueling structural racism of housing, schools, jobs, and entrepreneurship. Democrats can talk Black Lives Matter all they want, but the essence of a roof over their heads and bread on the table matters more than a scolding Ron DeSantis in Florida, a grumpy Greg Abbott in Texas, or a pugnacious Brian Kemp in Georgia.

Crucially, black unemployment is higher in California, Illinois and New York than in Florida, Georgia or Texas. What matters is that of the 12 most segregated black cities as measured by Brookings, 11 are north of the Mason-Dixon line.

70 years ago my parents fled separated Mississippi to Milwaukee. Today, Milwaukee leads the nation in segregation, followed by New York and Chicago. While not home to the largest black population, Wisconsin is still in the top 10 states for black loss as of 2015. With blacks voting with their feet today, Democrats had better hurry to tear down the structural barriers in their home court before they are trampled by the Exodus.

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