ing with this diversity. Indications are that there is not a great deal of racial/ethnic harmony.
For many white people, especially the older ones who remember a time when the community was mostly white and a lot less violent, there is a tendency to blame the rising crime figures and deterioration of certain areas of town on the influx of black and hispanic groups. This tendency to blame can be seen in the following quote obtained by the investigator during an interview with an older woman who had lived in the community all her life. After speaking lovingly of the neighborhood she grew up in, this older woman states:
By 1970, Afro-Americans entered our community. An imbalance occurred. Our public school was white and it became all black. We no longer had a mixed neighborhood but it became a black area surrounding a white area...I don't feel comfortable leaving my home for a walk...Things are different. We had a neighborhood with a family feeling. It isn't anymore.
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