Transportation Secretary and America’s “Racist Roads”
Secretary Buttigieg
At a White House presser yesterday, a well rested US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was asked by White House correspondent April Ryan to “…give us the construct on how you will deconstruct the racism that was built into the roadways?”
Ahh, what? This question would have frozen any normal person to the spot, trying to process an answer that doesn’t include laughter.
Fortunately Sec. Pete was able to answer at length and with conviction.
Buttigieg explains how he’ll deconstruct ‘racist’ US roadways
Flush with cash from the new infrastructure bill, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pledged to address the ‘racism’ that went into the building of America’s roads and bridges, by either tearing them down or building anew.
Buttigieg spoke to the White House press corps on Monday, explaining how President Joe Biden’s ‘Justice40’ agenda would apply to “equity” in infrastructure, delivering at least 40% of the benefits to “disadvantaged communities.”
“Can you give us the construct of how you will deconstruct the racism that was built into the roadways? …Can you talk to us about how that could be deconstructed?” asked April Ryan, formerly affiliated with CNN but currently with the African-American publication The Grio.
While her question prompted ridicule from some politicians – such as Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) – Buttigieg agreed wholeheartedly.
“If a highway was built for the purpose of dividing a white and a black neighborhood, or if an underpass was constructed such that a bus carrying mostly Black and Puerto Rican kids to a beach… in New York was designed too low for it to pass by, that that obviously reflects racism that went into those design choices,” he said.
Ted Cruise had some choice words for this idiocy.
A reason I posted this is to mention that Sec. Pete will be a front runner in the 2024 Presidential election.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Democrats, Diversity
What is a planted question Alex?
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Hmmmmm, I declare all roads racist. It’s time to remove all interstates, especially bridges, that are capable of moving people out of cities to my suburb, or the suburbs into the country.
Maybe this stems from Buttieglugglug being a canoe & banjo music aficionado, prove me wrong.
Then there’s this article (from April):
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/07/984784455/a-brief-history-of-how-racism-shaped-interstate-highways
“Planners of the interstate highway system, which began to take shape after the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, routed some highways directly, and sometimes purposefully, through Black and brown communities. In some instances, the government took homes by eminent domain.”
I’d like to see the emails from the 1950s that prove ‘purposefulnessality’ factored against a cost/benefit analysis. /s
‘Generations ago some people may have done some things, ergo we need to be taxed’ is an indefensible position.
Edit:
“Planners of the interstate highway system, which began to take shape after the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, routed some highways directly, and sometimes purposefully, through [b]lack and brown communities. In some instances, the government took homes by eminent domain.”
I’d like to see the emails from the 1950s that prove ‘purposefulnessality’ factored against a cost/benefit analysis. /s
‘Generations ago some people may have done some things, ergo we need to be taxed’ is an indefensible position.
AP/MFA can kiss my ass, colors aren’t proper.
I think you mean ‘letters’, not ’emails’ from the 1950s.
No, emails, IOT highlight the stupidity of their assertions that somehow this legacy of assumptive determinations were made based solely, or in part, on ‘race’ is supremely worth of scorn. The idea that this far removed that it should be a factor is moot.
Race hucksters and pimps.
Don’t sweat it Roh…
The article is from NPR, so there’s that as well.
Even if there is some truth to the story, it’s entirely plausible that city planners were democrats and, by extension, racists themselves, which contributed to road design.
Either way, I think its all bullshit too.
His favorite love story…
It’s all those White Lines they put on them highways isn’t it??!!
Could it be that the planners actually looked the property values in areas and determined that they could purchase more land in cheaper areas than in expensive neighborhoods? Yes, eminent domain has been used quite a bit, and it is usually not the rich neighborhoods that get bought up!!! Wonder why that is?
Waiting for someone to tell a few million dollar mansions they will need to be taken, and they can just buy another piece of land, because the interstate can’t go through the decrepit crime ridden projects!!
So every parking garage that has a sign reading “No Vehicles Over 12 Feet” is racist?
Exactly!!!
Because only poorer children ride the big buses…everyone else drives Wolfcoaches!!!
You know what’s racist? Building a bridge with federal funds and naming it after a recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan.
Ah, the Edmund Pettus Bridge. He was a Grand Dragon not a recruiter. Or the Byrd Bridge? Or the Thurmond Dam/ Bridge?
The Lyndon Johnson is a causeway, not technically a bridge.
Now the John C Stennis has a bridge but I know of no bridge named after him. But if you are looking for the face of racism for 42 years in the US the Democrat from Mississippi would be it. Come to think of it they are all Democrats, what the hell is up with that?
The Talmadge Bridge in Savannah GA across the Savannah river on US17. Named after a segregationist Democratic Governor and part of a political family. However, there is a move afoot to rename it the John Lewis bridge
What wrong with calling it the Savannah River Bridge.
Or how about fictional carriers.
One of the upstream bridges across the Hudson River between Catskil and Hudson is the Rip Van Winkle Bridge.
The Clinton bridge?
No More black top!!! Concrete only…
White stripes on black asphalt. Another example of Whitey keeping them down.
Key and Peele did a funny bit along those lines: a weather report about “Black Ice”.
Not so much anymore; yellow stripes have been taking over for at least a decade. Even on concrete. Need I say more?
(hint; The Yellow Peril)
Wait, I thought white you can cross over, its the Yellow ones that you can’t cross!!
Have I been doing it wrong all these years?
Bison Bagels! There are way yonder more Black Roads (Ass Fault) than White Roads (Concrete) in this Country. Very few Red Roads (mostly out West) and only 2 Yellow Roads (US 81/287 paved with gold).
I did some racing in Little Josey yesterday. Most of the trip was on a Black Road, thou I did intersect with a White Road.
When GDOT started the fixin’ of Malfunction Junction (I-75/I16 Interchange) they spent north of $12 million to move and renovate a 3 room shack that “Little Richard” Penniman lived in for a few years decades ago. This was to make up for splitting the Pleasant Hill Neighborhood back in the 60s.
Street of Gold, for those that don’t think they can pass muster with Saint Peter and “The Real, Big Guy.”
https://www.stoppingpoints.com/texas/sights.cgi?marker=Highways+Paved+With+Gold&cnty=montague
And they’re still screwing it up today. I 16 and 75 is so screwed up it’s been screwed up and will continue to be screwed up. I’ve been driving that shit road for 2 years now it suck’s.
Don’t get me started on 475 and 75 near Hartley bridge road and Byron Exit.
Spot on Chief, fought that nightmare since they FIRST (ht 2 Chip) started cutting their way thru the swamp back in the very early 60s. Ya shoulda had ta negotiate HB/75/475 before they “fixed it” awhile back. One of the most dangerous and wreck filled sections in that area now is between HB and Sardis Church. Whole place is haunted by the Spirits of the Natives Americans that had a massive burial ground there. A little background and a nod to what USAF made mention on 75/16. Originally, 75 was NOT to come thru Macon, that route would be what 475 is now. 16 was going to go east of Macon near Bolingbroke, crossing the Ocmulgee well north of where it does now, avoiding the town, the swamp, 3 railway RW, and the Ocmulgee Indian Mounds. At the last minute, the City Fathers decided they wanted that interstate to come thru town (75) so the design had to be redone. Since GDOT had already spent the design money for everything else, they gave the change order work to the senior class at GA Tech. Them fellas just drew a straight line from the Bolingbroke split and then hooked a right where 16/75 split now, taking 75 thru the Pleasant Hill (predominately Black) neighborhood. Tore hell out of a buncha nice homes and gutted it like a fish. The Black Power Brokers at that time signed off on it (were basically bought off). A Buddy of mine that was an engineer with GDOT gave me those tid bits of little known info decades ago. Side note on Pleasant Hill, Marine SGT Rodney Davis that was from there, threw himself on a grenade in the Viet of The Nam Times, saving his men, and earning the MoH, posthumously. The Black “Leaders” of Macon ignored his grave site for years until some of the Boys from The Marine League went in there, cleaned up the site and erected some very appropriate markers. Another side note of Military trivia, that 75/16 interchange was considered so vital that the bridges that approach from 75 to… Read more »
Wow didn’t know all that moved here when in 79 from Germany Dad Airforce, at Robbins.I left in 89 when I joined Navy, kept coming back until 97 Mom and Dad moved to FLA. Visited in 2003 after, I did a tour in Iraq, stared to change then moved back in 2013 after retirement for a contractor Job. This place has changed so much.
Rodney Davis wasn’t buried in Macon. The city didn’t allow blacks to be buried inside the city limits at the time of his demise. He was buried in a black paupers graveyard outside the city limits at the time.
The rest of the story is true though.
Wiki plays a little bit fast and loose on some of that 5JC. SGT Davis was buried in the Linwood Cemetery, in the Pleasant Hill Community, the Cemetery established by two WHITE Gentlemen. It is by NO means a “paupers” ground in that many very prominent Black Citizens of Middle Georgia History are buried there Pleasant Hill Community has been a part of the City of Macon for a great number of years, some say since 1873, others put it as the 1930s annexation. There are other City Cemeteries, inside the legal city limits, that have been in business for nearly 200 years that have Black Folks buried there. Linwood was/is a PRIVATE CEMETERY and it was up to the individual Family Members to place markers and maintain them. Sadly, it was only after the Marines came in to place the Monument for SGT Davis that spurred some of the families to do a little something, and then petition (force) the City to do some heavy lifting. Pleasant Hill is a good place to get mugged, carjacked, buy dope, and see parasites of society wait for that check every month.
SGT Davis’ Monument can be viewed from the Interstate and is within rifle range of the downtown Macon Business District. If Georgia were to be administered an enema, Macon would be where the tube is inserted.
Ever notice how most of the roads in the “inner city” are asphalt, while most interstates are concrete?
Hmmmm.
There may be something to the claims that Interstate routes through some cities did impinge more on minority neighborhoods when laid out in the middle of last century. That might have been the case when Interstate 16 joins with Interstate 75 around Macon Georgia. I-16s eastern terminus is Savannah Georgia and its Western Terminus is Macon GA. Does anyone else have an interstate Highway solely within their state? Oahu Hawaii and in Alaska?
This morning our recently elected Senator Ossoff was on the local TV station
MACON, Ga. — Congress passed a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill, but what does that mean for Central Georgia? Potentially, the state could get a high- speed rail system that makes a stop in Macon.
The proposed line would move between Atlanta, Macon, and Savannah, but so far, it’s too soon to say when or even if you could board a train in Macon. A communications director from Senator Jon Ossoff’s office says there is a draft to begin an environmental impact study, which is a “huge” step towards building a new rail line
Infrastructure bill could make way for high-speed rail system | 13wmaz.com
Now how many neighborhoods will be impacted by right of ways for a high speed rail line. Are we going to repeat what happened 60 years ago?
Interstate Highway solely within their state?:
I-86 in Idaho
Also I-99 in PA
I-17 and I-19 in Arizona
Oops, didn’t see Hondo’s post below…
There are more “single state” US Interstate highways than you might think.
In addition to I-16 in Georgia, when speaking of “mainline” interstates (e.g., those not spurs into cities or bypasses) there are a number of others. A list (possibly not complete) includes the following:
I-2, I-14, I-27, and I-37 in Texas
I-4 in Florida
I-12 in Lousiana
I-17 and I-19 in Arizona
I-43 in Wisconsin
I-96 in Michigan
and I-97 in Maryland
I-86 exists in two segments – one in ID, and another traversing parts of NY and PA – so it technically isn’t a single-state Interstate. The same situation exists with I-87, I-88, and I-99, each of which has two widely-separated segments in different states (NC and NY for I-87, IL and NY for I-88, PA and NY for I-99).
Three others – I-11 in Nevada and I-66 in Virginia – also merit mention. I-11 has not yet been extended into Arizona (though that’s currently planned) and thus only exists today in NV; the same is true for I-73 (currently only within NC, but planned eventually to extend from SC to the Canadian border). I-66 continues from VA into DC vice another state.
H-1, H-2, and H-3 in Hawaii also arguably could qualify, since they’re built to Federal interstate highway standards.
There are a helluva lot more if you include spurs and bypasses (those with 3-digit numbers). These Interstate segments usually only exist in a single state.
Texas has several Interstates that don’t leave Texas. Several other states have at least one. If you want a nightmare in interstate highway interchanges the Spaghetti Bowl in El Paso was it. It is improved somewhat but back when I was stationed at Bliss it was crazier than the Three Amigos.
Why, oh why does anyone think that lying, phony sucker of cock, Petey Buttplug would be a front runner for president in 2024? He constantly talks in circles and trite prog talking points, but makes no sense.
He IS a member of the National Defense Service Medal Brotherhood(…?), be carful about drawing fire from the other members here.
My weapon is cleared, bolt to the rear. No brass, no ammo! And there’s never been a requirement to like ALL of the Brethren. Or the Sistren.
rgr769, remember the state of the socialist democrat party when you say that. The more unhinged, outlandish, and loopy they can get, the better they like it. They will ensure the victory with an election steal like in 2020.
That they attempted it in New Jersey just proves my point that they will not stop until we make them bleed for it.
Roh, he is also a fobbit who tried to claim he made like 900 trips on convoys outside the wire, even though that was debunked by any number of troops who served with him. An intelligence officer so useless they shunted him off to another duty he could not screw up, and don’t forget his genuine simulated war hero photos with which he tried to convinced everyone that he was a combat stud. The National Defense Medal is a participation award. And some didn’t do more than take up space and air to participate.
I was leading someone else to make the statement about Sec.Trans.’s service.
Thank you several times over.
Speaking of the Trans. Sec., when is Bootygig going to have gender surgery so he can be the first female POTUS?
He is a short little fag who got his commission the same way Hunter did. A direct commission and attendance at a two or three week officer charm school. I love his “I am a warrior” pic with no battle rattle; not even a helmet or spare mag.
“REMF badass” minus a “geardo” John Wayne sling like he was prepared to assault through a near ambush in the PX on his base, of course.
Reminds me of the pic of Al Gore staring down the barrel of his rifle. He was in cold-weather gear, the rifle was pointed straight up directly at his face, and it had a clip in.
It had a what in it?
Ah, well here is in all his glory, holding an M4 while wearing the Navy version of a body armor undergarment.
https://www.bemidjipioneer.com/news/nation/4043221-How-Pete-Buttigieg-went-from-war-protester-to-packing-my-bags-for-Afghanistan
If you think the Navy is going to turn down or do anything other than soft pedal an Arabic speaking Harvard Grad with graduate degree from Oxford in 2009 you are nuts. Put him in the intel whacker hut and let him do his thing with Power Point slides.
Simple process of elimination, and matching ideologies, rgr769. Biden isn’t running again and Kamala is more radioactive than Hillary, and unelectable.
Who’s left, besides Bernie? We saw what the DNC thought of him last time.
Pete in ‘24.
I’m thinking Joe Manchin may make a run for it in 2024. He fancies himself a Kennedy DemocRAT, and is FAR more electable than Buttplug.
Not If the ideologues are still at the Dem helm- he lacks woke purity.
Trump / DeSantis 2024, ya big galoot. 😜
Snork!
And you think all that is a disqualifier?
Oh, you forgot the /sarcasm thing. Now I get it.
Counselor asks: “Why, oh why does anyone think that lying, phony sucker of cock, Petey Buttplug would be a front runner for president in 2024?”
Well, he’ll certainly get the Soccer Mom vote. Think how closely they’ll relate, swapping infant-nursing tips and anecdotes, not to mention helpful hints on how to keep your man happy in bed.
As for his speechifying limitations, coming after four years of Biden, Lil’ Petey will sound like William Jennings Bryan…
rgr769, remember the state of the socialist democrat party when you say that. The more unhinged, outlandish, and loopy they can get, the better they like it. They will ensure the victory with an election steal like in 2020.
That they attempted it in New Jersey just proves my point that they will not stop until we make them bleed for it.
The reason he keeps coming up is because he curb stomped the ho in the 2020 primary. He was mayor of Indiana’s 4th largest city and she was a senator from California. He even thrashed the geezer in a few states.
Butt-giggle ONLY got his job because of his sexual orientation and he filled an EO quota, change my mind.
He exited the Dem Presidential Primary and quickly backed Joe for a Cabinet spot, and Sec. Transportation was the prize. EO had zero to do with it- that’s for the little people.
But his being a pole-smoker makes him someone Joke Biteme can hold up and say “LOOK AT…”
It certainly doesn’t hurt he ticks a box, but he definitely got the SecTrans spot for his support of Biden in the primaries. Typical to give a former rival a “safe” cabinet gig once you’re elected.
Who’da thunk that his SecTrans spot would turn out to be so important, right when he left for his baby leave.
Pete Butt-dig-dig has obviously smoked a little too much pole.
The left’s race fetish is both amusing and ultimately self defeating. They’re basically writing off working-class whites who, in any other country, would be big supporters of the democrat/labour/liberal party.
When they were planning the highways, then, they had to make the hard choice: Whose house gets torn down to make way for the road?
The reality is, when you run an interstate through a big city, SOMEBODY is going to get their house torn down. There’s really no other way to do it
(well, actually there is, and those of us who have been to Germany have seen it. In Germany, quite often the Autobahn itself bypasses the big cities and doesn’t go through them. That option was on the table when the Interstate highway system was first planned, but it was ultimately nixed because it was determined that in order to allow for the best benefit to the most people, the highways would have to go THROUGH the cities, not around them.)
The decisions that were made were not explicitly racist, rather they were based on “which group of people can we afford to piss off?” and that turned out, not surprisingly, to be people who were poor and not politically active.
It seems a little cynical, but that’s how politics works. Run the highway through an affluent neighborhood where the residents are politically active and will organize into a group to fight the highway? That’s a losing proposition. Run the highway through a poor neighborhood where most of the residents are renters, where there are abandoned or vacant properties all around, and where you can pay off the property owners without busting your budget? That makes a lot more sense.
In the end, it’s not about race as much as it is about power, who has it and who doesn’t.
So…. roads ARE raycis! /s
You have the truth in them statements there. I hate the pro bono populi argument but its kinda a necessary evil, and delineated:
“No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” -some document written by some guys (aka Amdt 5th, Constitution)
Ol’ Poe suspects that property values played as
large a role as any other determinant of routes.
Invoking eminent domain through affluent neighborhoods is going to raise your costs per mile significantly more than if you plot your routes through blue-collar neighborhoods and ghettoes.
And blue-collar/ghetto residents aren’t nearly as likely to hire expensive high-powered legal firms to fight condemnation or to demand higher payment.
It’s the time-honored Golden Rule: Them that have the gold make the rules…
My thoughts exactly. The route was based on color, and that color was green. Indirectly racist, given the skin tone of the residents.
I have personal experience with this. A couple years after I bought my place, they started planning I-99. At one time, there were probably 30 lines on the map, 2 or 3 would have taken my place. A guy from PennDOT’s environmental consultant told me that there are things they have to try to avoid, the top one being farmland. He said usually they hit 1 or 2 of the restrictions but in this case they hit them all- farmland, wetlands, historic sites, prehistoric sites, endangered species, and there might have been some others. They ended up putting it over on the side of the ridge where I heard they only had to take one house.
Could be worse. You could have ended up like this guy. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/inside-house-built-middle-m62-21948351
Ok, “not politically active” is a very nice way to say “disenfranchised”.
When Eisenhower first started building one of the finest road systems in the world that was a time in our country where if you were black you were never going to get a fair shake in practically all of the country. That really didn’t end until the 1970s under the Nixon CRA’s and other actions.
Unlike Johnson who was a Klan member and political opportunist Nixon actually believed in equality. His record is solid. He walked CRA 57 through congress strongly opposed by Democrats. This likely cost him the 1960 Election (that and a little voter fraud in Illinois). Although Alabama and Mississippi went for the White Sheet Team of Byrd/ Thurmond
How long before the South Bend Sodomite makes a mess of this (and plays the Race Card)?
I live on a dirt road. Where’s my reparations?
The Commissariat strongly encourages those that live on Hershey Highway to apply for this free money as soon as possible!!!
Are roads also misoginistic or homophobic? Gotta watch out or the most special among the special peeps will be arguing about who suffered the most when the highways were built.
My Grandfathers old house is now an offramp for I-89. He was just Canadian immigrant and WW2 disabled vet no race involved?
If a politician says that something is racist, it is racist. Who would no more about racism than a Democrat?