Neighbourhood Characters > Neighbourhood Character.

The dark political genius of the “protecting the character of the community” argument is that it allows those who employ it to avoid responsibility for their obstructionism. They portray themselves as “stakeholders” merely trying to keep their neighborhood from getting hurt. Even worse, at a time that celebrates activism, many of these community-character protectors pose as righteous neighborhood activists. 

Please. They are the powerful, not the powerless. They’re victimizers, not victims. And they’ve been getting away with the crime of shutting their communities off from change, and putting big problems onto the younger, poorer, more diverse generations…

Great piece by Joe Mathews for Zocalo.