Alan Keyes has been given a regular column at WorldNetDaily, one of the most popular conservative websites on the Internet. Similar to Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin’s columns, Keyes’ columns will be excerpted here occasionally. Keyes’ latest column concerns what he calls the “slumming of America”.
Slums are not born, they are made. When I was a child, my father (a career Army NCO) would use most of his annual leave during the summer. On several occasions, my parents, my next older brother and I bundled into the car and spent the time making the rounds of family who lived mainly in North Carolina (my mother’s birthplace), Maryland (my father’s) and New York (where both my parents were partly raised, living with near relations).
In New York City we mainly stayed with my Aunt Jenny. I always enjoyed those visits. My aunt was a wonderful cook (I especially remember roast lamb, rice with rich lamb gravy and green beans sautéed in a bit of pork fat before steaming – thoroughly unhealthy, as I later learned, but so tasty). She was also a meticulous housekeeper, and she and my Uncle Anthony had over the years assembled some handsome furnishings. But though I enjoyed staying with them, I always dreaded arriving at the building on Grand Avenue in Brooklyn, N.Y., where they had lived for over 20 years. I remember having to clamber over winos littered about the stairs that led up to the entrance. My aunt and uncle lived several floors up. We had to make our way up several flights, in sparse light and sometimes darkness, through puddles of water and unsavory smells of garbage, urine and vomit, with vermin skittering about in the shadows.
Their home hadn’t always been thus. They had photos from the late ’30s, I think, when it had been a pristine location – the streets clean, the building well-kept – much the way my aunt and uncle still kept their apartment. But as the neighborhood lost its ethnic diversity, the building probably became a cash cow for landlords with no interest in its maintenance. Lights weren’t replaced, walls and ceilings were left in disrepair and old plumbing gave out. You know the story. The people who moved in once things were in such a condition often had no more care for themselves than the landlords had for the real estate. A depressing cycle of decline produced the result that inspired my childish dread.
You can finish reading the article, penned by Keyes, here. Alan Keyes is a former Republican Presidential and Senatorial candidate. He also ran for President in 2008 as the America’s Independent Party candidate after failing to attain the Constitution Party’s nomination.
and Detroit [Michigan] since 1950 ……….