LETTER: Finger Pointing

Sarah Goldfine and Theresa Weir's column on white gentrification (DP 2/10/92) was a sniveling, divisive piece of demagogic trash. To couch the litany of woes faced by West Philadelphians in such simple terms as that of whites against blacks is to deny the existence of much more complex, interdependent webs of social and economic forces at work. Worse, Goldfine and Weir patronize blacks by absolving them of responsibility for themselves. Whether Andre McNatte was shot dead with good reason or not, there's no escaping the fact that there are too many blacks committing too many crimes around here. Bitching about being victimized by racial oppression isn't going to solve a damn thing; racial oppression isn't causing anyone to skip school, to get pregnant out of wedlock or to turn to drugs. Beyond all finger pointing, the destitute of West Philadelpphia are destroying themselves from within. In light of this, Uhuru's quixotic jihad against the phantom white conspiracy is a slap in the face of anyone who truly seeks to remedy the dire reality of inner city conditions. The fact is, if the University community and its evil gentrifiers were to pick up and leave tomorrow, the local economy would collapse almost as quickly as the authors' flaccid contentions do on their own. The bottom line is that Uhuru would better serve its constituents by helping them learn to help themselves; meanwhile, let the businesses be. JON SILVER College '93