Liberal Tolerance in San Francisco: Tensions Heightened as Blacks Move In

Just imagine if a largely white conservative enclave reacted with indignity to blacks moving into their neighborhood. Why, the tut-tutting from the left would be unbearable. We'd have endless media accounts about rampant racism, hate-mongering and holier-than-thou lectures on the joys of tolerance and diversity.

But when blacks begin moving into San Francisco-area neghborhoods, the paragons of virtue on the left just aren't as tolerant as they like to portray themselves.

As more and more black renters began moving into this mostly white San Francisco Bay Area suburb a few years ago, neighbors started complaining about loud parties, mean pit bulls, blaring car radios, prostitution, drug dealing and muggings of schoolchildren.

In 2006, as the influx reached its peak, the police department formed a special crime-fighting unit to deal with the complaints, and authorities began cracking down on tenants in federally subsidized housing.

Now that police unit is the focus of lawsuits by black families who allege the city of 100,000 is orchestrating a campaign to drive them out.

"A lot of people are moving out here looking for a better place to live," said Karen Coleman, a mother of three who came here five years ago from a blighted neighborhood in nearby Pittsburg. "We are trying to raise our kids like everyone else. But they don't want us here."

City officials deny the allegations in the lawsuits, which were filed last spring and seek unspecified damages.

Across the country, similar tensions have simmered when federally subsidized renters escaped run-down housing projects and violent neighborhoods by moving to nicer communities in suburban Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles.

So here you have people looking to escape the miserable conditions resulting from liberal social engineering and the first ones complaining are the liberals themselves.

You've got to love the hypocrisy.

More from Sister Toldjah and Right Wing News.

Update: Thanks to Instapundit, Hot Air, Ace and Tammy Bruce for the links!

Glenn Reynolds also notes this USA Today item about blacks fleeing San Francisco.

African-Americans are abandoning this famously progressive city at a rate that has alarmed San Francisco officials, who vow to stop the exodus and develop a strategy to win blacks back to the city. In June, Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed a task force to study how to reverse decades of policies — and neglect — that black leaders say have fueled the flight.

Black flight can alter a city's character. "It's important for a city's future that it be a diverse place, and San Francisco is drifting toward being an upper-middle-class city," says Ed Blakely, director of Katrina recovery for New Orleans.

According to Census estimates, the number of blacks here shrank from 13.4% of the population in 1970 to just 6.5% in 2005 — the biggest percentage decline in any major American city.

They just can't handle all the progressive tolerance, not to mention the sky-high cost of living. They're probably also sick of all the bums homeless laying about on the streets.

Thanks also to Michelle Malkin for the link.