Integration is not the Opposite of Segregation

[The Grand Nudger]

As you said integration doesn’t equal incoming  cash flow. And as I said integration is not preclusive of segregation (when a community is controlled by those outside that community).

It's difficult for me to understand this line of thinking, as segregation is the setting apart of a group - my local community is controlled, at least insomuch as you seem to be speaking of control, by those outside our community.  I don't, personally, consider this segregation.  I don't consider my community to be segregated for having fit such a definition.  It's certainly not segregated in any sense that wouldn't generate a chuckle from people who did have to live with segregation.

You’ve pointed out some things that all communities share in common, i.e., the financial abandonment of the local entrepreneur.   I see this happening across the board, so I can’t disagree with you there.

I used to live in Los Angeles where the Koreans were the only people selling black hair products. Why was this the case? Why were black businesses trying to sell me $300 African dresses but never things I would buy?

You'd have to ask them.  Chances are....because it was profitable to do so, same reason that anyone overcharges anyone else and nothing to do with integration whatsoever.  Probably not much to do with the korean war either.  So what did you do, when black businesses didn't have what you wanted to buy?  Did you take your money elsewhere?  Maybe start up your own business?

Irish and Italian gangs violently wrested policy (playing the numbers) away from blacks, shooting up establishments so that customers were afraid to go there. Calling this a self-inflicted wound is like calling the brutalization of the Freedom Riders by the KKK a self-inflicted wound.

I'm pointing out that lotteries, legal or...in this case illegal...-are- a self inflicted wound to the poor who predominantly play them. That the people who run them are ruthless thugs doesn't change the fact that the people who get conned are harming themselves and their communities of their own accord. "They stole our illegal enterprises" is...iffy, imo, as a comment on anything we're discussing and just iffy in and of itself. Criminal rackets aren't the Freedom Riders...and irish and italian organized crime winning out over black organized crime isn't the KKK..the comparison is absurd.

There was an effort to get people to stop playing the numbers altogether, I assume?  How did that go?  

I do not, by any means, think that all blacks’ problems can be laid at the feet of other ethnic groups, or that blacks are always the innocent victims in their encounters with others.  I do think that we are in a cycle where everybody plays a part and few are willing to take responsibility for the part they play.

Sure, but I'm not making any remarks on such sweeping generalities...I'm simply pointing out what I see as misattribution with regards to your specific examples.  I do not see how integration forced or compelled blacks to shop "elsewhere", or play the lottery.  It seems, to me, like you're talking about a range of other things not specifically related to integration, or even a failure of integration.  

I assume that, as we continue to discuss those things you saw as contributing to the demise of the black community, I'll better understand what you mean by this and by your novel use of terms such as segregation and integration.