Whoa!
Your experience is so vastly different than my own Mr. Super.
As a matter of fact, so different as to suggest that we don't live in the same country (or even the same planet).
In my life if were not for those “ethnic groups” I would not be here today.
And I'll tell you why (I know you didn't ask but …)…

My mother was left by my very white and very American father and not one of our families white friends wished to associate with a woman who had been deserted by her husband. It wasn't kosher in 1964 for a woman to have her husband leave her and as for the divorce?
Oh my! Even the word was considered dirty.
So much so that we wound up homeless, in the ghetto and without any food what-so-ever and If not for those uninvolved “ethnic groups” …our lives would have turned out much differently and I know for fact that I would not be here.
They took me in and fed me.
They helped my mother with food, monies, clothing (and they had so little for themselves) and made sure that my birthday was always celebrated and that my holidays still had magic to them.
They took me to Mass… they walked me to school….
In short Mr. Destroyer, they were the father I had lost and became part of my own family. An extended family who could be counted on and as important to me as my own blood.
I could go on to tell of other “ethnic” communities that reached out and helped my own abandoned little family but it would be the same story, just a different ethnicity and frankly, I don't think you can hear a word I am saying to you.
I just wanted to put down my own recollections for …well, perhaps posterity.
Ghost

PS Oh yes! One small, little ironic fact about one of those “ethnic families” that fed me, helped cloth me, gave me a place to put my head at night so I would be safe …
The particular family I'm referring to in this PS were “illegal aliens” who spoke no English at all …
However, they knew the hunger of a child …the need a child has for community and affection and love…
and all of these things they gave in abundance…
I will remember them with deep and abiding love always.

As so often you have given me much to think on and reasons to look for positive answers to very hard challenges.
Ghost

dr.e

neat. clean. 'Donner' and Blitzen.

I think it'd be so cool to have a Nokia (or other similiar) like that. I think we all might. Maybe we should ask Obama that sec of commerce make it a chicken in every pot and a nokia in every hand. lol JUST kidding. Sorta.

dr.e

dr.e

dr.e

And, to add to your comment, Denver has had of course its share of racial issues, and lots of push back from the Five POints people and a black panther group long ago. I knew many of them because they met at the home of a 'white' family who lived nearby. Our Denver mayor, Mayor Webb, was once a black panther; there are endearing funny pix of him from that time when everyone, including whites who wanted to support equality, wore what we used to call 'door-frame busting' afros.

Unlke the upper midwest where I came from, Denver's black community has been a huge professional and educated one, thanks to a very old fashioned kind of parenting style, thanks to East High School and others having been excellent in education and 'retaining' children by teaching them personally with real relationship. There is a broad education theme in the community, as well as in-depth education at university in the black community in Denver. If one reads the newspapers from the late 1800s, one sees that there are doctors and lawyers and well educated people amongst the black community in Denver.

Are there social issues in some parts of the group now? Yes. But the people of the black community who dont care to read a newspaper are no greater than those in the Anglo or Latino or Asian community who would not be reading a newspaper originating in Denver. Not then. Not now. Not because they're non-literate, but because the young especially are taken up with text messaging, internet on the run, et al. The Newspapers across the country have failed to think about what people besides themselves might be interested in. Esp the young. It would have been a good move 20 years ago to hire 18 year old wizards of tech and had them bring an entire daily section of that to both print and online. Didnt happen. Lots of career protectionism at the top and middle.

I know it sounds like the Denver Post and the Rocky were only Denver papers. They arent. They are sold and distributed statewide and solidliy for years. Colorado has an unusual mix of people; those in the San Luis valley, salt of the earth farmers, ranchers, cowboys, those on the Western Slope who have an entirely different way of life as they are in the red rock country contingent to God-Beauty personified… the little islands of the very wealthy, Aspen, Vail, Breck, Steamboat… and the farmer ranchers to the east, Limon, Burlington, also large groups of people you can count on for most anything; their word is their troth.

All the regions have their issues. All were served not just by their local weekly newspaper that gave the hog report and ranch supply ads and where the vets of foreign wars were doing their fundraising, and what was up at the grange… but the people who live in 'the far away' also read newspapers.

But, way more and more, online. Online: Where they manage their cattle counts and drovers' paycheck accounts, where they manage their orchards and advertise their farmer's markets for free, where even the old guys and gals have grandkids who have built them websites to 'move the merchandise,' or advertise the pumpkins, cantaloupe, peaches, or let people know which stallions are at stud, or to be in touch with the Cattleman's Assoc, and the church potluck, et al

the picture, Superdestroyer, in COlo, is huge. I've only touched on a bit of it. Are there black people who dont read, cant read? Yes. Are there white people who dont read, cant read? Yes. Latinos? yes. Asians? yes. All right here in river city. yes. But that is not why the papers have gone down. The reporters too are victims of absurdly high salaries amongst management, and a strong arm instead of 'loose reins' leadership by distant large conglomerates.

It's likely about a dozen factors altogether, most, lack of vision Superdestroyer. Yet at every huge turn in 'way of doing business' … from ag to industrial, from industrial to tech… the buggy whip factories have always tried to hold on. Til they couldnt anymore, without… joining up in an entirely unheard of way.

dr.e

Now, White People who live in the 'burbs don't read the paper either cause the best paper reading time is commuting time, and driving and reading don't mix very well, on the other hand, if you ever ride the Subway in NYC, you'll see plenty of people black, white, asian, hispanic reading newspapers written in more languages than you care to imagine.

At issue is just what exactly do they do to meet the challenges going forward? By the time they have researched and analyzed the problems they have changed yet again. Computers were the old 286, 386, 486, pentium 1, pentium 2, pentium 3, pentium 4, Dual core, Quad core varieties and that is essentially just since 1985 or thereabouts.

That reflects 9 major improvements in a technology that encourages other technologies to take advantage of these improvements. IBM and Packard Bell used to be the main Distributors of desktop computers. They have both essentially left the business only to be replaced by Hewlitt Packard and Dell.

Xerox made huge scanners that set like phone boots in your office. They paid high trained technicians to go work on them. Today you can put a scanner on nearly every desk for less then the price of a networked printer.

I think you see the point here. What we see happening with this newspaper we see happening all over the country. That is why you can read the WSJ, and almost every newspaper of any size on the internet today. However other companies that used to rely on selling lots of paper are going to have to figure out how to get by on less as the world switches from a paper based economy to an economy that relies on didital ONES and Zeros.

I love how the left points to Craigslist and ther internet put wants to ignore the idea that diversity also hurts newspaper. Ethnic groups will stick to themsleves and not be involved in the community. Importing large number of illiterates from Mexico does not produce involved members of the community who purchase newspapers.