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Federal Housing Administration HOLC Program
The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) appraisal system established to bolster homeownership after Great Depression.
HOLC appraisal system assigned loan risk scores to neighborhoods between 1930's and 1950's
Neighborhoods with higher density of middle and upper-class whites were rated as "low risk", while nonwhite residential areas rated as "high risk"; working-class white neighborhoods were rated somewhere in between.
Redlining: systematic process of denying home loans to Blacks and those seeking to own creditworthiness
homes in predominantly Black neighborhoods, regardless of qualifications or
(Massey and Denton 1993).
• As a result, between 1936 and 1968, 98% of home loans went to whites
Culture of Poverty
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Racial backstory behind wealth inequality becomes obscured by the "culture of poverty" discourse: idea that the cause of poverty is a deficient culture and poor individual choices,
Originates from anthropologist Oscar Lewis who proposed that people living in poverty develop a subculture that includes characteristics like dependence on welfare, lack of ambition, and feelings of alienation.
Argues that these traits are inherited, causing generational poverty.
Used by politicians, researchers, and policymakers throughout 1960's until today to explain causes of poverty in the U.S. as cultural rather
She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12
Social Security cards and is collecting veterans benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she's collecting Social Security on her cards.
She's got Medicald, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income alone is over $150,000.
-Ronald Reagan, Jan 1976, Asheville N.C Campaign Trail Speech, "Welfare Queen" Becomes Issue in Reagan Campaign" New York Times, F'eb
15,1976
*A warm, supportive home can effectively compensate for many of the restrictions the Negro child faces outside of the ghetto; consequently, the type of home life a Negro enjoys as a child may be far more crucial for governing the influence of segregation upon his personality than the form the segregation takes - legal orinformal, Southern or Northern."52
Culture of Poverty Impact on
Black Communities
Poverty becomes associated with Black culture and Black family dysfunction
Casts low-income communities of color as lazy, dependent, exploiting the welfare system, lacking personal responsibility
These narratives may be internalized by Black individuals (internalized racism)
This discourse used to justify dismantling of social service safety net
Relies on ideology of American exceptionalism and merite-racy
* "The widespread and widely agreed-upon descriptions of Black people as lazy cheats rationalizes the social and economic disparities between African Americans and the rest of the population and absolves the economic and political systems from any real responsibility."- Taylor pg. 14
Goal for this week is not only to understand history of segregation and inequality as it impacts racial wealth disparities; but also
Ideologies circulating in our culture that work to justify and explain those Inequalities, thereby upholding the current system
Resisting the Culture of Poverty Narrative/Myths of Black Cultural Deficiency
Ala counter to overarching narrates of defidency and dysfunction in Black commonties, flack artists, musicians, and writers highlight the beauty and resience in spaces dismissed as "the ghetto".
Nion Stmone: To he.Young, Gilted, and Black (1969) empowering ode to Back youth and creatvity; aimed at reversing impact of double consciousness
• Pommy Mathway "The Ghetto* (1970) celebration of the richness of Black culture i communities, turning a stigmatized wond into a source of pride.
2PAC-*To Live and Die. In L.A." (1996) - A love letter to life in L.A? Black communities
Kendick damar -"Arish" and Blacker the Berry (2015)"- anthems of Black
pride and survival conironting systemie racism while centering strength and
beauty of Blackness rooted in places like Compton.