Mayor Tom Murphy was right when he said that metropolitanism will be difficult to implement because suburbanites fear that certain city residents will destroy their communities. We who live outside of Pittsburgh must admit that we are afraid of "them" because we have seen what they have done to their own neighborhoods.
Suburbanites do not want to deal with people who do not share their values.
Speaking about Hampton residents fighting a proposed methadone clinic, Murphy suggested the protesters are acting "as if the people from the city have horns and are going to come out of their neighborhoods and rape their children and rob their houses."
Murphy also is peeved at some of his remaining friends. He claims they are afraid to visit him at his North Side-area home because there are young black kids hanging out in Hizzonor's 'hood. If Murphy wants company, maybe he should invite those kids in to hang with him and his family.
Murphy's analysis of the opposition to a forced city-county merger can be summed up in four words: right reason -- wrong race.
We suburbanites are afraid of certain people -- but not black teenagers. We are terrified of Pittsburgh's white grown-ups.
If they move into our communities, and then do what they did to Pittsburgh, well, can we keep city whites out by redliningâ¢
The vast majority of Pittsburghers are white. They are the ones to blame for voting for Murphy and his predecessors over the decades. The whites are the ones who increased taxes on people and their properties -- forcing most to leave the city for the suburbs.
Those Pittsburghers do not rape children -- they rape taxpayers. And then show no remorse.
White people make up the city power structure. They are responsible for creating and funding the Urban Redevelopment Authority that, for decades, has used its power to destroy city neighborhoods.
Whites created the two white elephant sports venues on the North Side riverbank, as well as a third white elephant -- the latest convention center -- on the riverbank of the Allegheny.
Can anyone name a time when the near-dysfunctional Pittsburgh Public Schools system -- or the city of Pittsburgh for that matter -- was not controlled by whites?
Should we suburbanites blame black kids for the potholes in Pittsburgh streets and the uncollected trash on city sidewalks⢠Black people are not the ones who authorized one of the highest tax rates in the country on parking in Pittsburgh.
The black kids hanging out near the mayor's city home were not behind the massive corporate welfare giveaways that handed taxpayer money to multimillionaires. And blacks are not responsible for the mayor creating an unbalanced budget to stampede the Legislature into allowing the city to go into virtual bankruptcy.
When it comes to city residents robbing houses, suburbanites should be worried. If Murphy and his posse moved into our communities, they would sell their souls to firefighter and police unions by offering overly generous compensation contracts that essentially would steal from every homeowner to fund their sweetheart deals.
Suburbanites have every reason to fear city residents -- white ones -- for allowing the city and school district to decay so badly.
Blacks did not destroy Pittsburgh -- whites did. Talk about "there goes the neighborhood."
