Apologies to White Wednesday readers, but in Baltimore this was the ‘First Functional Week’ of spring. In my Northeast Baltimore neighborhood of Hamilton packs of black youths: lower class, middle-class and affluent, are running wild, trying to feel the power that their parents and grandparents felt when they invaded white neighborhoods and the whites fled in abject fear. Now, however, the neighborhood they are terrorizing is half black, and occupied by many a middle class black homeowner who will not put up with such shit, and served by many a white business owner who has the clout to call in the police department.

Hamilton is turning white with the help of the black mayor and the mixed race police department. The middle class blacks are sick of ghetto black behavior and the whites are moving back into town for the very simple logistical reason that they cannot flee any farther north without becoming citizens of another state. I just came in from having a few brews and watching cops locking up recreational middle class black youth criminals. I will discuss the ‘Whitening of Urban America’ in an addendum. For now permit me to set the stage with three interviews.

“When I was young I saw the first black family move into the neighborhood. The people who owned the house, the husband had died and the wife sold. They—the new neighbors—were nice decent people. Their kids were good in school and got along fine. They were a cut above their kind. Then, half of the whites put up for sale signs. With all the whites moving out to Harford County the only people who buying were black. Then more whites move out and, since they can’t sell, they rent to section eight tenants. That’s when the crime comes. If that first white family would not have sold this would not have happened.”

“Once a house goes section eight the tenants strip it. They take all the copper out, strip a $2,000 unit for $60 in scrap, and then move on. Initially it’s a good deal for the owner with the guaranteed government rent check. But once the tenants vacate he [the home owner] has to hire us and sink all that money into repairs. So now he is breaking even and sells to the white homesteader [who cannot move any farther away from the city without driving two hours to get to work]. That puts me on the government teat too, making good money on repairing the damage from the subsidized housing backfire.”

“My father was in the military in Japan. He married my mother, who practiced Aikido—she broke his arm once—and brought her back here where they had me. I had a big extended family and a good job, lived in the same places you did though we never met until now. It’s funny how paths cross. I lived over on Sipple, two blocks from your old house. I coached football for nineteen years, played semi-pro when I was young. I was never afraid of the blacks. I didn’t get that part of it. If you can’t hold down a job how are you going to kick my ass? I’ll run right over you.

“Two things happened that convinced me to move. My son is filling up down at the gas station on the corner of Glenmore and Belair and these three punk kids—little black motherfuckers that I coached and took time out of my day to spend time with—shot at him. It wasn’t even a robbery. They were just out shooting at white people. I began to think that if I didn’t get out of town I was going to go to prison over this shit—going to ruin my life.

“The second thing was I caught this black guy in the basement of my house trying to steal my washer and dryer! I have a big house: mom, the wife, me, the kids. I chase this fucker down and hold him. I’m standing on his neck waiting for the cops, who come and take his ass away. I wanted to press charges. Well, I’m in court and the idiot does not even deny this shit, just stands there. But he doesn’t have to worry, doesn’t even need an attorney, because he’s got this white liberal piece-of-shit judge!

“The judge looks at me and says, ‘You own a home in Baltimore City. You need to get used to this. Case dismissed!’ I couldn’t believe this shit—my dad was a cop! What the hell!

“I said, ‘Fuck this, I’m getting out.’ I needed a five bedroom which costs seven-hundred-K out in the County, which is already being overrun by these fucking cockroaches. I bought a house in York PA for one-seventy and it’s just like Baltimore was in the sixties—beautiful man! Those stupid fucks that moved twenty miles out are getting Wal-Mart up the ass and the people it was built for as neighbors. When they come you stop them at the line of scrimmage or play a deep zone. The secondary bullshit just gets you run over.”

In Maryland—a small state—whites have run as far as they can and still be Marylanders. Many are now returning to the ghetto and transforming it, even as the ghettoites that once overran these formally upscale enclaves and ghettoized them pursue the suburban infrastructure that is the expression of the subsidized American Dream. Next week I will discuss this white flight reversal.