UrbanGrounds? More like UrbanIdiot.

Robbie Cooper, author of the blog UrbanGrounds, is a professional writer, veteran, and blogging enthusiast living in Austin. A native Texan and conservative, his blog has been a sanctuary for his fervent rants about the daily events in the very liberal city of Austin since 2004. Self-acclaimed to be an “opinionated sonofabitch”, it appears that he takes pride in his politically incorrect viewpoints, exclaiming that “… I won’t accept race, gender, age, religion, or political ideology as an excuse for stupidity, and I’ll call bullshit every time I see it” (See here: About me). Therefore, in order to tolerate his blog the audience consists of those that are like-minded, which are most likely those that lean to the very far right. However, as seen by some of the comments on the blog, the “other side” is attracted as well (like me), who are too shocked to stop reading his furious and ridiculous online tirades. All of this said, is Ubrangrounds a credible, objective source of information? Of course not! However, it doesn’t claim to be. Robbie Cooper is just an average guy, with a big opinion, and even a bigger mouth.

In the blog post, Mayhem in Dallas as hundreds scramble for Section 8 vouchers, Cooper explains his opinion about a recent fiasco in Dallas County. Last Thursday, thousands of people lined up overnight to receive vouchers for the Section 8 Rental Assistance Program through the Dallas County Department of Health and Human Services, which provides rental assistance to low-income households. DISD and Dallas County Security were in charge of controlling and organizing the event, but chaos broke out when hundreds of people began to rush the line. During this, at least eight people were injured. According to Cooper, though, this mayhem was not due to the lack of organization by the local government or police force, but because of the uncivilized nature of the crowd  (more specifically African Americans). Cooper was outraged that the organizers of the event were accused, as seen by this quote: “…who’s to blame for the piss-poor manners and near-riotous behavior to these blacks acting…well…black? That’s right—the organizers (heaven forbid we hold these people accountable for their own behavior”. Even more, Cooper exclaimed that the problem was that the entire crowd felt entitled to welfare. Thus, instead of getting a job and working hard to support themselves, they're lazy.

In my opinion, I fervently disagree with every single thing about this blog post. The bigotry of Robbie Cooper is nauseating, and my only hope while reading this is that few people that share his Republican ideology actually feel the same way. Cooper’s logic for the problem is utterly ridiculous. I could go on and on about his negative stereotypes, but I think that his racism is very clear. All emotion aside, though, Cooper does not have any evidence for his claims. In his introductory sentence he stated, “No other group in America is as dependent on Government hand-outs, charity, and entitlement than are black people.” However, according to a study done by the Economic Research Service, which is under the USDA, a greater percentage of people who are non-black receive welfare services than those that are black. Thus, I believe that Robbie Cooper is completely misguided about the social services. There are many factors at the individual, family, community, and state level that play into one’s decision to go through the process of receiving aid. It is rarely a simple question of whether one wants to work or not, and it is never a result of simply “being black”.

Source:
Measuring the Well-Being of the Poor: Demographics of Low-Income Households