People commonly believe that property values decline when blacks or non-white move into a neighborhood. However, the real reason why property values decline is because of whites moving away and taking their resources with them. White homebuyers fear that property values will decline rapidly when nonwhite residents begin moving into a neighborhood. What they do not take into consideration is that the nonwhite residents may be their socioeconomic equals. Instead, they focus on race—they categorize individuals into socioeconomic classes on the basis of race. When whites or well-intentioned residents move away, businesses and jobs soon follow suit, thus, creating improvised neighborhoods.
The term “white flight” is in reference to the large-scale
Different from racism by individuals, it reflects the disparities regarding criminal justice, employment, housing and education. Individual racism consists of overt acts, it can usually involve things such as violence, death and destruction of property. This form of racism is obvious and can be pointed out instantly. Institutional racism, on the other hand, is less overt and very subtle. Institutional racism usually occurs within respected forces in society, thus, cannot be confronted in an obvious manner. An example of individual racism would be if a black family moved into a white neighborhood and someone damages their property. An example of institutionalized racism would when black families are forced to live in urban cities and are not allowed to buy homes in white neighborhoods per say. Educational institutions are also an example of institutionalized racism because in many private colleges, diversity was not present, the emphasis on diversity in colleges has only recently become a phenomenon. “It is harder for a white college student to understand the need that minority students feel to band together against discrimination” (Waters, 1996, 236). Waters points out that often times in colleges where diversity is not apparent, the minority students—Asian, African Americans, Jewish, Arabian and Latino—bind together no matter their racial
Powell’s quote in the book describing the reaping benefits of being white in a racist system is defined as what we call today “white privilege”. White privilege is a term defined as social privileges that benefit people classified as white. The benefits of being white outweighs being a minority in a wester country like the United States. “White Americans of European ancestry can be described as having a great deal of choices in terms of their ethnic identities. The two major types of options White Americans can exercise are (1) the option of whether to claim any specific ancestry, or to just be ‘White’ or American and (2) the choice of which of their European ancestries to choose to include in their description of their own identities” (Waters, 1996, 228). This quote is a strong example of what white privilege entails—White Americans have the option to claim their ancestry or to be considered just white, meanwhile, other races are labeled without being given an option. For example, if a child’s father is black and his mother is white, he will be labeled as a black man regardless his half white
“I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me, white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one’s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.”
The loss of public housing and the expanse of the wealth gap throughout the state of Rhode Island has been a rising issue between the critics and supporters of gentrification, in both urban areas such as Providence and wealthy areas such as the island of Newport, among other examples. With the cities under a monopoly headed by the wealth of each neighborhood, one is left to wonder how such a system is fair to all groups. Relatively speaking, it isn’t, and the only ones who benefit from such a system are white-skinned. With the deterioration of the economic status of Rhode Island, and especially in the city of Providence, more and more educated Caucasians are leaving to seek a more fertile economic environment.
Charles, Camille (2003). The dynamics of racial residential segregation. Annual Review of Sociology, 167. Retrieved from http://jstor.org/stable/30036965.
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.
Because institutionalized racism is a factor that affects how individuals engage with race, Packer’s “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere Stories” proves that institutional racism aids in causing segregation. In the article “Disguised Racism in Public Schools,” Samuel Brodbelt goes into great detail about how institutionalized racism is seen in many public schools today. He also further explains how the effects of institutionalized racism may cause segregation between the races. Brodbelt states “today, the public schools serve as an example of the extent of institutional racism” (Brodbelt 699).
Randall, Vernellia. “What is Institutional Racism?” Dying While Black. 9 Jan. 2008. Web. 16 Nov 2013.
So why would one have the connection with minorities and poverty? Could there possibly be some sort of relation between race and class? This all started with our Federal Housing Agency or the FHA. In the book The Possessive Investment in Whiteness the author George Lipsitz put extensive research into how the FHA started and how its agency ties into minorities receiving loans or the lack of. In 1934 the FHA was provided from the government who then gave the agency’s power to private home lenders, and this is when racial biasness came into place through selective home loans. Lipsitz says “[the] Federal Housing Agency’s confidential surveys and appraiser’s manuals channeled almost all of the loan money toward whites and away from communities of color”(5). These surveys were conducted by the private lenders who had free reign to prove the loans to whomever they want. Because the minorities did not get a chance to receive the FHA loans that they needed, they are then forced to live in urban areas instead of suburban neighborhoods. There was this underground suburban segregation going on with these private lenders, which would then greatly diminish better opportunities for minorities to live in better neighborhoods.
Today there are huge enhancements in the diagnosis and treatment of most chronic diseases, there are many studies shown that ethnic and racial minorities obtain lower health care than nonminorities.
For instance, the Asian American population has, on average, the highest level of education and the highest income among all races. Due to this, the racial discrimination this group had to endure throughout history is overlooked. Nevertheless, the manifestation of this inequality can be observed by the Asian communities still present in the United States, such as Chinatown in San Francisco. These communities appeared after white people brutally attacked and killed Asians because they felt the Asians were stealing their jobs and lowering their wages, driving Asians out of cities and forcing them to rely on each other and their own businesses for survival (Croteau & Hoynes, 2013). In addition, since Asians were not considered qualified for American citizenship throughout most of history, they are often still considered foreigners today. Another example of inequality today can be seen through real estate and the wealth gap between whites and minority groups. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 ended the discrimination against non-whites in the housing industry, but racial inequality still remains. When white neighborhoods began to integrate non-whites, white people sold their homes after their realtors instilled the fear of their homes decreasing in value. Realtors bought white homes for less than they were worth, and sold them to non-whites at inflated rates, a process known as “block-busting”.
Discursive Essay on Racism Racism has existed for centuries, but during the last two hundred years hatred toward ethnic minorities or even majorities has fluctuated. Racism occurs all over the world, can happen to anyone and will always exist. There are three different forms of racism, open racism, violent racism and secret racism all express forms of hatred towards ethnic groups. These forms of racism, although different, all have the same main purpose, to promote hate towards ethnic groups. Open racism expresses freedom of racial thought and speech.
Broadly speaking, race is seen or is assumed to be a biologically driven set of boundaries that group and categorize people according to phenotypical similarities (e.g. skin color) (Pinderhughes, 1989; Root, 1998). The categorical classification of race can be traced back to the 16th century Linnaen system of human “races” where each race was believed to be of a distinct type or subspecies that included separate gene pools (Omi & Winant, 1994; Spickard, 1992; Smedley & Smedley, 2005). Race in the U.S. initially began as a general categorizing term, interchangeable with such terms as “type” or “species”. Over time, race began to morph into a term specifically referring to groups of people living in North America (i.e. European “Whites”, Native American “Indians”, and African “Negroes”). Race represented a new way to illustrate human difference as well as a way to socially structure society (Smedley & Smedley, 2005).
The solutions to residential segregation could be classified according to the basis which include place, people and indirect approaches (Bouston, 2013). The main aim of policies based on place is to improve the amenities and housing stocks in black dominated neighborhoods as a means of encouraging the white to settle in these areas or alternatively creation of affordable options for housing in the whites’ neighborhood to encourage the white settling in such places. However the challenges to this approach is that research conducted showed that the white households still had a negative mentality towards the black neighborhoods and no matter the improvement to these neighborhoods, they still won’t move. Another challenge with the policy is that improvements to neighborhoods will consequently lead to rise in house prices making it unaffordable even to those currently living
This source is useful because it explores the idea of institutional racism in a simple manner. Using this article, the explanation of institutional racism can be used as the framework for the introduction of the argument. Due to the straightforwardness of the paper, this certainly helped give a better understanding on how to fully analyze the idea of institutional racism present in the current educational system.
Racist and racism are provocative words in American society. To some, they become curse words. They are descriptive words of reality that cannot be denied. Some people believe that race is the primary determinant of human abilities and capacities and behave as if racial differences produce inherent superiorities. People of color are often injured by these judgements and actions whether they are directly or indirectly racist. Just as individuals can act in racist ways, so can institutions. Institutions can be overtly or inherently racist. Institutions can also injure people. The outcome is nonetheless racist, if not intentional (Randall).
The movie was an interesting movie because it has the ability to make you react with many emotions. The movie follows characters that live in Los Angeles and the characters are involved in each other characters’ lives. With each character I had a first impression and I would most of the time end up with different impressions of them in the end. There are a few concepts I noticed and created after watching the film. I had a variety of emotions while watching the film, the most notable emotions were angry to hopeful. Regarding racism the action I could take is to not always rely on stereotypes.