Huh… it’s almost as if black people like safe communities, good jobs, lower taxes, and a government that minds its own business. Who knew?

In a great reverse Black migration, Brookings data says four of the top five states for Black population gains since 2010 are Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida. Black people are driving U-Hauls to Texas, Georgia and Florida despite voter restrictions. A new Republican majority on North Carolina’s supreme court is reconsidering redistricting and voting restrictions ruled illegal by the court’s prior Democratic majority. Florida banned an Advanced Placement African American studies course. Texas and Florida are ending diversity, equity and inclusion in state agencies, and limiting the teaching of race in schools.

 

[…]

 

While Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida have gained 1.3 million Black residents since 1995, according to Brookings, New York, Illinois, California, and New Jersey are the top four states for losing Black people, to the tune of at least 1.5 million Black people. Recent stories in the New York Times and Washington Post, feature the massive declines in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

 

In those cities, the cost of living on top of the grinding structural racism in housing, schools, jobs and entrepreneurship, chews at Black people more than red meat Southern politics. The Democrats can talk all the Black Lives Matter they want, but the nitty gritty of a roof over the head and bread on the table is more important than a ranting Ron DeSantis in Florida, a curmudgeonly Greg Abbott in Texas, or a combative Brian Kemp in Georgia.

 

What matters is that Black unemployment is higher in California, Illinois, and New York than in Florida, Georgia, or Texas. What matters is that of the 12 most segregated cities for Black people, as measured by Brookings, 11 of them are north of the Mason-Dixon Line.