How Racism Became Structural According to Your Source 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 Socioeconomic Context. Context: Before redlining, racial segregation and discrimination were already present but not systematically enforced at the national level. Evidence: The video outlines how racial segregation in housing and economic disparities existed before the formalization of redlining (Video timestamp: 2:09 - What Was Happening …show more content…
Evidence: However, these programs incorporated Jim Crow-era segregation policies, reinforcing existing racial biases at a national scale (Video timestamp: 2:45 - Roosevelt Administration New Deal Programs; 3:47 - New Deal Programs Used Jim Crow Era Segregation). Creation of the Redlining System. Context: The term "redlining" comes from the practice of drawing red lines on maps to designate areas deemed high-risk for mortgage lending, which predominantly affected Black neighborhoods. Evidence: The video explains how risk assessment maps were created to evaluate metropolitan areas, with neighborhoods color-coded based on their racial composition and economic status (Video timestamp: 4:07 - Creating The Redlining System; 5:00 - Creation Of Risk Assessment Maps For Metro Areas). Role of Real Estate Industry? Context: The real estate industry played a crucial role in perpetuating segregation through practices that explicitly promoted racial discrimination. Evidence: Realtors and the National Real Estate Textbook of the 1910s advocated for segregation, contributing to the systemic exclusion of Black families from desirable neighborhoods (Video timestamp: 7:40 - Realtors Also Played A Large Role In Neighborhood Segregation; 8:04 - National Real Estate Textbook Promoted Segregation in the 1910s). Legacy of Redlining:
In the book, Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform, Shelby discusses self-segregation and integration of different neighborhoods. He proposes that blacks prefer to live amongst themselves and segregate themselves due to their cultural ties. Shelby urges the government to not force racial integration on society as whites would not instantly help the less financially advantaged blacks and that “this practice [self segregation] is not incompatible with justice” (67). However, this claim can be questioned because during the New Deal era of the 30’s and 40’s, the government pursued an active role in segregating neighborhoods and demolishing integrated neighborhoods. This revelation brings about an important question: Is self-segregation still “just” even with evidence that the government has actively segregated
“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.
Campanella writes, “Blatantly racist deed covenants excluded black families from the new land, and the white middle-class denizens of the front-of-town leapfrogged over the black back-of-town and settled into trendy low-lying suburbs such as Lakeview” (Campanella 2007, 704-715). The water management infrastructure created the Lakeview district. Lakeview attracted buyers of all races, yet systems of spatial segregation that emerged in the early twentieth century denied African Amercians and other minorities access to property in this part of New
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
Charles, Camille (2003). The dynamics of racial residential segregation. Annual Review of Sociology, 167. Retrieved from http://jstor.org/stable/30036965.
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.
Squires, G. D., Friedman, S., & Siadat, C. (2001). Housing Segregation in the United States: Does Race Matter? Cambridge, MA.
In the early 1900s, “restrictive covenants” more specifically racially restrictive covenants were legally enforceable agreements that prohibited landowners from leasing or selling property to minority groups, at that time namely African Americans. The practice of the covenants, private, racially restrictive covenants, originated as a reaction to a court ruling in 1917 “which declared municipally mandated racial zoning unconstitutional . . . leaving the door open for private agreements, such as restrictive covenants, to continue to perpetuate residential segregation” (Boston, n.d.). It was more of a symbolic act than attacking the “discriminatory nature” (Schaefer, 2012, p. 184) of the restrictive covenants, when the Supreme Court found in the 1948 case of Shelley v Kraemer that racially restrictive covenants were unconstitutional. In this particular case, a white couple, the Kraemers lived in a neighborhood in Missouri that was governed by a restrictive covenant. When a black couple moved into their neighborhood, the Kraemers went to the court asking that the covenant be enforced. In a unanimous decision, it was decided, “state courts could not constitutionally prevent the sale of real property to blacks even if that property is covered by a racially restrictive covenant. Standing alone, racially restrictive covenants violate no rights. However, their enforcement by state court injunctions constitutes state action in violation of the 14th Amendment” (Shelley v. Kraemer, 1948). Even though the Supreme Court ruled that the covenants were unenforceable, it was not until 1968 when the Fair Housing Act was passed that it become illegal (Latshaw, 2010). Even though today it is illegal, it might appear that we still have an unspoken...
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
Although discrimination against minorities, such as Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans exists, residential segregation is imposed on African-Americans at a highly sustained level, more than any other racial or ethnic group in American society. “Blacks continue to live apart from whites; of all minorities, blacks are most segregated from whites. ‘They are also more segregated from whites than any other ethnic group has ever been segregated. The most well-off blacks find themselves more segregated than even the poorest Hispanics’” (Swain 214). Thus, it is evident that segregation imposed upon African-Americans subsists at a level that is not comparable to that experience by other minorities.
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
most powerful signs of the racial divide in the United States. Marginalized and the poor remains
From slavery to Jim Crow, the impact of racial discrimination has had a long lasting influence on the lives of African Americans. While inequality is by no means a new concept within the United States, the after effects have continued to have an unmatched impact on the racial disparities in society. Specifically, in the housing market, as residential segregation persists along racial and ethnic lines. Moreover, limiting the resources available to black communities such as homeownership, quality education, and wealth accumulation. Essentially leaving African Americans with an unequal access of resources and greatly affecting their ability to move upward in society due to being segregated in impoverished neighborhoods. Thus, residential segregation plays a significant role in
Residential Segregation Today, there are many Americans that believe racism ended with Jim Crow laws being abolished. Many believe it ended when “Separate but Equal” was no longer legal, and most recently people point to former President Obama and believe race is no longer an issue in the United States of America. These people are wrong for so many reasons, but one of the biggest is that white Americans are segregating themselves from minorities. According to Bonilla-Silva and Embrick, only a few white Americans are integrated. Only four out of forty-one students have lived in a residential neighborhood with a significant black presence (Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo and Embrick, David).
As I have been reading memoirs about memory for this class, each essay made me recall or even examine my past memory closely. However, the more minutely I tried to recall what happened in the past, the more confused I got because I could not see the clear image and believe I get lost in my own memory, which I thought, I have preserved perfectly in my brain. The loss of the details in each memory has made me a little bit sentimental, feeling like losing something important in my life. But, upon reading those essays, I came to realize that remembering correct the past is not as important as growing up within memory. However, the feelings that were acquired from the past experience tend to linger distinctly. The essay that is related to my experience