Blacks on the North Shore (Chicago, Evanston: fit in, apartments, lawyer)

[skontoller]

Hey All,

A friend of mine who is African-American was wondering if there were any areas of the North Shore that were not particularly friendly to African Americans. He's married with three young kids. They're both professional he's a corporate lawyer and she's a physician. Any thoughts of areas that they should stay away from. I've only been here for a little over a year so I'm not too sure about the whole NS.
And yes I told him all about Evanston.

SK

[Grandata]

I would say that all areas will be tolerant, but do not expect the insular, self-segregating, and collectivist Jewish areas to be particularly open to black people.

[Chicagoland60426]

Evanston is 20% black, most blacks on the North Shore live there. In the past North Shore was biased towards blacks. Nowadays, I think anybody that don't fit the upper class or six figures salary quo won't fit in most of the North Shore.

[noid_1985]

Originally Posted by Chicagoland60426

Nowadays, I think anybody that don't fit the upper class or six figures salary quo won't fit in most of the North Shore.

Exactly, and even then I think most people who live in the North Shore are families that have been there for a while so they probably arent really excepting to people with "new" money reguardless of race.

[Paige65]

Successful black people will be just fine in any North Shore area. Even in the so-called "insular, self-segregating, collectivist Jewish" areas. I'm not even sure where those areas are...

Also, new money/old money thing. Not an issue either. It's funny to me that this idea persists. Certainly there are many old monied families up and down the North Shore. However, people don't walk around with markings that reveal the history of their wealth and aren't shunned based on the relative time line of their financial success. A physician and a lawyer will "fit in" well anywhere on the North Shore.

[skontoller]

I told him it was more about class than race but he was skeptical so I thought I'd ask. Are there any places he should stay clear of?

SK

[Brisklaw]

Originally Posted by skontoller

I told him it was more about class than race but he was skeptical so I thought I'd ask. Are there any places he should stay clear of?

SK

The Jews on the North Shore have a history of animus and white flight away from Blacks, who took over Lawndale (neighborhood in Chicago). I would probably avoid Glencoe and Highland Park probably.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by Brisklaw

The Jews on the North Shore have a history of animus and white flight away from Blacks, who took over Lawndale (neighborhood in Chicago). I would probably avoid Glencoe and Highland Park probably.

I disagree. White flight in some heavily Jewish areas (like South Shore) differed little than other white-to-black turnovers. Faster, in many ways, because many folks left apartments which were easy to leave rather than houses.

Glencoe has always had a black community, a small neighborhood that was kind of a min-vesion of Evanston's (both dating back to domestics in a long ago era).

And I doubt that all those Jewish kids at Highland Park High would have any more "difficulty" in dealing with black kids than they do with the ton of Mexican kids from Highwood that go to school with them.''

As a general statement, I would also TOTALLY disagree with what you said here about Jews and blacks. North Shore Jews hardly differ from other Chicago Jews (or national Jews, for that matter) who have a strong tradition of support for their fellow Americans, their African American brothers, and have shown it in innumerable ways.

Not only is so much of Obama's brain trust made up of Chicago Jews, but a good number (like the most important one, Rohm Emanual) have North Shore roots. Players on the Chicago Bulls, the vast majority of them black, gravitate to Highland Park. Now that's base on the nearness of training HQ in nearby Deerfield, but they wouldn't be living there if they weren't comfortable.

As a group, I believe that Jews, North Shore and Highland Park variety very much included, are more accepting, more committed to an integrated and open society than the vast majority of the US population. Give me a million dollars for every birther who is a Highland Park or Glencoe Jew and I will, no doubt, die a very poor man. I ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT DISAGREE WITH YOUR OBSERVATION MORE THAN I DO.

[cohdane]

From Wikipedia:

"During the Civil Rights Movement, Jewish activists represented a disproportionate number of whites involved in the struggle. Jews made up half of the young people who participated in the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. Leaders of the Reform Movement were arrested with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964 after a challenge to racial segregation in public accommodations. Most famously, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched arm-in-arm with Dr. King in his 1965 March on Selma."

During the Civil Rights Movement, Jewish activists represented a disproportionate number of whites involved in the struggle. Jews made up half of the young people who participated in the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched arm-in-arm with Dr. King in his 1965 March on Selma.

I believe those were primarily Christian areas that they were marching through, where the crosses were burning, where two of the three activists who were murdered in Mississippi (as in "Mississippi Burning"), were Jewish.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were drafted in the conference room of Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

My intention isn't to make this a Christian vs. Jew thing. It's just to put this unfortunate discussion in the context of facts.

The fact is, as a demographic, the American Jewish population tends to me more liberal and more educated than the non-Jewish population. Those two traits aren't as common in racists.

Also from Wikipedia:

"In the 2008 presidential election, 78% of Jews voted for Barack Obama, who became the first African-American to be elected president.[9] Additionally, 83% of white Jews voted for Obama compared to just 34% of white Protestants and 47% of white Catholics, though 67% of those identifying with another religion and 71% identifying with no religion also voted Obama."

This isn't to say the Jewish community is free of racists-- every population has them. But if you look at the facts, it's clear that Jews historically and currently have proven that they are not knee-jerk bigots as some of the above posters would suggest.

Disclosure: I live in Highland Park. I was raised Catholic and am now agnostic. My Catholic family is among those that participated in the white flight from the North Austin neighborhood in Chicago in the early 70's. Although I don't consider my family to be particularly racist, I grew up in a neighborhood where racism was the norm.

I'm not living in a racist neighborhood now.

My suggestion to the OP is what would probably happen anyway. Your friends should visit the areas they are considering. Play in the parks, go to the restaurants, shop in the stores. If there are any latent race issues, they will be obvious to your friends immediately.

Good luck to your friends. They're lucky to have you looking out for them.

[ncc]

Originally Posted by skontoller

Hey All,

A friend of mine who is African-American was wondering if there were any areas of the North Shore that were not particularly friendly to African Americans. He's married with three young kids. They're both professional he's a corporate lawyer and she's a physician. Any thoughts of areas that they should stay away from. I've only been here for a little over a year so I'm not too sure about the whole NS.
And yes I told him all about Evanston.

SK

I would advise your friend against that move. The North Shore is heavily Jewish, very clannish, and extremely wealthy. People that have new money live in Oakbrook, burr ridge, barrington. He'd be better off in Kenwood, North Kenwood, Hyde Park, or Oak Park.