Im a little taken aback. Yudi Rine posted a whole diatribe to his Timeline in which he accused me of race-baiting regarding an alternative schooling facility that may be moving to West Rogers Park. Since he tagged me, and claimed I look forward to your response, I responded. He then deleted my response, but not the post accusing me of race-baiting. Since I no longer have my response, I cant simply post it here. But Ill post a paraphrase. Theres a proposed alternative education program that may be renting space in a West Rogers Park synagogue called KINS. KINS, for what its worth, is a couple of blocks from my house. On a Facebook group that is largely populated by fellow residents of the West Rogers Park neighborhood, some folks began to voice their opposition to this program, claiming that there were unanswered questions about the effect on crime, parking, property values, etc. A fellow attorney posted that based upon his attempt at determining the effect of similar programs in other locations on the local crime rate, there is no evidence to suggest that these programs have an effect on the crime rate at all. His posts were completely ignored. So I called a spade a spade. I remember very well when a fellow, not realizing that my household growing up was Jewish, complained to my mother that property values were going to go down in his neighborhood because some Jew moved in. This ignorant opposition reeked of the same prejudice in that nobody had brought any facts to support the claim that this alternative schooling program would affect the neighborhood in a negative way. I was attacked for pointing this out. Then someone remarked that a similar program had been tried in Skokie, and it was very successful. The same people who were nay-saying the West Rogers Park program were undeterred: Skokie has different demographics than Chicago. This was the exact term used; its not a paraphrase on my part. Different demographics isnt even code. It was a bald assertion that the heart of the opposition was the race or cultural background of the potential Chicago students (given that Chicago is less than 50% white, with large concentrations of Latinos and African-Americans). When I said as much, I was shocked to find that nobody disagreed with me, or attempted to correct my understanding of the term demographics. I dont want to call people out like this. But as long as Yudi has a post on his Timeline in which Im tagged and accused of race-baiting, and as long as Im not even allowed to respond to it, I feel like I need to respond here. Unlike Yudi, I wont delete comments merely because I dont like them. Unlike Yudis post, mine doesnt invite a response. But if he feels moved to respond here (rather than delete my post, turn tail, and refuse to respond to my private messages), he should feel free to do so.
Posted on: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 21:22:58 +0000
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