Blockbusting: The Scumbag's Game of Dominos.

Blockbusting isn't something that I actually knew about before stepping in to this class of ours. After learning how the mighty fine people of the various cities of the world use this to change the makeup of a neighborhood, well that just renews my faith in humanity and the real estate market. But really, people are pretty sketchy at best.

Blockbusting is the act of a person, usually one that likes to make a quick buck and probably sets up pyramid scheme presentations, purchasing a home at a lower cost, and selling higher. Now you're probably thinking, "But Nick, I can do that! Real Estate might be my thing!". It might be your thing! If you're definitely in to racism, that is. Blockbusters approach people and prey on the fear that the homeowner might have of their precious Pleasantville neighborhood turning in to a black neighborhood because ONE family moved in to the neighborhood that happens to be black. (or any minority, really) This family could be someone that had a Yale education, but that doesn't matter because they aren't white. One person preys on the fear of a homeowner and offers them a way out, and if they take it, and sell to another black family, the domino effect usually starts a rolling.

Lets talk about how disgusting this practice actually is. The fact that people are willing to sell their home well under market value just to escape a neighborhood with two black folks is a little absurd. What else is absurd, is the fact that redlining actually required a law to be placed against it. Redlining, the act of setting up an area in a city that is going to be color free by way of discrimination at the bank, is just disgusting as well. People in our society have such an innate fear of people that don't look like they do, and its unreal. I can name at least ten times more white folks that are more likely to go to prison than any black person. The last thing that actually just blows my mind is that people were willing to sign off on restrictive contracts in places in Chicago, primarily Chinatown. I can understand them wanting to keep the place essentially, "Chinatown", but come on. Places that do this in general are just kind of awful. It blow my mind every day that people are so ignorant of other people that they would just blatantly say that "I don't want a black person renting this home that I no longer live in and will have no impact on my life whatsoever." Society, man.