Residential Segregation

Introduction to Residential Segregation

  • Focus on systemic and institutional racism in this week’s materials.

  • Traditional views of racism: personal prejudice and bias.

  • Class definition: Racism is systemic and institutional.

Understanding Racism

  • Definition: Racism is a system assigning value based on skin color, unfairly privileging some over others.

  • Influences many social institutions: legal, educational, governmental.

  • Reflected in disparities in wealth, income, justice, education, housing, and more.

Historical Context

  • Articles this week build on Alexander's discussion of social control from slavery to mass incarceration.

  • Examining residential segregation laws in the U.S.:

    • How laws create privilege for some while restricting others.

    • Importance of understanding the historical formation of race and segregation.

Key Texts and Concepts

  • Race, Power, and Illusion:

    • Chapter 1: Race is a social construct, not biological.

    • Chapter 2: Formation of race in the United States.

    • Chapter 3: Institutional segregation and its impacts.

  • Discussion of how institutions shape ideas of race:

    • Racial identity shaped by residential segregation.

    • Access to housing influences life outcomes.

The Role of Institutional Racism

  • Institutionalized racism: Prejudice with power against people of color.

  • Day's definition: Racism is prejudice embedded in systems controlling social advantages.

  • White privilege and how it is conveyed through systemic support for white individuals.

Federal Housing Policies and Segregation

  • Redlining:

    • Grading neighborhoods based on racial composition.

    • Predominantly non-white neighborhoods rated lower, impacting loan access.

    • Systemic barriers to home ownership for people of color.

  • Legal mechanisms:

    • Blockbusting: Manipulating panic among white homeowners to vacate neighborhoods.

    • Racial covenants: Legal clauses banning non-whites from buying homes.

Lasting Impact of Segregation Policies

  • Housing policies created lasting disparities in community wealth and access.

  • John Powell's observations: Privilege often conveyed, not earned; white individuals benefit from systemic advantages.

  • Present-day effects show continuation of these disparities.

The Green Book

  • History and significance of The Green Book for people of color traveling in America.

  • Provided safe listings of businesses and services that welcomed black travelers.

  • Shift in necessity post-civil rights movement, but indicates historical need for safety in public lives.

Sundown Towns

  • Defined: Organized jurisdictions that maintained all-white populations and excluded people of color.

  • Emergence from the civil war, peaking from 1890 to 1968.

  • Examples highlight both violence and legislation used to enforce these boundaries.

Evidence and Imagery

  • Use of visual materials to depict segregation and its impacts over time:

    • Tulsa riots of 1921, segregation signage, historical meetings held by white residents to enforce separation.

Conclusion

  • Connection between historical segregation practices and present racial dynamics in housing and community wealth.

  • Importance of understanding these legacies in shaping current societal structures.