In American Apartheid
Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton describe how African Americans came to be the
most oppressed class in modern America. With the social strides that were made
for black’s equality during the civil rights movements one would think that we
would have lost racial bias as a culture. But it is commonly seen that white
Americans agree with the idea of equality but do not actively strive for it in
their daily lives. In chapters 3 and 4 the authors describe trends of
segregation in urban cities and their surrounding suburban areas. There is no
denying an apparent trend of higher black populations closer to urban centers
with higher white populations concentrated in the suburbs, or what they termed
the fringe of the city. Often there will be “suburbs” with very high black
concentrations, but usually these areas have many individuals with a collective
low socioeconomic status essentially making them comparable to the ghettos of a
city.
These
authors argue that one of the biggest contributing factors to this modern
segregation is the housing market. Too often brokers will showcase houses in
areas specific to the individual’s race. Blacks are mainly shown houses in
areas with predominately black communities and vise versa for whites. The mentalities
the residents of each community have are as extremely contrasting to their
decision on where to live. White individuals, as I stated before, like to say
they have no problem with racially diverse communities, but then choose to live
in areas that are predominantly white. Black individuals will also say they would
like to live in racially diverse neighborhoods, but again their practice is
very different. But they choose to live in communities with high black
populations for different reasons than white individuals have. They feel that
if they were to live in neighborhoods with high white populations there may be
a constant threat of violence and hate directed at them from the surrounding
community. This is often seen to be true
to some extent. There are cases of black families having their surrounding
communities take violent action towards them, but these are usually outlying
cases. More commonly white flight is seen as a way to passive aggressively
further segregation. This would imply that as a black family moves in a white
family moves out, and this trend can be seen in how suburbs have developed. Areas
near just outside of city limits used to have high populations of white
families but as African American families moved in the white families moved
further and further from the city center. This exposes the major flaw in many
of the current attempts to provide better opportunities for oppressed black
individuals. White attitudes towards black individuals who move into their
neighborhoods due to help from the government are extremely negative. A
Washington Post article outlines many of the attempts the government has made
to promote equal housing rights, but they all bring with the negative
connotation associated with Blacks receiving unwarranted government aid.
I would
argue that programs made by the government to provide equal housing
opportunities to African American Families are doing more harm than good at
this point. In order to really overcome this problem the mentality of equality
needs to be more clearly defined. I know this seems like hardly an achievable
goal, but in theory all Americans agree with the ideal. Creating a rule such as
the Fair Housing Act does not change mentalities alone. Maybe closer focus on
realtors or financiers to ensure fair practices could help, but this is not a
logical solution. The reality is in order to change this mentality the youngest
generation needs to be socialized in a new way. True equality needs to be
instilled at a young age so that as the individuals become adults the subject
of segregation will not even come to mind. If black families have chosen to
live in communities that are predominately black that is fine as long as it was
their choice to make. This would also mean that all individuals regardless of
their race would have the same opportunities in the workplace as well. I feel
that investing money and time into the individuals that make up a community
would help redefine some neighborhoods. Funding better schools and other
community centered programs would help show that just because a neighborhood
has a high black population would not imply low socioeconomic status. These
goals are far away and shifting mentalities is not an easy thing to do, but in
order to truly reach the ideals we hold as a nation changes need to be made.
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