A Poll: What is "human blight"

[sheclown]

Ever wonder what is "human blight"? 

[tufsu1]

this is ridiculous

[civil42806]

vote her out and be done with it.  stop the silly posts and polls

[edjax]

A wow thread.

Or just use her definition.


For Lee, human blight defines anyone who "contribute to the demise" of Jacksonville's neighborhoods.

"They stand on corners all day long, they break into people's homes, they put trash on the ground, and they sell drugs," she said.

"They don't work, and that is not because there are not some jobs out there, that is a result of 'I don't care,' and as long as I have a business and I can contribute to the demise by getting young folks to do what I do, then that is the order of those types of businesses."

[simms3]

I would say there is such a thing as human blight.  In more or less words, that is a term used frequently here in progressive SF.  I don't think that in Jacksonville's case that people should rush to demolish sound structures in order to correct the perceived problem.  There is likely a far better, if not more long term/difficult to implement immediately solution to the problem.

[IrvAdams]

Just to hear an elected local representative describe any human beings as blight is quite frightening. If this is what she says out load for public consumption, then what does she say in private?

[carpnter]

Can we consider Denise Lee and her stupidity a blight on the City Council?

[simms3]

I don't quite understand what is so horrible about her expression.  I'm not exactly an insensitive human being, but I do have standards for humanity and I believe there is such a thing as human blight.  In fact, I think it's quite an awesome phrase actually.

[sheclown]

You ask a good question. What is wrong with labeling people "human blight"

Take away the fact that the urban core and its people elected her to represent them (all of them) and that she has spent decades doing this (surely improvement could be made by now one would think) --  it marginalizes (further) the poor and declares war on the poor without offering assistance. It claims blight status on shaky ground and without any due process claims this group of people to be "bad for the neighborhood".

[twojacks]

I don't believe she said 'poor'...You did.  The poor are not a problem.  The grifters and criminals are.

[Rob68]

Maybe only those that live in the "getto" know what human blight may be. If seeing alot of drugs and distruction at your front door causes you to feel that is blight for then it is...I dont thing those that are blessed enough to not have to deal with drugs at the front door can comprehend it and should keep their opinions to themselves maybe. Unfortunately we live in a modern metro city and life sucks right now for many and sometimes desperate times call for desperate messures and thats what we have ended up with

[Gamblor]

Can we consider Denise Lee and her stupidity a blight on the City Council?

I know I do...

[simms3]

There are 3 types of poor people, and she clearly singles out one of them, not all of them.  Nothing wrong with calling people out for the wrong things they do.

She's not singling out the mentally ill.
She's not singling out most of the poor, who are out of sight out of mind (poor families, poor kids in homes, poor elderly...we don't see them out in public so much but they make up a huge portion of "the poor").

She is singling out all the people who are too easy to really dislike for their utter laziness and ill regard for civility.  Nothing wrong with doing that, plenty of "progressives" single out the same people elsewhere.  It's a recognizable problem, but there is no PC way of dealing with it.

[simms3]

Maybe only those that live in the "getto" know what human blight may be. If seeing alot of drugs and distruction at your front door causes you to feel that is blight for then it is...I dont thing those that are blessed enough to not have to deal with drugs at the front door can comprehend it and should keep their opinions to themselves maybe. Unfortunately we live in a modern metro city and life sucks right now for many and sometimes desperate times call for desperate messures and thats what we have ended up with

That's very true.  I don't understand how folks in Jax who want to clean up neighborhoods like Springfield and surrounding neighborhoods get all offended when another resident who happens to sit on CC decides to take a tougher stance on the real problems, the real blight.

Her way of going about it by demolishing homes might be misguided, but she has identified a real problem.  People themselves can be a real problem.  We obviously have something to do with global warming, and that's a macro scale.  We poach rare animals, overfish the oceans, kill each other, rob, lie, cheat, and have affairs.  None of us is pure as the wind driven snow, but in this case the people being called out are not doing one thing positive for their environment, and in fact truly are mostly doing illegal things, like loitering, selling drugs, breaking into homes, vandalizing private property, littering, etc.  What's wrong with calling all these assholes out and trying to figure out what to do with them or how to get them to clean themselves up?

And it is a truism that there are people in the world who are utterly worthless.  They will not clean themselves up.  They have no excuses for their actions.  They have massive chips on their shoulder.  They aren't mentally ill.  They aren't the elderly or small children.  They are just pieces of shit, human blight.  They use and mooch and then shit on the world around them, without a care.  I don't care what Denise calls them, she is RIGHT.

[sheclown]

And how, exactly does one know if a person is "a piece of shit?"

I guess, that's my question.