Race and Culture Chapter 5
What 1930s government policy was known as the Mexican Repatriation Program?
Mexican families, including U.S. citizens, were rounded up and sent via train to Mexico
How many repartiated mexicans were U.S. Citezens
More than half
economic consequences
Mortgages with inflated interest rates and high monthly payments for homes with lower property values Proximity to well-paying jobs, successful networks Address used as proxy for race in job applications
Origins of the Ghetto
Most housing was built for whites during the 1930s-1940s, creating housing shortages. The Federal Housing Administration denied loans to many nonwhites. Real estate brokers refused to show designated areas to nonwhites.
Mexican Migration and Urbanization
Moved north for agriculture jobs Whites blame them for the unemployment crisis of the Depression 1930-Mexicans sent back to Mexico
where dont dumping laws apply?
Native American Reservations
Living Conditions during Segregation
Old, dilapidated housing, often infected with rats and bugs; leaky; cold Far away from normal institutions like hospitals, grocery stores, banks, and similar facilities Higher crime rates
Segregation in major cities during the 19th century were ___________ of what they are today
less than half
Ethnic Enclaves
locations with a high concentration of one specific ethnicity
Urban unrest 1967-1968
Explosions, Targeted white owned businesses that mistreated or refused to hire blacks
The suburbs are all affluent and all white
FALSE
In the mid-twentieth century, how did the Federal Housing Administration, lenders, and white homeowners work together to encourage racial residential segregation?
FHA:Loan Programs for whites moving to the suburbs Lenders: Offered loand at inflated rates to blacks White homeowners: added clauses to their deeds to only sell to whites
Racial segregation is ultimately explained by economic factors. As a case in point, the most affluent African Americans are far less likely to live in segregated neighborhoods.
False
Rural America
Farming areas, small towns, and Indian reservations are just as racially segregated as urban areas.
Describe how housing shortages led to the rise of racialized neighborhoods.
From the Great Depression to the mid-1940s, major U.S. cities experienced housing shortages. While the shortage encouraged housing development, discriminatory efforts of the federal government and the housing market forced nonwhite populations to live in teeming slums.
Being forced to live in an area that lacks normal institutions (like banks, grocery stores, and hospital) is a(n) _______ consequence of racial segregation for nonwhites.
Material
Learn more about the ways environmental racism disadvantages nonwhite rural communities, particularly those on American Indian reservations.
(1) American Indians living on reservations, which are not subject to stringent environmental regulations, are exposed to some of the worst air and water pollution in the country. (2) Poor rural black communities, especially those located in the Deep South, also have been sacrificed to house the nation's waste (e.g., fertilizers, gasoline, paints and plastics).
Examine how poverty levels, unemployment rates, and demographic changes have transformed the suburbs since the 1990s.
(1) Since the 1990s, poverty has been on the rise in many suburbs. (2) The result has been the beginnings of "suburban ghettos," areas with extremely high poverty and unemployment rates, detached from social services and employment opportunities.
Explain why most Americans continue to live in racially segregated neighborhoods.
(1) economic factors (2) personal choices (3) housing discrimination (e.g., misinformation and steering by realtors ).
Discuss how the lack of housing assistance, combined with flat incomes at the bottom of the economic distribution and rising housing costs, has disproportionately affected families in poor, minority neighborhoods.
1) lack of housing assistance, (2) flat incomes at the bottom of the economic distribution (3) rising housing costs
Personal Choice contributes to Racial Segregation
A survey of Milwaukee residents claimed that "people of different races choose to live in communities with people of their own race." However, the Detroit Area Survey shows otherwise.
How many Mexicans were sent back to Mexico
2 million
The Detroit Area Survey found that the majority of African Americans said the ideal neighborhood would be _______ percent black and _______ percent white.
50;50
By how much did suburban poverty levels rise between 2000-2010
53%
Banks and loan companies reject nonwhites ____ more often than identical whites.
56%
symbolic consequences of segregation
Mental segregation: racial segregation gives off the appearance that racial divisions are real, natural, and unchanging
Segregation Today
: the average black person in Milwaukee resides in a neighborhood that is over 70 percent black
Redlining
A process by which banks draw lines on a map and refuse to lend money to purchase or improve property within the boundaries.
The ghetto
A set of neighborhoods that are exclusively inhabited by members of one group, within which virtually all members of that group in that particular city live
Black Power Movement
African American movement that focused on gaining control of economic and political power to achieve equal rights by force in necessary. (Malcolm X)
Who are far more likely to have environmental hazards than white ones
Blacks and Latinos
How did slumlords make money
By ignoring housing repairs and occupancy codes and by charging inflated rents.
Who benefits from environmental racism
Companies that profit from creating pollution or from disposing of it Corrupt politicians interested in funding their campaigns If you are privileged enough to live in an area without extreme environmental hazards, then you benefit
White homeowners would leave these in their deeds to ensure a neighborhood would stay white
Covenants
Emotional Consequences of Segregation
Creates a sense of personal inadequacy and inferiority among marginalized groups Conversely, gives whites a sense of superiority, reinforcing a preference for segregation
The Suburbs
Cul de sac communities promote isolation. Gated communities promote safety with walls, security guards, and surveillance. These neighborhoods are home to 8 million Americans
What causes Racial Segrgation?
Economic Factors Personal Choice
What are the consequences of segregation?
Economic, Living Conditions, Political , Symbolic, Emotional , Educational
What problems do rural white communities face ?
Environmental devastation Isolation from economic opportunities Inadequate housing Trailer parks and the "blemish of place" Stereotyped as backward, intolerant, or racist (they haven't adopted ways of hiding their views behind coded language) Neglect by government leaders
Describe how the migration of whites to the suburbs led to the rise of racialized neighborhoods.
In the 1950s, the federal government endorsed white migration to the suburbs through loan programs administered by the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration. Fearing racial integration, many whites, who had the means to do so, sold their houses in the city and fled to the suburbs. As a result, neighborhoods changed rapidly in their racial composition, from completely white to completely black in only a few years.
According to the text, the ghetto first originated as an area of the city where _______ were cordoned off from the rest of the population.
Jews
Black Migration and Urbanization
Many tribes were terminated between 1953 and 1973. By 1990, more than 60 percent had been relocated to cities.
Native American Migration and Urbanization
Many tribes were terminated between 1953 and 1973. By 1990, more than 60 percent had been relocated to cities..
Political consequences of Segregation
Marginalizes nonwhites; politicians ignore them Erodes hope of interracial collaboration
urban renewal
Program in which cities identify blighted inner-city neighborhoods, acquire the properties from private members, relocate the residents and businesses, clear the site, build new roads and utilities, and turn the land over to private developers.
1968 Fair Housing Act
Prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing-related transactions, based on race, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and handicap Passed after Kings assassination Weak enforcement
Educational Consequences of Segregation
Property values determine property taxes. Roughly half of all property tax revenue is used for public elementary and secondary education. Thus, low-income areas have much smaller education budgets. As a result, schooling erodes. For many students, schooling becomes of less concern than staying safe and making ends meet.
Interracial Conflict
Racial domination can distort and hide the real causes of poverty and misery under false arguments that attribute those causes to certain dominated groups. Ex: Blacks resent koreans for basic misunderstandings
Colonias
Severely impoverished unincorporated areas along the Texas-Mexico border with a multitude of problems, including substandard housing, unsanitary drinking water, and lack of proper sewage disposal.
According to the _______ thesis, new immigrants self-segregate in ethnic enclaves only until they are able to assimilate economically and culturally and move on.
Spatial assimilation
White people are more likely to live in segregated neighborhoods than any other racial or ethnic group.
TRUE
Detroit Area Survey
The majority of blacks said the ideal neighborhood is one with 50 percent black and 50 percent white residents. But 84 percent of whites said they would not enter a neighborhood that was 50 percent black and 50 percent white (blacks' ideal neighborhood). A quarter of whites said that a single black neighbor would make them uncomfortable.
Describe how urbanization led to the rise of racialized neighborhoods.
The rise of industrialism, which facilitated the rise of cities, attracted thousands of people—immigrants, blacks, Mexicans, whites, Asians—to roiling metropolises. As they poured into cities, some ethnic groups tended to cluster together in neighborhoods, many living in crowded, dilapidated slums.
America is more racially segregated today than at the conclusion of the Civil War.
True
Describe how urban unrest led to the rise of racialized neighborhoods.
Urban unrest in Harlem (1964), Watts (1965), Detroit (1967), Washington D.C. and others (1968) contributed to the idea, among whites, that cities were not safe. As a result, white flight increased.
Results of racial uprisings
Welfare payments, low income housing subsidies, job programs, summer programs for young people, police repression in the black community
What was the median rent for blacks and whites in 1960
Whites: $64 Blacks: $76
Defining characteristics of the ghetto
advanced marginality; in other words, severe spatial and social segregation of residents, marked by their exclusion from economic prosperity, national security, collective imagination and memory, and state welfare services
During the twentieth century, prosperous European immigrants were able to move out of the slums .....
and assimilate into the white American mainstream.
enviromental racism
any environmental policy or practice that negatively affects individuals, groups, or communities because of their race or ethnicity Radioeactive dumping, dangerous air emissions
Blacks were exploited as
cheap an expendable labor force
Racial Segregation
enclaves are a result of racial discrimination in housing
Spatial Assimilation Thesis
enclaves are a starting point on the way to economic and cultural assimilation
By the 1920s, many neighborhoods based on on close-knit ethnic affiliations were
giving way to urban divisions based on race and class.
Economic contributors to racial segregation
here are class-based inequalities. However, in northern cities, blacks who make over $50,000 are just as segregated as those making minimum wage.
Segregation at the beginning of the 20th Century
majority of blacks in northern cities lived in majority-white neighborhoods
Segregation at the end of the 20th century
majority of blacks lived in majority-black neighborhoods.
Which of the following best describes the Great Migration?
millions of southern African Americans moving north in search of better opportunities
Ethnic Community Thesis
some individuals prefer to live among people who eat the same food, celebrate the same holidays, and speak the same language they do
Segregation 1890
the average black person living in Milwaukee resided in a neighborhood that was 1 percent black
How is racial segregation measured ?
the degree to which certain groups are distributed throughout the city
millions of southern African Americans moving north in search of better opportunities
urban renewal
Who is most likley to live in segregated neighborhoods
whites
White Flight
working and middle-class white people move away from racial-minority suburbs or inner-city neighborhoods to white suburbs and exurbs in the 1950's