#891. The Demise of the Pontiac Silverdome

Black people love sports. Years of watching sports have helped people from across the United States develop favorable images of Black people, through vast consumption of sports, which is explained with the process of "Mainstreaming":

"A corollary of cultivation theory, the concept of “mainstreaming” implies that heavy television viewing contributes to an erosion of differences in people's perspectives that stem from other factors and influences.

It is based on the argument that television serves as the primary common storyteller for an otherwise heterogeneous population. As the source of the most broadly shared images and messages in history, television represents the mainstream of the common symbolic environment into which children are born and in which we all live out our lives."

We have documented the amount of time people spend watching the National Football League (NFL), college football and other professional sports, and with this repeated viewing of 13 percent of the population dominating the airwaves on Saturday and Sunday, the concept of 'mainstreaming' has created a false dichotomy of the world.

Fall Saturday's and Sunday's both serve as Holy Days in America and the worshiping of the new Gods from Olympus occurs. The only sacrifice made in 21st America comes from the pocketbooks of taxpayers, for they must fit the bill for erecting these massive structures that will play host to the religious gatherings, as the book Field of Schemes outlines:

"Field of Schemes is a play-by-play account of how the drive for new sports stadiums and arenas drains $2 billion a year from public treasuries for the sake of private profit. While the millionaires who own sports franchises have seen the value of their assets soar under this scheme, taxpayers, urban residents, and sports fans have all come out losers, forced to pay both higher taxes and higher ticket prices for seats that, thanks to the layers of luxury seating that typify new stadiums, usually offer a worse view of the action."

A fantastic blog detailing this pervasive technique that rivals Scientology in its excesses can be found here, as the authors of the book work prodigiously to document continued abuses of stadium erection at the tax payer expense.

It is in these Holy sites that occupy hundreds of acres in every major city that Black people have temporarily utilized the power of 'mainstreaming' to garner a hypnotic effect over the entire country, for their exploits are fodder for ESPN junkies and account for countless hours of wasted productivity from these citizens.

Perhaps this is why the sudden demise of the Silverdome is such a shocking blow to the continued 'mainstreaming' of a new social order:

"The town of Pontiac, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, sold the 80,300-seat Silverdome on Monday, along with 127 acres of nearby land. The massive stadium complex, which once hosted the Detroit Lions, the Detroit Pistons, and the Michigan Panthers, cost more than $55 million to build in 1975.
Its selling price in 2009? $583,000.

Of course, Detroit's decay extends beyond its residential areas. As upsetting as it is to see once-beloved Victorian homes and beautiful apartment buildings sinking into disrepair, the loss of industrial space is even more significant. The hulking ruins of auto buildings like Fisher Body 21, the Packard Plant and the Piquette Plant (where Ford's (F) Model T was first built) seem to suggest not only a local loss of population but a larger loss of purpose."

Yes, the Detroit Silverdome was sold for a mere $583,000, less than 1 percent of what it was built for in 1975:

"It cost more than $55 million to build the Silverdome football stadium in Pontiac, Michigan. Yesterday, it sold for the price of a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan.

The former home of the U.S. National Football League’s Detroit Lions sold at auction for $583,000, or about $7.25 per seat, as the debt-ridden city of Pontiac sought to raise cash.

The area’s unemployment rate is 35 percent and emergency financial manager Fred Leeb was hired in March as Pontiac faced a $6.5 million deficit on a $100 million general fund budget, plus $103 million in bond debt, Leeb said."

Let's take a quick look at the census of Pontiac, Michigan's population:

"As of the census of 2000, there were 66,337 people, 24,234 households, and 15,267 families residing in the city. The population density was 3,318.2 per square mile (1,281.3/km²). There were 26,336 housing units at an average density of 1,317.3/sq mi (508.7/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 39.09% White, 47.92% African American, 0.58% Native American, 2.40% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 6.47% from other races, and 3.50% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 12.76% of the population."

SBPDL has friends with houses worth 4 or 5 times the amount of what the Pontiac Silverdome went for, and is shocked that the stadium even fetched $500,000.

In a town where raccoons are now seen as a delicacy, Detroit can be proud to know the stadium that once hosted the Lions is now worth less than a studio apartment in Manhattan.

The Silverdome played host to Superbowl's, Wrestlemania's, major concerts and even an episode of Home Improvement in the 1990s. Now, the ghost of these events haunt the empty building and the 20 acres the massive structure sits upon.

Detroit has seen better days. The fall of the Pontiac Silverdome has a distinct correlation with the collapse of that city and what it portends for the rest of America, as Pre-Obama America is eradicated throughout the land:

"By any quantifiable standard, the city is on life support. Detroit's treasury is $300 million short of the funds needed to provide the barest municipal services. The school system, which six years ago was compelled by the teachers' union to reject a philanthropist's offer of $200 million to build 15 small, independent charter high schools, is in receivership. The murder rate is soaring, and 7 out of 10 remain unsolved. Three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans, unemployment in that city hit a peak of 11%. In Detroit, the unemployment rate is 28.9%. That's worth spelling out: twenty-eight point nine percent.

That's because the story of Detroit is not simply one of a great city's collapse. It's also about the erosion of the industries that helped build the country we know today. The ultimate fate of Detroit will reveal much about the character of America in the 21st century. If what was once the most prosperous manufacturing city in the nation has been brought to its knees, what does that say about our recent past? And if it can't find a way to get up, what does that say about our future?"

Black people see the writing on the wall in Detroit. A city that is run by Black people (indeed, Detroit is one of the Blackest big cities in America) is in complete and utter chaos. Some people have envisioned razing Detroit and turning it into farmland.

And through it all, the Pontiac Silverdome will stand as a sorry example of social engineering run afoul and worse, what happens when government attempts at creating a sports utopia backfire:

"The Silverdome opened in 1975 and cost taxpayers $55.7 million to build and $1.5 million a year to maintain, Leeb said. By contrast, the New York Giants and the New York Jets will play next year in a new stadium estimated to cost $1.6 billion."

This could happen in your town. In fact, chances are, it will.

Stuff Black People Don't Like must include the demise of the Pontiac Silverdome, for the less than $600,000 sale of a building that would cost $220,000,000 million to build today is just a perfect example of what happens when you live in a Black world.

Not even Hulk Hogan slamming Andre the Giant could save Detroit now.

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#553. Vigilante Movies

We live in a world where the printed word is fading in popularity. Visual stimulation through the medium of movies and video games has supplanted reading and led to a significant decline in readership throughout the country.

The National Endowment for the Arts has an incredibly somber analysis of the situation available to read here.

Video games generate more than $17 billion a year in sales (68 percent of American households play video games each year), and movies and DVD sales bring in more than $45 billion each year, and yet, remember:

"According to a fascinating, if frightening, report last year by the National Endowment for the Arts, more than 40 percent of Americans under 44 did not read a single book — fiction or nonfiction — over the course of a year."

These movies and video games represent fiction and mere entertainment, an escape from reality. By spending countless hours watching movies and delving into the fictitious world of video games, people create a sense of cognitive dissonance that enables from living in world dominated by unpleasant hate facts about the real world.

Take the popular television show Law and Order and the false world it delivers each week:

"For years, Law & Order, which is filmed in Manhattan, advertised its episodes as being "ripped from the headlines," a claim Wolf and star Jerry Ohrbach still make in interviews. But instead of depicting reality, Wolf's scriptwriters take high-profile crimes committed by blacks, and replace the bad guys with whites, and invent white racist monsters that bear no relation to anything seen in New York during the past 100 years.

And so, while according to NYPD crime reports, over 89 percent of suspects in violent crimes are black or Hispanic, L&O presents a looking-glass world in the grips of a white crime wave."

One popular form of story-telling that has been with us throughout human history is the revenge-tale (from Homer, Ovid, Shakespeare, Dumas, etc.). A character wronged by a villain and then left for dead - who endures what Joseph Campbell called "a heroes journey" - ends up vanquishing his foe at the end of tale, exacting revenge.

These are the stories that stay with us, for they resonate deeply in our minds and hearts, painting an image of evil being defeated so that good cannot only survive, but endure.

Yet, shows like Law and Order, and American cinema depict something strange in movies, as all plots and stories center around a glaring falsehood: Pre-Obama America never ceased to exist and all criminality is performed by evil white people, at the expense of Black people.

In the real world, watching the nightly news brings the grim nature of Black people and their strong propensity to commit criminal acts to the surface, for in the world of entertainment the truth of Black people and crime is but a pernicious myth laying at the bottom of a murky ocean where only hate-fact wielding Nazi's dare swim.

However, despite the myths that permeate the entertainment industry, most people are cognizant of the reality of Black-on-white crime and the need for Whitopia's.

No movie has yet to be filmed that showcase the heinous murders that have taken place in every city where whites and Black people co-exist, that paint the unhappy - yet true - picture of Black-on-white crime.

Yet, hardly a month goes by when a movie isn't introduced that depicts evil white men attempting to subjugate Black people and permanently make them a second-class.

How many times has a movie been made that accurately shows Black people committing a crime against white people, and then shows said white person demanding justice (that is what happens in A Time to Kill, but it is reversed)?

Think about revenge movies for a moment - since so few people read anymore - and consider what every classic vigilante movie offers: husband and wife have a charmed life with perfect kids; some form of evil (always a white person) disrupts this equilibrium and inflicts great harm (possibly death) on a family member; distraught husband decides to take matters into his own hands when the justice system fails him.

This could be the plot of so many films, from Death Wish, Death Sentence, The Exterminator, The Punisher, Batman, The Boondock Saints, etc.

In Death Wish, Charles Bronson stars as a liberal whose paradigm is destroyed when white muggers rape his wife and daughter, killing the former and sending the latter into a state of psychological paralysis. He doesn't don a mask and scurry over rooftops in Gotham City, but he does confront muggers and potential murderers by engaging in vigilantism, turning New York City into a safer place in the process.

Bronson's character has a conversation with his son-in-law that is riveting:

Paul Kersey: Nothing to do but cut and run, huh? What else? What about the old American social custom of self-defense? If the police don't defend us, maybe we ought to do it ourselves.

Jack Toby: We're not pioneers anymore, Dad.

Paul Kersey: What are we, Jack?

Jack Toby: What do you mean?

Paul Kersey: I mean, if we're not pioneers, what have we become? What do you call people who, when they're faced with a condition or fear, do nothing about it, they just run and hide?

Jack Toby: Civilized?

Paul Kersey: No.

The vast majority of people killed by Bronson's character in the Death Wish series happen to be white people, thus conflicting with the reality of crime in major cities.

A 2007 Kevin Bacon film, Death Sentence, shows a perfect suburban family ruined by a multi-cultural gang (a Hollywood creation, for all gangs are racially united). Bacon's character realizes the law is inadequate and fights back against those who took away his idyllic life.

Remember, impressionable minds watch movies and our manipulated by what they see on film, and to show the truth of crime in America would create a serious amount of cognitive dissonance that would have far reaching effects on the amount of sports consumed in this country and could flicker some sort of brain activity among the individual indulging in countless hours of SportsCenter on ESPN.

Perhaps Hollywood's most interesting character that has been so poorly executed in three different films is the Marvel comic character, The Punisher:

"The Punisher is a vigilante who considers killing, kidnapping, extortion, coercion, threats of violence and torture to be acceptable crime-fighting tactics. Driven by the deaths of his family, who were killed by the mob when they witnessed a gangland execution in New York City's Central Park, the Punisher wages a one-man war on the mob and all criminals in general by using all manner of weaponry.

His family's killers were the first to be slain. A war veteran, Castle is a master of martial arts, stealth tactics, guerrilla warfare and a wide variety of weapons."

Strangely, Castle's enemies always seem to be Italians or other various white people, mobsters, etc. Never Black people, for you see, in movies, we still live in Pre-Obama America where 90 percent of the population is white.

Consider The Boondock Saints, and the infamous joke that film contains. The righteous brothers in that film decide to be God's agents of eradicating sinners on earth, and engage in a brutal war against - like the Punisher - white people.

Even though these movies, from Death Wish to The Punisher depict a white dude blowing away other white dudes, Black people get uneasy, for many Black people know the truth of crime in America.

These films offer mere escapism for all involved who view them, but Black people are well aware of the undertones of such films as Dirty Harry and Death Wish:

"Most irresponsible was the 1974 release of Death Wish which went on to repeat itself in 1982, 1985, 1987 and 1994. Death Wish featured the diminutive and fading actor Charles Bronson, impressive in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), but now reduced to the depraved Paul Kersey, a white everyman driven to take revenge against street scum when his family is wiped-out.

Playing to such paranoia, which continues to be manipulated by the National Rifle Association, made a raving gun-nut out of the actor Charleston Heston. Over-rated as an actor, Heston never hesitated to mention the Los Angeles Watts Riots of 1965 as chief among his reasons for owning a gun."

Roger Ebert decided to bestow upon Dirty Harry the title of fascist:

"But wait a minute. The movie clearly and unmistakably gives us a character who understands the Bill of Rights, understands his legal responsibility as a police officer, and nevertheless takes retribution into his own hands. Sure, Scorpio is portrayed as the most vicious, perverted, warped monster we can imagine -- but that's part of the same stacked deck. The movie's moral position is fascist. No doubt about it."

Dirty Harry was but a movie, and crime has gotten much worse since 1970, no thanks to the film and fine police work of Officer Callahan in stopping all those real murderers.

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes vigilante movies, for even though Black are never the antagonists in these films, the unpleasant reality of nightly newscasts leaves most Black squeamish. Vigilante movies show normal reactions to melancholy experiences and the natural desire for self-preservation and revenge unfolding in celluloid beauty.

The real-life passivity of white people when confronted with criminality and the Black world that they live in now, is incredibly unnatural. Science can't explain it.

The United States will continue to descend into chaos, caused by massive inner-city crime and black-on-white as well as horrible black-on-black violence.

It is in the movies we will escape to find fictional solutions, and relax in the cheerful words of Travis Bickle:

"Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets."

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#102. Losing Power in Atlanta

“I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.” So said William Sherman in a letter to the Atlanta Mayor and Councilmen back in 1864, as he demanded the immediate evacuation of the city before he burned it to the ground.

Rebuilt and recast as “The City to Busy to Hate,” Atlanta is home to Fortune 500 company headquarters; professional sports teams; the memory the 1996 Olympics and The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

Black people have long looked at Atlanta as the Black Mecca in America, a city that has for many years had a Black run government that catered to Black peoples every need. But that image is changing quickly:

“Metro Atlanta is in the grips of yet another wave of street violence with victims as famous as former boxing champion Vernon Forrest and incidents as shocking as a failed car jacking of a father and his child stopped by the youngster’s screams as the cowards tried to drag him from his car seat. For over 20 years friends have told me to “steal away” down the highway to Atlanta, where Black folks can get better jobs and treatment as opposed to Savannah.

"While it’s true that aggressive leadership and common ground thinking has made ATL a top pick for strivers of all colors, it’s crime rate is causing me to wonder if it’s time to rethink it’s rep as a “mecca” for Black people.

"Street crime and its sub-culture is the bane of majority Black population centers.”

The author of the above piece would lead you to believe that the massive crime wave hitting Atlanta like a tsunami is the fault of anyone but the progressive Black people she hopes can keep the city a Black Mecca. In the real world, the crime wave has been one of Black people’s major contributions to Atlanta, as they have gone after Georgia Tech students in record numbers and also each other.

If anyone is eroding the image of a Black Mecca in Atlanta, it is the Black people who run the city that is nestled in Fulton County and for this, Black people everywhere are in ultra panic mode:

“The campaign for mayor of this city, which has long promoted its racial tolerance, veered into controversy Thursday with the release of a memo urging black voters to unite around an African-American candidate and block the election of a white mayor.

A local group known as the Black Leadership Forum called for African-Americans to consolidate their support around Lisa Borders, president of the Atlanta City Council and one of several African-American candidates, according to a memo circulated on the Web and to local media.”

Fulton County is home to Atlanta, the first major Southern city to elect a Black mayor – a tradition that has not been undone since 1973 and one that Black people hope to perpetuate forever:

“On Oct. 16, 1973, Mr. (Maynard) Jackson handily won the runoff with 59 percent of the vote, becoming the first black mayor of a major city in the South, the same year that Tom Bradley and Coleman Young won the mayoralties of Los Angeles and Detroit respectively.
Mr. Jackson had campaigned against police brutality and for equity in hiring practices, and his first two terms revolved around themes of crime and racial preferences.

“Mr. Jackson's greatest legacy was in affirmative action programs that set the standard for American cities, especially those with black majorities, though his advocacy for those programs also helped set a tone of confrontationalism with the white business establishment that left scars on both sides.”

Black people have not relinquished the title of Mayor of Atlanta since this historic election and Black people are working to ensure that this doesn’t happen in 2010, even though the city they have presided over for 36 years is beginning to crumble:

“…But in a press conference Tuesday, the authors of the memo said that, politically speaking, Atlanta’s blacks would be well served by uniting behind one black candidate to defeat white frontrunner, Mary Norwood. They added that the uproar over the memo highlights how race discussions “put politicians in a straitjacket,” and how the realities of the Atlanta mayoral election are similar to changing demographics and election dynamics in cities all across the US.

The authors – Clark Atlanta University political science professors Keith Jennings and William Boone – say that electing a white mayor in Atlanta would be as historic as the 1973 election of Maynard Jackson, the city’s first black mayor. The election became a mile marker in the South’s civil rights struggle.

In that light, they say, the need for blacks to band together today to elect a black mayor – or at least someone highly sympathetic to black issues – are equally important in order to forward a “black agenda.”

Atlanta is a city rapidly undergoing gentrification, as white people are moving into the city in droves and Black people are losing their long defended clout as the titans of the city and with that perk, they maintain the keys to the cities lucrative government contracts, which are given to minority owned businesses (fellow Black people):

”But although gentrification has expanded the city's tax base and weeded out blight, it has had an unintended effect on Atlanta, long a lure to African-Americans and a symbol of black success. For the first time since the 1920's, the black share of the city's population is declining and the white percentage is on the rise.

Some, like Mayor Shirley Franklin, who is serving her second and final term, play down the significance of the change, saying that the city — now 54 percent black — will remain progressive and that voters here do not strictly adhere to racial lines. Others warn of the dilution, if not the demise, of black power.”

Black people in power are beginning to worry that their vice on Atlanta and Fulton County politics is slipping quickly and it is for the reason that Black people are frantically trying to band together in not only criminal behavior on the streets, but also at the ballot box, for the prospects of a white woman – Mary Norwood – winning the mayor’s seat is a great horror:

“Atlanta long has been seen by many African-Americans as one of the best places for blacks to succeed, in part, because of the city’s leadership. Aaron Turpeau, who helped distribute the memo, said some African-Americans are worried about issues — such as blacks getting fewer city contracts — if a white candidate is elected.

“(We’ve) seen progress and a level of support (under black mayors),” Turpeau said. “(We) have enjoyed the leadership of the black administrations and we question change.”

Stuff Black People Don’t Like includes losing power in Atlanta, for it is the key to a powerful throne from which they have sat upon for nearly forty years. The fate of Bill Campbell, a former mayor, could be the fate of many of the cities elected and appointed officials if a white person were allowed to audit the books.

The Reality of Fulton County will be a later entry on SBPDL…

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#74. Lack of any Black-themed Mascots at American Universities or Colleges

College football season kicks off the 2009 season tonight and the anticipation for watching athlete-students compete in amateur athletics has never been greater. Whereas the National Football League includes 32 teams in large cities throughout the nation, college football is spread out in 120 different cities (only referring to Division 1A or FBS teams) and alumni of these schools revel in the memories that are created Saturday’s in the fall for their entire life.

Interestingly, all colleges have nicknames that accompany their school name (Alabama Crimson Tide, Texas Longhorns, etc.) and they stir just as much passion in the alumni hearts as the games themselves.

Look at how Auburn University graduates say "War Eagle" to each other when one of them is caught wearing Auburn University paraphernalia. Beloved mascots included Ole Miss' Colonel Reb, which has been banned on sidelines due to his divisive nature, since college football at historically white colleges is now performed by the few Black people on campus:

"In the summer of 2003, Ole Miss students, alumni and fans were shocked with Chancellor Khayat and Athletic Director Pete Boone's decision to strip Colonel Reb from our school. Boone's reasoning was the mascot "doesn't fit anything we do." At no point did student or alumni input factor into the decision to get rid of the mascot."

Since Black people, as we have shown through the University of Georgia's 2008 Freshmen enrollment (of the 108 Black Freshmen who entered the school of more than 33,000, nearly 25 percent where on the football team), make up the majority of FBS teams, anything that is deemed hateful or racist must be removed so as not to offend the Black people playing football.

Almost anything offends Black people these days and the last thing white alumni of major university's want is to lose the ability to watch Black people play football at their historically white schools and more importantly, not waste hours of their lives following high school seniors during the recruiting process (like www.rivals.com or www.scout.com).

Interestingly, the one aspect that might make Black people interested in attending historically white colleges - as opposed to the paltry few who enrolled (or got in) at UGA in 2008 - would be to have a few universities proudly having Black-centric nicknames.

In the United States, hundreds of colleges (both FBS and FBC) have animal themed nicknames (Tigers, Bears, Panthers, Bulldogs, etc) and hundreds more are named for Indian tribes (Seminoles, Fightin Illini, etc.). Interestingly, a lot of pressure has been exerted on university's for daring to use Indian nicknames as that is deemed insensitive:

"The use of Native American mascots in sports has become a contentious issue in the United States and Canada. Americans have had a history of "playing Indian" that dates back to at least the 1700s. Many individuals admire the heroism and romanticism evoked by the classic Native American image, but many too view the use of mascots as both offensive and demeaning (especially amongst Native Americans). Despite the concerns that have been raised, many Native American mascots are still used in American sports from the elementary to the professional level."

Black people would love to have schools (especially historically white schools) have nicknames after famous Black people, historical Black tribes and warrior's or for Black achievement.

But, it is the dreaded white race that is the beneficiary of hundreds of university nicknames and logos that far exceeds the use of Indian tribes and Indian nicknames in the United States.

Let's take a look at the numerous historic white people from around the world and throughout history that are nicknames for major colleges and universities:

"Ambassador's, Archers, Athenas, Argonauts, Athenians, Battlers, Battling Bishops, Belles, Black Knights, Blue Raiders, Cadets, Canoneers, Cavaliers, Celtics, Celts, Colonials, Colonels, Commodores, Continentals, Clippers, Conquerors, Cornhuskers, Cowboys, Crusaders, Defenders, Dukes, Dutch, Dutchmen, Engineers, Explorers, Flying Dutchmen, Flying Fleet, Friars, Generals, Gentlemen, Giants, Governors, Highland Cavaliers, Highlanders, Hilltoppers, Irish, Jets, Judges, Kingsmen, Knights, Ladies, Lakers, Loggers, Lumberjacks, Marauders, Mariners, Mavericks, Medics, Miners, Midshipmen, Minutemen, Patriots, Pilots, Pioneers, Pipers, Pirates, Poets, Praying Colonels, Raiders, Rebels, Spartans, Royals, Scots, Titans, Tritons, Trojans, Vikings, Volunteers, Warriors and 49ers"

All of these above nicknames are for white people and those of European descent. Not for Indians nor any other race. They depict memories of white people of the past and conjure ideas of men who knew who they were and didn't bow down to political correctness.

Black people play football wearing the colors of these teams and say nothing about it (save for Ole Miss). Yet, Black people have not one school nickname based on their history nor their warriors.

In fact, the University of Alabama- Birmingham used to have a white mascot named Blaze, but he was deemed "too white":

"The University of Alabama at Birmingham has dropped Blaze, the mascot for its athletic teams, which are called the Blazers. Blaze, who was a big, rough-and-tumble Norseman, drew fire for being too mean, too masculine, and too white. Grant Shingleton, sports information director for the university, explained that poor Blaze was, “I hate to use the word — too Aryan.”

What would a Black nickname be, you might ask? Based on their opinion of him, SBPDL would recommend "Obama's"...

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes the lack of any Black people themed mascots at university's or college's, for the Indian's have been romanticised by white people and get nicknames and white people are the basis of thousands of nicknames for American college teams. Black people play a lot of college football for white people's enjoyment and yet, they have not one nickname. They play for school's like the USC Trojans, which glorify the past greatness of white people and the sight of these Men of Troy might make current white people began to question why that past was so great.

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