geography of race and ethnicity

sem2 2025, geog 1770 uvm

identity politics

intersectionality

1985 MOVE bombing

mobility

rodney king riots

casual discrimination

orientalism

Idea of the “other”, “us” vs “them”... ultimately disruptive to both, seen by “us” as benefiting the “other”

us vs them

orientalist view, seen by “us” as benefiting the “other”

Vagrancy laws

• Vagrancy: implies you don’t belong in a place (ex: bathrooms for customers) 

• These laws were tied closely with the legacy of slave patrols 

jim crow

• Apocryphal: references a historical figure that didn’t exist (like king arthur) 

  • Straw man (created idea of people/behaviors)

Apocryphal

• references a historical figure that didn’t exist (like king arthur) 

steering

• Housing Discrimination & Fair Housing Acts

• the practice of pushing or deceiving loan applicants into applying for more costly loans.

blockbusting

• Housing Discrimination & Fair Housing Acts

• the practice of persuading owners to sell property cheaply because of the fear of people of another ethnic or social group moving into the neighborhood, and then profiting by reselling at a higher price.

redlining

• Housing Discrimination & Fair Housing Acts

• Redlining is a discriminatory practice in which financial services are withheld from neighborhoods that have significant numbers of racial and ethnic minorities.

• (illegal)

Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968

creative destruction and suburbs

peak modernism

robert moses

poopy head

designed cities to disrupt public transit

jane jacobs

Life and Death of American Cities

prevented NYC from putting a highway through public areas

levittowns

• hyper-privatization of life

• created to be mass affordable suburban housing post w war 2

• Deed-restricted developments (usually by one developer)

• First in Nassau counter, Long Island (1947), then NJ and PA

• Ben Levitt put in leases “the tenant agrees not to permit the premises to be used or occupied by any  person other than members of the caucasian race” 

  • This wasn’t outlawed till the late 60s

pruit-igoe

(St. Louis)

• 1954-74

• Failed public housing project

• “Death of modernism”

• They didn’t address the gaps, they just put already disadvantaged people all in one (less personal) place, which made things even more fragile 

• “Slums”

  • Geophysically precarious 

  • Cheap, crowded

  • Poor access  

  • Yet, rowhouses create community… however, public housing was viewed as communist  

edge cities

• Joel Garreau’ estimates in the 90s that…

  • 5,000,000+ sq ft of office space

  • 600,000+ sq ft of retail space

  • More jobs than bedrooms

  • “It has it all!” (entertainment, food, shopping due to the reconcentration of wealth)

  • Hardly “urban” circa 1945

  • People don’t lives here as much as they work here 

  • “Central business district” 

• AC grew the south

minstrelsy

uncle remus

• Remus is invented by Jole Chandler Harris in Atlanta, GA

  • “Composite character” (another apocryphal!)

  • Used by white writers/directors/etc to tell southern folk stories… “happy slave” narrative

    • Pushes the idea that people are happier with fewer rights

    • 1840s/50s “science” that non-white people are biologically better at serving

mammy figure

thomas rice

• Rice had a character called Jim Crow…

  • Grew up rich, worked in the theater! 

george washington dixon

• Dixon wrote* a “famous” song in 1834…melody has stuck (ice cream truck song!) but original words are racist. 

  • Grew up in the circus 

  • Implies the character is dumb for trying to assimilate into “superior white society” 

uvm kake walk

didn’t stop till late 1960s

stephan foster

• “Father of american popular music”

• b. July 4, 1826 in Pittsburgh, moved to Cincinnati in 1846, d. 1864 in NYC, destitute 

Robery Scott Duncanson

“View of Cincinnati from Covington, KY” 

• Shows the separation of the industrial north and stuck in old ways south 

• Cincinnati was one of the biggest mixed race cities 

• *Miscegenation: race mixing, as well as the political/social component of such

• “Oh! Susanna” (His first hit !) 

Miscegenation

• race mixing, as well as the political/social component of such

blacface iconography

• Cartoon characters like “Bosco”... meant to be like Jolsons blackface characters 

• And lowkey? Mickey Mouse?

• Amos and Andy

tribute vs clash/appreciation vs appropriation

• Modern artists who have affected 

• Eminem, Elvis, Yung Gravy, Vanilla Ice 

pullman porters

• George Pullman  

• Sleeping car on trains, new luxury (for upper and middle class folks)

• Hired Black porters 

  • Pullman knew these people were easier to exploit than white workers (he didn't hire them to be progressive) 

  • Emergence of tipping culture 

    • Black people were excluded from labor unions and therefore did not demand the same wages as white people (based around exploitation) 

early film industry

• Jersey (Edison) 

  • Jacksonville (1908-20) – Southern Baptists looked down on the queer, drug using, party heavy movie makers 

    •  LA (1910-??) – had mountains, oceans, deserts (westerns!) 

• Film as underground/working class/radical art  (looked down on, like people look down on youtubers) 

Oscar Micheaux

• “Race films”

  • Indicator that the film was made by black people or made for black people 

• His movies are the oldest that have survived 

• Reactionary to Birth of Our Nation, to clap back on racist stereotypes  

richard norman

• Based in Jacksonville 

• Realized there was a Black audience for movies

  • So he reshot white movies w/ Black casts  

• It was fairly progressive, but he viewed it as a $ opportunity 

will hayes and the motion picture production code

• 1922 saw a rise in Hollywood scandals & money

• Studios didn't want to self censor– them being authentic and scandalous made money 

• MPPC was fully enacted in 1934, with the Production Code Administration

  • Those who created it wanted to prevent the public from getting reactionary ideas 

  • Rise of “family entertainment” 

  • Code’s “sexual perversion” = homosexuality or polyamory in any form 

  • “Sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin”

  • “Law (natural of human*) shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for it violation” 

  • Etc

boston

classical assimilation

• (melting pot ideal)

• Chicago school of sociology (1920s)

• Immigrants make upward mobility to intermix with host society (white middle class)

• Spatial movement away from “downtown”

• The “modern minority”

  • Idea that some groups blended in better than others and that others could never assimilate this well 

• Assumes initial clustering that fans out  

ethnoburbs

place stratification

• Place stratification (housing discrimination and racial prejudices to regulate minorities

resurgent ethnicity

• Resurgent ethnicity (when discrimination fades, resegregation due to in group preferences) 

somalis in maine

• Lewiston and Portland… though the oldest and whitest state, a wave of community came into Maine

• Impacts: Economy boost, reversed crime rates, farming innovation, etc!

roxbury

boston busing

boston now

new edition

marky mark and the funky bunch

chinatown and the combat zone

charles stuart

washington dc

“chocolate city”

citizen rights and fight for statehood

“the plan”

chinatown (DC)

bens chili bowl