European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 17, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Sidelights a of with soccer Andy Rooney a eve tried to be Good grandparents. Its hard to know where we went wrong. It must have been his parents fault or maybe he got in with the wrong crowd at school. Justin always seemed like a Good Normal All american boy. He a 15 this year and until now he had never fallen into any of the bad habits so common among teen agers. Two weeks ago we were All together at the Lake with his brother Ben and his parents. The television set is on the porch at the Lake and i heard sound from out there so i went to Sec who was watching television in the Middle of the Day. A a who a playing a i asked. A Cameroon is playing Brazil a Justin said. I thought Cameroon was the name of some place in a movie that no one Ever went to. I certainly had no idea they had a soccer team. The world cup with bulgarians Zanko Tzvetanov sitting on Greece a Dimitriadis Vassilis climaxes today. A what s the score a asked. Quot one nil a Justin said. That a what he said. He said a one he did no to say a one to nothing a our very own american grandson said a one a. I have to be honest with you. Justin is a soccer fan. How did it happen Justin plays soccer at his school. I knew he was doing that. Fine. A lot of schools have soccer teams and its a Nice sport for schools that can to Field a football team but is it necessary for him to go so far As to be a fan i May Cut him out of his inheritance. A did you see that tackle a Justin shouted As a player from one team stuck his foot in front of an opposing player. A tackle a i said incredulous. A that was no tackle. He tripped i saw several soccer games in London years ago and the British referred to the Man Euver As a a tack i thought a stack ooh was a word i Hadnot realized the word was actually a a tackle or i would have objected then. F a the Wasny to marked Quot Justin said when a Man in Neon pants got off a Good kick. I could Only guess the word marked meant soccer fans take Pride in the fact that there arc no timeouts for injuries and that Only two substitutions can be made per game. Well they ought to change the rules.1 no Man alive can run full Speed up and a Down the Field for 90 minutes so players dog it. When a player gets tangled up with another hell often go Dawn and stay Down. You a think they a have to get a Stretcher but after 30 seconds the play or pops Back to his feet. Obviously he Wasny to Hurt he. Was resting. Too much of the play is random or Luck. They ought to Widen the soccer net by six inches to provide for More of the excitement that scoring brings. Who wants to see Nigeria play some team like Bolivia for 90 minutes to a scoreless tie scoring in basketball May be ridiculous but this is also ridiculous. I wish the world cup players and the promoters Weli. I just Hope this affair Justin has with this for eign Crsp game is not love but infatuation. Tribune Media services a a 1 ,. Andy Rooney is a former stars and stripes reporter. To slow Down Clarence Page i t is fashionable these Days to say that race has declined into virtual insignificance compared with class in determining an individuals opportunities in life. Yet comforting As that thought May be for those who prefer a Hearty sense of denial to the harshness of ugly truths class has not eliminated questions of race in modern America. It Only complicates them. If you want to see a Good example just take a Gander at How quickly the Nimby a not in my Back Yard reflex responded to housing and Urban development Secretary Henry Cisneross desire to help some Urban Public housing residents move to mid de class suburbs. When Cisneros announced a $60 billion National plan that would allow local housing authorities to borrow Money to replace High Rise Public housing with Garden style scatter cd site units in cities and suburbs reaction from suburban mayors was immediate and hostile. A a in be been getting Calls All Day from people who. Arc scared stiff that their mayor is going to bring poor people out to Schaumburg Quot mayor a Larson of schaumburg/ill., told a Chicago Tribune reporter. It intrigues me How gingerly almost everyone in this debate Steps around its most important Issue the a word instead everyone talks about a poor people As if it were merely poor people not poor Black people that Many suburbanites including lets be brutally honest Here some Black suburbanites move to the suburbs to escape. No no we say its not race that counts its class. But consider this poor Whites outnumber poor Blacks in America according to census reports yet Why do we never hear talk of a a White ghetto Why with the possible exception of those in Tonya Harding a trailer Park do we never hear about misbehaving Whites produced by a tangle of pathologies in neighbourhoods of concentrated poverty deprivation and despair the difference confirmed by census Bureau statistics is that poor Whites Are allowed to live comfortably integrated with working class and Middle class Whites while poor Blacks tend increasingly to live All by themselves isolated by race and by class from More fortunate Whites and Blacks. While poor Whites became More numerous but less visible in the 1980s, the number of Blacks caught in highly visible a ghetto poverty increased by 36 percent during the 1980s to 5.9 million from 4.3 million according to Paul Jargowsky of the University of Texas at Dallas. And the number of census tracts he could Label a a ghetto tracts because their poverty rate exceeded 40 percent increased during that period by 54 percent to 5,003, even while their population density declined by 11 percent. Conclusion the a a ghetto has less density but More land mass separating its residents further than Ever from americans Success Stream. The shame of this is tragic in Light of How Well poor Urban Blacks tend to do once they Are integrated into successful suburban neighbourhoods. Chicago a Gautreaux program which has Rulo catch 2,000 poor Black families to White suburbs since the City lost a housing discrimination suit in 1976, offers an excellent example of Bow poor Black families done to bring their new neighbourhoods Down their new environment helps lift them up. A 1990 study by Northwestern University sociologist James Rosenbaum found that 54 percent of the children of Gautreaux families who moved to the suburbs went to College compared with Only 21 percent of the children in Gautreaux families who relocated within the City. Twenty seven percent of the suburban moving students went on to attend a four year school compared with 4 percent of those who remained in the City. Similarly striking contrasts appeared in comparisons of their employment rates. The message for All the talk about Long term effects of a a culture of poverty a nothing changes behaviour like a change of social environment. As one Gautreaux participant put it Quot a housing project deteriorates you. You done to want to do anything. Living in the suburbs made me fee that in a Worth something. I can do anything i want to do if i get up and try amen. But caveats Are in order a lot of Public housing residents done to want to be relocated even to an affluent suburb and be forced to. Second Gautreaux works Well because the programs administrators eliminate applicants who have a record of being unreliable or disruptive tenants. Cisneros likes Gautreaux and wants to Start a similar National program called moving to Opportunity but with one difference rather than help Blacks move to White suburbs he wants to help poor peo pie regardless of race move to Middle class neigh. Bor hoods. That Colo Blind approach is certainly expedient politically in Light of How suburban voters now outnumber City and Rural voters. But it is also Blind to the cruel persistent realities of race in America. The biggest problem facing poor families who move to the suburbs is not poverty it appears but. Race. Poor Blacks Are denied housing choices that poor Whites can take for granted. 1 if Federal housing officials ignore that glaring reality they May wind up moving Black families from one Type of segregated neighbourhood to another and program their Noble Effort to fail before it begins Chicago 17,1994 sunday Page 9
