Jam Abdul Rehman
12921
Critical Reading Review 4.
The transformation of theme from “How city is a social order?” to “Social discrimination in city” is quite interesting. This discrimination was spatial in nature and was specifically against the African Americans. The articles we have related to this theme are The French movie “La Haine”, Suburbs as slums” Race, Ethnicity and Real Estate appraisal, Casino Urbanism Ghettos and Anti-Ghettos and Inner City’s Social Dislocations.
The word La Haine translates as Hate. The story revolves around three young men, North African, a black guy and an eastern European Jew who are against the society which has marginalized them. In this movie the concept of suburbs is portrayed for the very first time in
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front of French people. This story shows how the reaction of mistreatment towards minority communities. That reaction would always be harsh indeed and this film perfectly shows how violence multiplies violence not only in specific French society, but in whole world. Moving to our first account Suburbs as slums, in fact the first American suburbs were slums.
But these areas had low property value, because in 18th century there was no concept of cars, so they had to travel so long on foot to get to their work. He stresses on how wealthy moved towards the suburbs and poorer people remained in the center of the city. In other chapter he thoroughly talks about the process of the decentralization of the city. He highlights the role of capitalism and how the concept of value of property led to the marginalization of the Negros. This categorization of housing schemes by real estate agencies, like FHA and HOLC, was led by notions of profit maximization. He further talks about them in “Race, Ethnicity and Real Estate Appraisal”. The reason behind the formation of HOLC was to refinance mortgages in time of depression. However, appraisal systems raised by HOLC discriminated against minorities and older industrial cities. The classification of city in A to D categories is self-evident. D class contained places with extremely marginalized people. I saw some similar case back in Hyderabad too. There is a place named Kohli colony. All of inhabitants of the colony are sweepers by the profession. In local body elections during 2015 that colony wasn’t included in any …show more content…
ward. Casino urbanism is an extraction from Stefan Al’s famous book “The Strip: Las Vegas and the Architecture of the American Dream”. This reading talks about exclusively about the entertainment mecca and its complexity. This also is based on the process of suburbanization and how strip was transformed from periphery to core by multiplication of resorts around it. Cars and government encouragement played a vital role in this suburbanization. Moving on to Wilson’s “Inner City’s Social Dislocations”.
He describes that how current definition of poverty is different from the past and how the factor of inflation operates in the equation through his more empirical approach. He is more concerned about the increasing poverty. He thinks that this poverty is because of the unemployment and social dislocation. He was not so much in favor of the notion that black are structurally discriminated. However, he considers the condition of market as a primary reason. I think he highlights the point really well that lack of resources always lead to conflict. But on the other hand he misses the point that allocation of that limited resources is never done
purely. Waquant, primarily focuses on the exclusion using the term Hyper Ghetto. He stresses on the fact that Physical deterioration causes social stigma. Stigma attach to the territory is a great hurdle in the organized behavior of society. When the residents of ghettos are excluded not only by society but by institutions too, they use self-protection techniques by excluding themselves based on constructed differences. This is major difference between the two ghettos is, i.e. American and European, that in European upward mobility is always possible. However in American ghettos even the solutions by institutions to the stigmatization further worsen the conditions of Negros. Something really similar can be seen in case of Baluchistan too where use of force further worsens the situation.
In “Part One: The Negro and the City,” Osofsky describes the early Black neighborhoods of New York City, in the lower parts of Manhattan: from Five Points, San Juan Hill, and the Tenderloin. He describes the state of Black community of New York in the antebellum and postbellum, and uses the greater United States, including the Deep South, as his backdrop for his microanalysis of the Blacks in New York. He paints a grim picture of little hope for Black Americans living in New York City, and reminds the reader that despite emancipation in the north long before the Civil War, racism and prejudices were still widespread in a city where blacks made up a small portion of the population.
The article touches on the racial tension that existed during the post-reconstruction period. Particularly, some of these social problems were ignored by most writers as they pursued matters of ‘more importance.’ However, Chesnutt realized that the social construction of the society does determine the overall performance of society. Therefore, although these issues were largely ignored by the enlightened, and educated folk who fought for equal rights, Chesnutt did not overlook them. Issues like incurring a fine and risking imprisonment if a white married a black is cruel and unimaginable. It was the reality in several
A Ghetto Takes Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870-1930 explains in detail how the author deciphers the ghettoization process in Cleveland during the time period. Kusmer also tries to include studies that mainly pertained to specific black communities such as Harlem, Chicago, and Detroit, which strongly emphasized the institutional ghetto and dwelled on white hostility as the main reasons as to why the black ghetto was
William Julius Wilson creates a thrilling new systematic framework to three politically tense social problems: “the plight of low-skilled black males, the persistence of the inner-city ghetto, and the fragmentation of the African American family” (Wilson, 36). Though the conversation of racial inequality is classically divided. Wilson challenges the relationship between institutional and cultural factors as reasons of the racial forces, which are inseparably linked, but public policy can only change the racial status quo by reforming the institutions that support it.
“gentrification as an ugly product of greed”. Yet these perspectives miss the point. Gentrification is a byproduct of mankind's continuing interest in advancing the notion that one group is more superior to another and worthy of capitalistic consumption with little regard to social consciousness. It is elitism with the utmost and exclusionary politics to the core. This has been a constant theme of mankind taking or depleting space for personal gain.
He compares their situation as being on a “lonely island of poverty” (2) in a “vast ocean of material prosperity” (2) which displays the atrocious position of colored people and further expands on this by describing how “The Negro is still at the bottom of the economic ladder” (2) which presents the injustice faced by these impoverished population. His adopting of these phrases is in order influence his audience to not only realize the harsh realities, but to prompt them to seek true freedom for everyone. The examples employed by King leave the reader with a sense of understanding of why King has his powerful ambitions.
While it may be easier to persuade yourself that Boo’s published stories are works of fiction, her writings of the slums that surround the luxury hotels of Mumbai’s airport are very, very real. Katherine Boo’s book “Behind the Beautiful Forevers – Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity” does not attempt to solve problems or be an expert on social policy; instead, Boo provides the reader with an objective window into the battles between extremities of wealth and poverty. “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” then, exposes the paucity and corruption prevalent within India.
The South Bronx, New York City: another northern portrait of racial divide that naturally occurred in the span of less than a century, or a gradual, but systematic reformation based on the mistaken ideology of white supremacy? A quick glance through contemporary articles on The Bronx borough convey a continuation of less-than-ideal conditions, though recently politicians and city planners have begun to take a renewed interest in revitalizing the Bronx. (HU, NYT) Some common conceptions of the Bronx remain less than satisfactory—indeed, some will still express fear or disgust, while some others have expressed the fundamentally incorrect racial ideas studied here—but others recall the Bronx with fondness, calling it a once “boring” and “secure” neighborhood.(BRONX HIST JOURNAL, p. 1) What are we to do with such radically different accounts between The Bronx of yesterday, and the impoverished borough of today? If we speak in known, contemporary cultural stereotypes, then segregation is strictly a Southern design, but natural otherwise—but to record this as a natural occurrence, no different than a seasonal change or day turning to night, would be to ignore the underlying problem. The changing role of white Americans from majority to population minority in the Bronx, coupled with the borough’s title of “poorest urban county in America” (as of 2012), is the result of careful orchestration and a repeating story of economic and political gain superseding civil rights. (GONZALES, BRONX) (BRONX HIST JOURN, HARD KNOCKS IN BRONX @ poorest note ) It is not coincidence.
The movie City of God, showed the incredible world of gang youth in the undeveloped area of Rio de Janeiro, where gangs ruled the streets and young children were initiated into murder before they were teenagers. The urbanization of the third world is creating sub-cultures that are filed with chaos and run by crime, most of which is the result of drugs and other illegal activities. In his article Race the Power of an Illusion, Dalton Conley says, “the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s really marks both an opportunity and a new danger in terms of racial relations in America. On the one hand, the Civil Rights era officially ended inequality of opportunity. It officially ended de jure legal inequality, so it was no longer legal for employers, for landlords, or for any public institution or accommodations to discriminate based on race. At the same time, those civil rights triumphs did nothing to address the underlying economic and social inequalities that had already been in place because of hundreds of years of inequality.” (Conley, 1). Though the Civil Rights movement was able to get equal rights for blacks, it could not stop the brutality that still plagued them. The urban setting is so overcrowded that the people are living on top of each other.
The downgrading of African Americans to certain neighborhoods continues today. The phrase of a not interested neighborhood followed by a shift in the urban community and disturbance of the minority has made it hard for African Americans to launch themselves, have fairness, and try to break out into a housing neighborhood. If they have a reason to relocate, Caucasians who support open housing laws, but become uncomfortable and relocate if they are contact with a rise of the African American population in their own neighborhood most likely, settle the neighborhoods they have transfer. This motion creates a tremendously increase of an African American neighborhood, and then shift in the urban community begins an alternative. All of these slight prejudiced procedures leave a metropolitan African American population with few options. It forces them to remain in non-advanced neighborhoods with rising crime, gang activity, and...
Gentrification is defined as the process by which the wealthy or upper middle class uproot poorer individuals through the renovation and rebuilding of poor neighborhoods. Many long-term residents find themselves no longer able to afford to live in an area, where the rent and property values are increasing. Gentrification is a very controversial topic, revealing both the positive and negative aspects of the process. Some of the more desirable outcomes include reduced crime rate, increased economic activity, and the building of new infrastructures. However, it is debated whether the negatives overwhelm the positive. An increase in the number of evictions of low-income families, often racial minorities can lead to a decline of diversity
With this statement, he clearly shows that the peace and justice in the United States is not limited only to the white population, but also belongs to the black population.... ... middle of paper ... ... He also uses the powerful words “Free at last” in order to show the importance of the situation of the black population.
The problems of race and urban poverty remain pressing challenges which the United States has yet to address. Changes in the global economy, technology, and race relations during the last 30 years have necessitated new and innovative analyses and policy responses. A common thread which weaves throughout many of the studies reviewed here is the dynamics of migration. In When Work Disappears, immigrants provide comparative data with which to highlight the problems of ghetto poverty affecting blacks. In No Shame in My Game, Puerto Rican and Dominican immigrants are part of the changing demographics in Harlem. In Canarsie, the possible migration of blacks into a working/middle-class neighborhood prompts conservative backlash from a traditionally liberal community. In Streetwise, the migration of yuppies as a result of gentrification, and the movement of nearby-ghetto blacks into these urban renewal sites also invoke fear of crime and neighborhood devaluation among the gentrifying community. Not only is migration a common thread, but the persistence of poverty, despite the current economic boom, is the cornerstone of all these works. Poverty, complicated by the dynamics of race in America, call for universalistic policy strategies, some of which are articulated in Poor Support and The War Against the Poor.
In the report A New Form of Social Dislocation in the Inner-City Ghetto, William Julius Wilson analyzes three research studies conducted in Chicago between 1986 and 1993. In these studies, Wilson identifies a new type of poverty, which he coins jobless poverty. Jobless poverty represents the growing number communities that are compromised of a high percentage of unemployed individuals. These communities have the same recurrent themes of isolation in inner-city ghettos where the surrounding area is abandon, desolate or deserted of economic opportunities and community benefits. In contrast to living in employed poverty or unemployed poverty in neighborhoods of high employment, jobless poverty causes negative effects that lead to individuals and their families becoming stuck in a continuous cycle of jobless poverty. As a result of these negative effects, it is important to consider policy solutions that would address this growing problem and provide opportunities for individuals to escape the cycle of jobless poverty. The most affective solutions to jobless poverty are more mixed-use developments and a larger public transportation networks.
La Haine is a French film from the 1990s. The film is in black and white camera effect and sets a serious mood and tone. The movie starts off with clips of people rioting and cars being overturned. Right away, you can tell one of the themes in this film will be related with violence. The movie’s main characters are three young men; Said, Hubert, and Vinz. They all were from the projects. Although the three of them were ethnically diverse from one another. They derived from the same background and experienced similar conflicts within the French society. La Haine greatly exhibited how harsh life was for the people living in the projects. The movie revolved around themes such as violence, racism, and the struggle of coming from a relatively poor