Monday, August 16, 2004

Even a Blind Dog...

I typically avoid reading the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Eugene Kane. For those of you who don't know, Milwaukee does have something of a racial problem. Eugene Kane contributes to it by writing angry columns that rarely, if ever, hold the black community of Milwaukee to any kind of standard of behavior. In fact, he excuses much of their inexcusable behavior as being the fault of rich whites (I suspect Mr. Kane does quite well financially himself, I might add). He even went after Bill Cosby like a pit bull for Cos's recent statements-that was, until Mr. Cosby called him and spoke with him, at which point Kane wrote a column showering Cosby with praise. Well, I think Kane might finally be on the right side of an issue. Sort of.

I was watching Milwaukee's NBC TMJ4 the other night, and the big story was about how the white, affluent suburb Fox Point was up in arms over Best Buy's plans to move into an empty store in the community. People were afraid of crime that they automatically associated with Best Buy stores. They interviewed a few residents of Fox Point, and it was clear that these rich whites clearly lived in a bubble where Best Buy is associated with young black males who commit crimes. It made me gag to watch these people. Well, Eugene Kane saw it the same way I did, although he discussed it in his typical racially snarky way. I'm not going to say Kane is a great American because we see eye to eye on this. Instead, I'll just acknowledge that there is a kernal of truth behind Kane's anger. It's too bad that he chooses to use that anger to pander to the anger of a poor, black community in Milwaukee, and by doing so, makes the situation worse.

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