'Tipping' Affects More Than Just Housing Markets

When I talk about 'tipping', I'm not talking about trying to figure out how much cash you give your server after you chow down at your local restaurant.

In the real estate world, 'tipping' refers to the point of no return in which 'white flight' is triggered from a neighborhood because of the perception that it's 'too Black' or 'too ethnic'

What is that point? According to some studies, white flight from some neighborhoods can be triggered if just 8% of the homes are bought by Black owners. Translation, in a 100 home subdivision, if just eight African-American families move in, the mass exodus begins. Other studies say if the percentage of white residents dips below 50%, 'white flight' begins.

I believe it's the 8% figure, and I remember a vivid example of it.

My friend Leighton Lindsey and his family moved from my neighborhood to their Hiram Clarke area neighborhood in 1976. That area and their block was majority white at the time and their new home was just two blocks up the street from Madison High School in southwest Houston.

Two months later when they got settled into their new home, my brother and I were invited to spend the weekend with him and his brother Todd. I noted when we got dropped off at his house that not only did the next door neighbors have a 'For Sale' sign on their home, but four other houses on that same block had them as well.

I'm bringing up this childhood memory in the wake of the comments of a Projector on Bilerico where I'm a contributing writer. This person complained that Bilerico was becoming 'too black', a comment in which I and Bil Browning went off on.

I'm also seeing and hearing the same whispers on other GLBT oriented lists that I peruse that Bilerico is 'too Black' or 'too transgender'. Is that your code word or whatever the frack excuse you're using for not only not wanting to read the posts of people that don't look like you, but don't want to engage in the frank discussions we have on various issues on the Project?

If that's your opinion, you're entitled to it. But basing those comments on a small portion of the generated comment of the Project being authored by African-American GLBT people is bigoted and asinine.

As I have repeatedly stated, I see things through an African-American prism. The way I look at and analyze issues does not always neatly line up with a predominately white GLBT community's views. There are some issues I will agree with you with on that put me at odds with the African-American community. There are others that I'll have a radically different point of view on that will have me standing in solidarity with my people.

When I'm commenting on issues, it's primarily based on what's right and wrong along with the moral and ethical implications. I'm also blunt about tellin' it like it T-I-S is as the late Jack 'The Rapper' Gibson would say.

So if you can't handle what I have to say and try to dismiss it as a 'transgender conspiracy theory' or 'rubbing my blackness in your face', you do so at your own intellectual peril.