It’s news – to the NYT – that a lot of black people these days think they’ll be better off in the South

“…a degree in criminology but could not find a job in New York.  In Atlanta, he became a deputy sheriff within weeks”

“The South is more benevolent than New York”

“New York has become like the old South in its racial attitudes”

More jobs, better economy, lower taxes, lower cost of living, friendlier and more welcoming communities, less crime, more integration and better race relations.  Who wouldn’t prefer to live in the South?

via Ann Althouse

About 17 percent of the African-Americans who moved to the South from other states in the past decade came from New York, far more than from any other state, according to census data. Of the 44,474 who left New York State in 2009, more than half, or 22,508, went to the South….

The movement is not limited to New York. The percentage of blacks leaving big cities in the East and in the Midwest and heading to the South is now at the highest levels in decades, demographers say…. 

Ms. Brown [a woman mentioned earlier in the article, leaving a New York civil service job to become an Atlanta entrepreneur] says New York is now less inviting. She plans to join her 26-year-old son, Rashid, who moved to Atlanta from Queens last year after he graduated with a degree in criminology but could not find a job in New York.

In Atlanta, he became a deputy sheriff within weeks. She is hoping to open a restaurant….

The Rev. Floyd H. Flake, pastor of the 23,000-member Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal Cathedral in Jamaica, Queens, said he was losing hundreds of congregants yearly to Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

“For decades, Queens has been the place where the African-American middle class went to buy their first home and raise a family,” Mr. Flake said. “But now, we are seeing a reversal of this as African-Americans feel this is no longer as easy to achieve and that the South is more benevolent than New York.”

Some blacks say they are leaving not only to find jobs, but also because they have soured on race relations.

Candace Wilkins, 27, of St. Albans, who remains unemployed despite having a business degree, plans to move to Charlotte, N.C.

She said her decision was prompted by an altercation with the police….

“Life has gone full circle,” said Ms. Wilkins, whose grandmother was born amid the cotton fields of North Carolina and moved to Queens in the 1950s.

“My grandmother’s generation left the South and came to the North to escape segregation and racism,” she said. “Now, I am going back because New York has become like the old South in its racial attitudes.”

Oops.  Was that a preferred white liberal-elite narrative I just heard crashing and burning?  Why, yes.  I think it was.

Wander over and have a read of some of the comments at Althouse’s for interesting and well-informed perspective on this.