The Sum of All Fears: An Analysis of Institutional Discrimination in the Housing Market and its Effects on The District of Columbia
Owning a home in the neighborhood of one’s choice is central to the American dream. Nearly all people would agree that the right to pursue the American dream should not be restricted for anyone, regardless of race, creed or national origin. But for millions of American citizens, and a majority of the District of Columbia’s residents, major barriers restrict freedom of choice in housing. Even after the passage of two Fair Housing Acts, blacks in America, and specifically in the District, face systematic discrimination that serves to perpetuate segregation and white oppression.
After being informed about the topic of this essay, my friend Robert Botta, a Mount Vernon Campus resident asked, “Why can I walk around this neighborhood all day and not see a black person in a city that is greater than 60 percent black?” (Botta). This question has an extremely important answer, and it lies in the practices used by racist institutions to perpetuate segregation. In our day, the most effective practices are also the most discrete. Steering is the process by which real estate agents show blacks only the homes in “their” neighborhoods. It is also the first institutional barrier faced by blacks in a struggle for freedom of choice in housing. Obviously steering perpetuates segregation, leading whites and blacks only to neighborhoods where their races are already predominant.
In April 1997 the Fair Housing Council of Greater Washington, with funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, released a report citing discrimination encountered by African Americans and Latinos when they tried to buy a home in the Washington area. A Washington Post article by Caroline Mayer details the results of the study and conveys the prevalence of steering in the Washington area:
White testers tended to receive more prompt attention and were shown more properties within their price range and in predominantly white areas, the report said. Minority testers, on the other hand, were taken to fewer properties and were shown houses in predominantly black or Latino areas. Blacks were often told that they must qualify for a mortgage before being shown any lists; the same requirement was not made of any white tester. (2)
Unfortunately, the real estate industry is not the only institutional barrier that blacks must overcome.
In the old Shakespeare play Macbeth, women wear the pants, while the men wear the dresses, this is the theme throughout the play. It focuses on the marriage of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth takes the lead role, while she convinces her husband to kill Duncan. Shakespeare play concerning gender roles, shows the untraditional marriage in Scotland; what one sees is not what one gets. It also show how one starts is not how they end. The story of Macbeth shows power and betrayal. It shows power because it shows how one can take charge and get it done. It shows betrayal because he kill Duncan just to get the crown.
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.
Elizer’s personal account of the holocaust does not merely highlight the facts of the holocaust: millions suffered and the event was politically and religiously motivated, but provides an in depth investigation to what a person endured mentally, physically, and emotionally. Beginning as a teenager, Elizer thought highly of God and of his own beliefs, however, that quickly diminished when he was put into a system of sorting and killing people. During the holocaust, Elizer was not the only person to change; almost everyone suffered and changed differently. The stressful and harsh times affected Elizer just as they affected the person working next to him in the factory. Elizer quickly began to question everything “I pinched myself: Was I still alive? Was I awake? How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent?” (Wiesel 32). Although Elizer forms this mentality, he also finds the will to survive, to protect his father, and to not turn into the people that were aro...
The article includes the tale of a small town near Chicago, North Lawndale. North Lawndale was a Jewish community up to the mid 1960’s when it began to integrate black people into the community. The Jewish people there were happy to see the neighborhood integrate but many others were not. Those that were not happy to see the neighborhood integrate started buying properties up and selling tem to black families at a substantial upcharge. Not only was the price of the home much higher than the value of the home, the way in which the black families were forced to buy their homes was by something called on contract. On contract was a “predatory agreement that combined all the responsibilities of homeownership with all the disadvantages of renting—while offering the benefits of neither” (The Case for Reparations, So That’s Just One of My Losses”) and left many families unable to pay the mortgages. The end results of this discrimination were debilitating to the community of North Lawndale, which is now a majority black neighborhood and a ghetto. This story may not initially sound like one of white privilege but it is when you consider the fact that white people have not historically had to face situations like this one in North Lawndale and therefore their neighborhoods have not met the same type
In his article, “Race and Housing in the Postwar City: An Explosive History,” Raymond Mohl focuses on suburbanization and racial segregation in post-World War II America. Due to discriminatory practices in the housing market,
Racial discrimination in our society has reached its tipping point such that rioting has become a last resort. After the deaths of two young African American males that occurred due to police brutality , the public has been in an uproar, fighting and hoping for change;however the means of fighting aren’t seen as appropriate. The majority of the population argues that the rioting that had occurred in Baltimore and Ferguson, where the shootings happened, were unjustified. The media depicted the rioting to be criminalized and unrelated to the cause. It was portrayed that African Americans took the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray as an excuse to loot and raid.On contrary to popular belief, the rioting in Baltimore and Ferguson were adequate actions that took place. It wasn’t until the rioting occurred that investigations of these cases followed. Because of the investigation it was found that the problems at hand were more than racial issues highlighted by police brutality, but racial abuse in the system of the cities.
Goetz, Edward G.. New Deal ruins: race, economic justice, and public housing policy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013. Print.
Throughout Macbeth, Shakespeare dramatically shows what can happen when our common gender roles are broken. He shows the power that people can have over others when they aren’t acting the way they’re expected to.
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
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.
Throughout history women have fought for the same rights of men. In the time of William Shakespeare they were seen in society as weak and vulnerable. They were seen to be good, caring and not as powerful as men. Men were the superior and ruled the land. Shakespeare has taken the stereotypical image of the women of the time and turned it on its head in ‘Macbeth’. Lady Macbeth is shown as a very powerful, strong woman. She has an evil about her that Shakespeare has used to make ‘Macbeth’ a supernatural play. Women were seen to be good and not as powerful as men, in ‘Macbeth’ Lady Macbeth is the dominate character and commands and persuades Macbeth to commit the murders and crimes that he does.
Quigley, J. M. (2002, April 3). A decent home: Housing policy in perspective, (pp. 53-99). Berkley, CA. University of California, Berkley Program on Housing and Urban Policy. Retrieved June 20, 2011 from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/8f57x42q
The current manifestations of the caste system are now far more generalized across the Indian subcontinent than was the case in former times. Caste as we now recognize has been endangered, shaped and perpetuated by comparatively recent political and social developments. This is evident even i...
Gender is evidently out of its traditional order within the play, and thus the three chosen exemplar characters to showcase this are Lady Macbeth, the Witches, and Macbeth. In saying this, Lady Macbeth is a clear example of how the traditional characteristics of a woman are non-existent as they are taken over by masculinity and strength. The witches challenge their womanhood due to the power they hold and attributes they have, all while Macbeth challenges his gender as he shows femininity through weakness and fretfulness.
Beginning in the 1960’s, shortly after the end of segregation by the Brown vs. Board of Education verdict, a shift in population began to ensue in every major city. “From 1960 to 1968, an estimated two million whites, most of whom were relatively young, middle and upper-income families, moved into suburban areas” (Davies, Fowler 153). During this time period, Caucasians flooded out of the cities to outskirts of cities, the suburbs, where they were able to afford better houses for their money and live in predominantly, if not entirely, white areas. The creation of suburbs served as a mean of self-segregation.