Examples Of Segregation In The Handmaid's Tale

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Segregation is something that is visible in today's society, with acts of redlining still prevalent in neighborhoods and schooling. The quality of your education and the long-term stability of your finances depend on your zip code. This mainly affects people of color, for example in my own neighborhood of East Palo Alto we are all mainly people of color with low income, but as soon as you go over the ramp on University you are in a rich area of Palo Alto with big mansions. In the novel The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood we consistently see segregation being used for instance, the color they wear symbolizes the power and status they have, we also see this by the society of Gilead sending people of color and infertile women to the colonies …show more content…

In Gilead, we see that only white people are in power, we know that people of color such as African Americans were sent to the colonies and were to remain there until they died. An example of this in the real world would be how they would decide which neighborhoods people were allowed to live in, for example, from the New York Times, “Neighborhoods were ranked from least risky to most risky — or from “A” through “D.”[...]most of the “D” areas were neighborhoods where Black residents lived”. This ranking of certain neighborhoods would then later impede access to a good education for kids of color, it also consistently maintains barriers for people of color to gain generational wealth, as the old restrictions of redlining have continued to affect where certain groups live. In Gilead, the status you hold decides where you live and the conditions you face, commanders live in the houses, while people of color live in the colonies with bad living conditions. Education in low income communities ranked “D” is less funded, it gives less opportunities to the students attending an opening to build generational wealth by beginning to have access to exploring careers in a university/college. In wealthier communities that are ranked “A”, they receive more funds and a better education than kids in communities ranked “D”. Although the Fair Housing Act passed in 1968, there are still reminiscing factors of redlining present in our own society here in the United States. For example, the community in East Palo Alto is very different from the community of Palo Alto, which is not only systematically separated physically by the

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