Residential Racism
It is easy to think that because slavery has already been over and that civil rights have already been fought for that racism is no longer a problem. That is, however, far from the truth. In James W. Loewen's chapter, "Dreaming in Black and White", Loewen discusses how racial discrimination against black people have shaped a very different idea of the American Dream for the black community.
It is easy today, as a millennial, to overlook the subtleties of racism that occur within our daily lives and pass them off as insignificant. Being born into an era in which racial policies have already been eliminated from our society already grants us a different perspective on racism. When the only racial policies you hear of are from your textbook, you think that racism is only something of the past. But when you get older and start to notice that certain people get treated differently, certain neighborhoods tend to have a certain race, and even certain races tend to hang out with each other in high school, the fog around race begins to dissipate. And when you get much older, you learn more and more, especially about how things are outside of your living sphere. To this day, I come across things regarding race that I did not know before, which shape my perspective on society and this world.
In the chapter, Loewen discusses the topic of "sundown towns", which are towns that make an effort to exclude black people from their community and maintain all or majority-white cities, and their effect on the living standards of black and white people. Your environment is one of the most significant factors that can shape who you are and how you perceive the world. If you are living in an all-white town, your perspective on the world is going to be very different compared to if you lived in a more diverse setting. According to Loewen, a 2001 poll stated that, "whites living in overwhelmingly white communities perceived the least discrimination against blacks, while whites in majority black neighborhoods perceived the most" (Loewen, 70). This quote says a lot and comments on how being raised in diverse settings helps one be more aware of the impact that race has on people. Unfortunately, living in all-white towns vs. more diverse settings has more dramatic and significant impacts on its people. The diverted white and black communities took on different paths in which black kids, "developed increasingly different accents and created distinctive vocabulary" (67). In addition, "residential segregation made it more likely that African Americans would receive inferior educations, health care, and other public services" (68-69). The effects or racial policies and behaviors that have been implemented within the neighborhood and residential living areas have clearly impacted the black community to today making the American Dream appear more distant and exclusive to the young African American people.
A pretty surprising fact that also came across to me was when Loewen quoted Leonard and Steinhorn on their observation concerning that, "An Hispanic or Asian with a third grade education is more likely to live among whites than a black with a Ph.D." (69). Why is it that black people are more targeted for residential segregation than any other race? What social and political factors contribute to this fact?
It is easy today, as a millennial, to overlook the subtleties of racism that occur within our daily lives and pass them off as insignificant. Being born into an era in which racial policies have already been eliminated from our society already grants us a different perspective on racism. When the only racial policies you hear of are from your textbook, you think that racism is only something of the past. But when you get older and start to notice that certain people get treated differently, certain neighborhoods tend to have a certain race, and even certain races tend to hang out with each other in high school, the fog around race begins to dissipate. And when you get much older, you learn more and more, especially about how things are outside of your living sphere. To this day, I come across things regarding race that I did not know before, which shape my perspective on society and this world.
In the chapter, Loewen discusses the topic of "sundown towns", which are towns that make an effort to exclude black people from their community and maintain all or majority-white cities, and their effect on the living standards of black and white people. Your environment is one of the most significant factors that can shape who you are and how you perceive the world. If you are living in an all-white town, your perspective on the world is going to be very different compared to if you lived in a more diverse setting. According to Loewen, a 2001 poll stated that, "whites living in overwhelmingly white communities perceived the least discrimination against blacks, while whites in majority black neighborhoods perceived the most" (Loewen, 70). This quote says a lot and comments on how being raised in diverse settings helps one be more aware of the impact that race has on people. Unfortunately, living in all-white towns vs. more diverse settings has more dramatic and significant impacts on its people. The diverted white and black communities took on different paths in which black kids, "developed increasingly different accents and created distinctive vocabulary" (67). In addition, "residential segregation made it more likely that African Americans would receive inferior educations, health care, and other public services" (68-69). The effects or racial policies and behaviors that have been implemented within the neighborhood and residential living areas have clearly impacted the black community to today making the American Dream appear more distant and exclusive to the young African American people.
A pretty surprising fact that also came across to me was when Loewen quoted Leonard and Steinhorn on their observation concerning that, "An Hispanic or Asian with a third grade education is more likely to live among whites than a black with a Ph.D." (69). Why is it that black people are more targeted for residential segregation than any other race? What social and political factors contribute to this fact?
Comments
Post a Comment