The video series on redlining provides a comprehensive overview of how racism became embedded in the structure of American society. It traces the historical and systematic development of racial segregation through key policies and practices. Here’s a detailed explanation of how the source describes the evolution of structural racism. Pre-Redlining Era and Socio Economic Context - Racial segregation and economic disparities were already present but were not systematically enforced on a national level. Because of the Great Depression, housing affordability was very low. Houses are affordable for the upper middle class families. New Deal programs and Jim Crow Segregation- During the Great Depression, The Roosevelt Administration introduced New …show more content…
Areas with predominantly black residents were marked in red, labeling high risk, which led to banks denying loans to residents in these areas. Role of the Real Estate Industry - The real estate industry played a major role in maintaining and promoting racial segregation. The video details how real estate agents and national textbooks, newspapers and advertisements, and the businesses that supported Redlining encouraged segregation by advising against selling homes to black families in white neighborhoods. Real estate agents followed these guidelines, contributing to the systematic exclusion of black families from many neighborhoods. Legacy of Redlining - The consequences of redlining are still visible today in various forms of inequality. The video highlights how redlining has led to racial wealth gaps, disparities in property values, neighborhood conditions and the homeownership gap. Due to redlining, black families were able to buy homes in better neighborhoods leading to lower property values and less wealth accumulation over generations compared to white families. Linkages : The practice of racial discrimination that was common before the 1930’s laid the groundwork for the formalization of redlining, during the New Deal era, integrating racial biases
Despite the passing of the Civil Rights Act and Affirmative Action, racism evolved from the blatant discrimination of the 1960s like segregation, to the slightly more passive racism of the 1990s such as unfair arrests/jail time (Taylor). Curtis’ writes three decades after the aforementioned progress and yet, looking back on the 90s, there is an alarming amount of similarities between the two.
“Gatekeepers and Homeseekers: Institutional Patterns in Racial Steering';, is an informative article that touches upon many of the key points gone over in class. This article deals with the difference in the way blacks and whites were and are treated, past and present, by real estate agents when shopping for a new home. In the study, one can see that blacks were not treated as fairly as white people in the real estate market were. Many times the potential black homebuyers were discouraged from purchasing homes in the same areas that the agent would readily show a white homebuyer. The real estate agent played a very peculiar role in doing this. They were, in essence, the racist gatekeepers of a seemingly non-racist neighborhood. The study further goes into this issue by giving explanations and interpretation of this behavior that is seen all over the United States. From thorough examination of the article, one can come to the conclusion that the author, Diana M. Pearce, is following the “interactionist'; perspective to sociology.
The New York Times Editorial Board, in their article How Segregation Destroys Black Wealth (2015), argues that African Americans have been — and still are — discriminated against when buying property, resulting in the sprawl of poverty stricken, predominantly black neighborhoods. The Editorial Board supports this argument by providing historical evidence and analysis of the issue. They specify that “The Federal Housing Administration, created during the New Deal to promote homeownership, openly supported these racist measures; it forbade lending to black people even as it subsidized white families that moved from the cities to the suburbs. Cut off from
In this book, Gottesdiener writes about four different families and their challenges. These families deal with having their homes forcefully foreclosed by banks. Apart from that, African Americans were discriminated when purchasing homes, making it difficult for them to find a place. As Walt Whitman said, "a man is not a whole and complete man unless he owns a house and the ground it stands on" (35). This quote said by Whitman can be interpreted that homeownership is a way to show power and wealth. Due to the discrimination, the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act was created, which allowed loans to minorities to receive equal loans of the surrounding communities. This was specifically focused in the lower and moderate neighborhoods, but it failed due to redlining. Redlining was the act of categorizing specific areas of a neighborhood by racial conduct. For example, when a white is looking for a home, the relator shows them a map that avoids the low income area, which is typically of African
Wilkins, Roger. “Racism.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 572 (2000): 159. Sage Publications, Inc. Web. 25 Mar. 2014
There is not a country in world history in which racism has been more important, for so long a time, as the United States. And the problem of "the color line," as W. E. B. Du Bois put it, is still with us. So it is more than a purely historical question to ask: How does it start?—and an even more urgent question: How might it end? Or, to put it differently: Is it possible for whites and blacks to live together without hatred?
The United States’ government has always had a hand on our country’s housing market. From requiring land ownership to vote, to providing public housing to impoverished families, our government has become an irremovable part of the housing market. The effects of these housing policies can affect American residents in ways they might not even recognize. As several historians have concluded, many housing policies, especially those on public housing, either resulted in or reinforced the racial segregation of neighborhoods.
In the 1920s and 1930s, segregation was a massive thing for everyone. Minorities were looked down upon mainly because of their different skin color and culture, as people from all over the world started to come to America because of its freedom that it offered. They did receive many of the rights that was said to be given, nor much respect, especially from caucasians. They were mostly slaves, workers or farmers for caucasians. Although they would work as hard as they can, they wouldn’t receive fair pay. In the result of that, they were never able to live the life of a middle-class citizen. They were always low on money. Also, taxes would bug them as it would rise only for the lower-class...
Housing segregation is as the taken for granted to any feature of urban life in the United States (Squires, Friedman, & Siadat, 2001). It is the application of denying minority groups, especially African Americans, equal access to housing through misinterpretation, which denies people of color finance services and opportunities to afford decent housing. Caucasians usually live in areas that are mostly white communities. However, African Americans are most likely lives in areas that are racially combines with African Americans and Hispanics. A miscommunication of property owners not giving African American groups gives an accurate description of available housing for a decent area. This book focuses on various concepts that relates to housing segregation and minority groups living apart for the majority group.
The Making of the Ghetto: One of the biggest forms of equity is home ownership, and between 1933 and 1978, the Federal
If more research about America’s racist history was conducted, there could be a more accurate understanding of our current society, specifically race relations. It is imperative for a nation to acknowledge and understand it’s past in order to truly progress. America tends to hide its history because of guilt. This guilt leads to the teaching of revised history, which is detrimental to contemporary society because it leaves out crucial events that should have been learning instances. For example, if people do not understand or even know what redlining is or how it affected black people, then they would not understand black people’s current status in America. Redlining is the practice of denying services, either directly or through selectively raising prices, to residents of certain areas based on the racial or ethnic makeups of those areas. Redlining was exercised through financial services such as banking and insurance services. Banks denied black people mortgages because of racism. This impeded the development of black wealth. A person who doesn’t know this history may blame the current economic state of black people on laziness or incompetence, but in reality the systemic oppression of racism is to blame. Research and data could be used to debunk harmful myths associated with black
Since the beginning of colonization, America has been controlled by religiously and ethically diverse whites. The most profound cases of racism in the “United” States of America have been felt by Native Americans, Asians, African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Muslims. Major racially structured institutions include; slavery, settlement, Indian reservations, segregation, residential schools, and internment camps (Racism in the U.S., 1). Racism has been felt and seen by many in housing, the educational system, places of employment, and the government. Discrimination was largely criminalized in the mid 20th century, and at the same time became socially unacceptable and morally repugnant (Racism in the U.S., 1). Although racism was
Despite increased diversity across the country, America’s neighborhoods remain highly segregated along racial and ethnic lines. Residential segregation, particularly between African-Americans and whites, persists in metropolitan areas where minorities make up a large share of the population. This paper will examine residential segregation imposed upon African-Americans and the enormous costs it bears. Furthermore, the role of government will be discussed as having an important role in carrying out efforts towards residential desegregation. By developing an understanding of residential segregation and its destructive effects, parallels may be drawn between efforts aimed at combating such a grave societal problem and furthering social justice.
In contrast to popular assumption, discrimination in public housing is becoming more prevalent than ever before. Testing done by the Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston has found that today people of color are discriminated against in nearly half of their efforts to buy, sell, finance, or rent property (“1968-Present Housing Discrimination). The statistics are even worse when considering colored people who have families as the testing found that they are discriminated against approximately two thirds of the time (“1968-Present Housing Discrimination”) In addition to facing great difficulty in property affairs, people of color are less likely to be offered residence in desirable locations. 86 percent of revitalized
Racism can be defined as "any set of beliefs, which classifies humanity into distinct collectives, defined in terms of natural and/or cultural attributes, and ranks these attributes in a hierarchy of superiority and inferiority" (Blum 5). It can be directly linked to the past and still, centuries later, serves as a painful reminder that race continues to be one of the "sharpest and deepest divisions in American life" (Loewen 138). What were the causes of racism? How did it develop historically? In order to answer those complex questions, I plan to examine the conditions of America's history from colonialism to present day society. It was these conditions of America's past that promoted the development of racist practices and ideas that continue to be embraced by many to this day.