Keep your eyes on this page for updated opportunities to improve your grade via extra credit assignments. They will be in the form of either video or reading, and an honest, full, response is required to be considered extra credit. Points will go towards lowest graded assignment.
10/22/2015
Extra Credit Opportunity:
Construct a response to the following article, in light of having watched Pt. 3: The House We Live In. How much has changed in our nation since racist FHA practices? What do you think of what’s presented in the article here? Does this affect you– maybe even your community?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/georgia/
Poke around this site and read/watch/learn more about the Lost Children of Rockdale County. Consider how this syphilis outbreak, news coverage, and treatment varied from previous treatment of people with the illness (i.e., Tuskegee)
Post your comments below.
Nothing can compare to the Tuskegee treatment. It is considered unethical no matter how much people you ask today. You cannot just not tell them as to what is going on, why they are being probed around, and such these days. We have consent forms to sign, legal actions to be utilized, government to complain to, petitions, strikes, riots, all these types of “freedom of speech” to basically bitch out your opinions about whether what is going on is right or wrong and to have something done about it so it never happens again.
With the Rockdale County syphilis outbreak, it was treated differently because of the public health noticing some weird stats on a small county. They want to know as to why the numbers were increasing. They found out that it is a group of teenagers being teenagers; drinking alcohol, taking drugs, and having sex with one another or more. They took action so that it wouldn’t spread anymore and want to know how it came about in the first place. With the quick response, they are able to have it under control again and to have the parents notified that their children are doing such and such. Meetings with the parents and with the adolescence were taken place, hence either the parents taking action by leaving the state, and/or “therapy” for the kids who created this groupie; to provide statements upon statements as to what is going on. The public health wanted to know how this came, and constructed all these maps and graphs of where it could have been originated from, so they can control it. This has the medical practice change a bit too, where doctors are now not to assume based on their age. The government also created these organizations or “safe places” for the teens to dwell in, while supervision is present. The community took action to create opportunities for the young ones to contribute to their neighborhood, family, etc.
In conclusion, the government, community, families, the young people themselves took actions in order to stabilize the outbreak in Rockdale County. Maybe you can say it is that they “united” to take control. The Tuskegee did not do any of this, they kept everyone in the dark, and took advantage of the vulnerable ones.
Very thoughtful response– Thanks for submitting the extra credit, you raised good points, summarized the case well, and compared it to the Tuskegee incident. Well done!
Construct a response to the following article, in light of having watched Pt. 3: The House We Live In. How much has changed in our nation since racist FHA practices? What do you think of what’s presented in the article here? Does this affect you– maybe even your community?
FHA practices are going to be biased one way or another, if they don’t protect minorities they are racist policies, and if they do they are statistically poor policies. The issue isn’t that you have to weigh the statistics of neighborhood value, apartment value and building value against having a black or minority tenant. The issue is where will those people go and what will happen to them if they aren’t protected by federal housing laws. Since we are a democratic republic we have to look after our citizens and their well being rather than the wealth of individuals; but this would not be the case if we were a purely capitalistic country such as Saudi Arabia, where wealth is the government.
The article is fairly relevant, as the 2nd week into the semester I buried one grandmother and last weekend buried the other. One had a house that she owned and needs to be sold, the other had a rent controlled apartment with a now disputed title. In the case of the house they don’t care who it sells to as long as they buy it as is within a price range, but we have had many people (including Hasidim) come and try and undercut. The apartment is a mess, to the point where the family might as well accept being bought out of it since they don’t have any plans to live there at the moment. And living in Astoria, one of the neighborhoods that has been exponentially growing in price, value and culture this is happening on a very large scale. We have huge blocks of apartment buildings, that are being bought up, tore down, built up into luxury condo’s and rented for triple the previous rent. In the early 2000’s the price of rent in my neighborhood was about 650-850$ a month for a studio, it is now almost $1600 a month for smaller studios, and over two grand for ones with larger areas.
Construct a response to the following article, in light of having watched Pt. 3: The House We Live In. How much has changed in our nation since racist FHA practices? What do you think of what’s presented in the article here? Does this affect you– maybe even your community?
Apparently the article illustrated that not much has changed since the racist FHA practices. In Race Episode 3, white people and realtors associated blacks with devaluing property value. If a black family moves into a white residential suburban area, the property value of houses in the area would drop due to people not looking for houses in the area and people moving out. A white man interviewed in episode 3 stated that he had no problem with black people. The problem was with the economic influence that they brought in. The housing values were going down.
Similarly in the article, a man is abusing the knowledge that property values can go down based on the racial group that a tenant fall under. After purchasing hundreds of deeds and paying off the mortgages on the buildings that have only a little mortgage left to be paid, he eventually moved into the business of acquisitions and development. The buildings with big mortgage left, he didn’t care about. The properties are still useful because he is able to collect rent off of them until the banks foreclose (the price to obtain the deed is lower compare to almost fully paid off mortgage). Now that he owns some of the buildings, he prey on the unknowing tenants. He would normally pay off the tenants to vacate the building but I doubt that is the only method he used. Minor development work is then done or maybe none at all. After that the landlord would rent out the building to new sets of tenants preferably white so that rent value can stay high. If a minority group such as black move in or visit one of the tenant living in the building, the value would go down. By renting to whites, this allows the landlord to charge 2-3 times more for rent compare to the rent amount before owning the building (where a diverse group of people live).
The thought of what the landlord is doing disgust me. This is done in NYC, a city of diverse group of people. If other landlords do the same and rent out to white tenants where will the other minority group live. Additionally, I doubt the white tenants want to pay a high rate for rent. In a way, some of them deserve it because they wanted to live in a building without black tenants. It is a terrible practice. He is forcing out tenants who are unaware of laws in place to help protect them from such practices. Some of them being paid a tiny fraction of the price of what landlord property will be worth later on. He deceives the tenants so he can profit more by renting out to a specific group of people. In addition, the building hardly had any development work done that would make the new rent justifiable. This is being done in NYC so I believe it affects a large amount of people in the community. The man has move from one neighborhood to another and expanding. One area that is mainly a certain group of individuals can easily be change into a neighborhood of another group of individuals such as white. A predator such as the man in the article can do the same to your community.
Construct a response to the following article, in light of having watched Pt. 3: The House We Live In. How much has changed in our nation since racist FHA practices? What do you think of what’s presented in the article here? Does this affect you– maybe even your community?
Even with the advent of the fair housing act, the screening of tenants based on their race is still a very deliberate process. The only thing that’s changed is that people are less open about their discrimination and more hush-hush. As shown in the article, black people are being intentionally tricked out of their home and scammed because their rent cost is lower compared to having white people pay. They are being pushed further and further to the outskirts of town where communities are worse and resources are less by greedy selfish landowners. The black people in the article were exploited because they didn’t know any better about the laws or they really needed the money that was offered to them. To be forced out of their homes like that, it’s really wrong. I can’t believe that another tenant would say that they’re not gonna pay that much for rent just because they saw a person bring ONE black person in as roommate. The things that go through these people’s minds. I really can’t understand how some people can be so rude and inhumane. The article is really an eyeopener to how housing really works. Props to the author for publishing and exposing it.
Construct a response to the following article, in light of having watched Pt. 3: The House We Live In. How much has changed in our nation since racist FHA practices? What do you think of what’s presented in the article here? Does this affect you– maybe even your community?
I would love to believe that compared to years ago, we have come a long way in the fight against racism. But reading this article here literally sounds exactly like the unjust housing practices we learned about, where an influx of minorities caused “white flight.” Although this property owner is trying to prevent white flight by actually buying out minority property at low prices to then sell it back at a higher value to whites. He knows he is buying properties for dirt cheap, knowing the value will increase to be worth millions in these poor, but up and coming neighborhoods. Push out the poor minorities, bring in whites, and your property value increases. It’s literally post World War II housing practices at work. The worst part is, he is doing this to people who clearly do not know their rights as far as properties and housing. I am not sure if gentrification or racism are mostly to blame, but this man is certainly letting profit corrupt his moral values.
As far as this affecting me, I think gentrification in New York City has the serious side effect of displacing poor people and leaving them without a place to live. I think this may be as much of problem of economic stratification as it might be racism, as history has shown usually minorities suffer the negative impacts of this. In my neighborhood alone, we have had several big name stores (one of them being Target) move in to profit off of the gentrification, and it has run several mom and pop stores out of business. I have pretty strong feelings about the whole gentrification thing, as I feel it is racism disguised as economic reinvestment. Harlem was once redlined and now seems to be a popular spot for people to try to invest in. I just hope this isn’t history repeating itself.
The Lost Children of Rockdale County
This was very difficult to read because it involved such young children who did not know how dangerous the world is. Their innocence taken away. I can remember being a teenager and some of the girls around me using drugs and being sexually active. The peer pressure is so great and heavy on children to seem normal, to fit in to be part of the group, to be accepted. It is so difficult to fight against it. The children do not understand the changes their bodies are going through. Hormones makes us do crazy things. We don’t understand until it hits us. For those females who have PMS every month, you may understand that sometimes you do something but it is not the normal you and then you questions yourself or your boyfriend or husband wants to know know whats wrong with you. Children need adults to listen and not blame. Teach and be patient not rebuke and chastise. When a child has a child, no one can teach the other because both are growing up. I think these children did not understand what they were getting into and they lost their way.
They needed help to get back in control of their lives. It is okay sometimes to make mistakes so long as we learn from them.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/grim-racist-methods-of-one-brooklyn-landlord.html?mid=fb-share-di
The Fair Housing Act (FHAct), which is title VIII of
the Civil Rights Act of 1968, as amended (42 USC
3601 et seq.), makes it unlawful for any lender to
discriminate in its housing-related lending activities
against any person because of race, color, religion,
national origin, sex, handicap, or familial status.
Anyone who is in the business of providing
housing-related loans is subject to the FHAct (as
well as the Equal Credit Opportunity Act)
The way that Brooklyn Landlords are treating people of different races is very wrong. It is discrimination. It hurts not to be able to live in any area that I want to. I don’t like it when people stay away from me or treat me differently. I am not dirty. Just because I look different does not mean any one should shun me, yet they do. This makes me depressed. People still live in segregated neighborhoods today. You can tell when you go through an area and their are only certain kinds of people there. The law does not change the way people think. Until the shoe is on the other foot…. does an individual understand what it feels like. It is truly sad.
Construct a response to the following article, in light of having watched Pt. 3: The House We Live In. How much has changed in our nation since racist FHA practices? What do you think of what’s presented in the article here? Does this affect you– maybe even your community?
From reading the article, in our nation, nothing has changed since racist FHA practices only that people are more discreet. Blacks are still seen as a depreciation of property value while whites are seen as a rise in property value.
In the article, the difference between that and the Pt. 3: The House We Live In is that Jews are also discriminating against Black, Ephraim, the homeowner tries to bribe Blacks and other methods not mentioned were probably conducted to remove every black tenants from his apartments to replace them with white tenants to raise the property value so whites will be willing to pay more to live in a white only apartment. I don’t like what I read in the article, especially the man going by the name Ephraim using bribes, and trickery to get black tenants to leave just to reach an agenda.
This does affect my community, although the discrimination is either discreet or open. From the article, I can say for sure that there will be those like Ephraim doing something similar going from neighborhoods to neighborhoods.
Poke around this site and read/watch/learn more about the Lost Children of Rockdale County. Consider how this syphilis outbreak, news coverage, and treatment varied from previous treatment of people with the illness (i.e., Tuskegee)
The conclusion I’m drawing from the Lost Children of Rockdale County, people don’t want a stranger advising their children, want less government involvement and want more involvement, more parenting than befriending their children. Just like in the Tuskegee study when an organization gets involved with the government something goes wrong and appropriate treatment is not administered. Teenplus introduced by the government although will prevent pregnancies, in exchange it promotes sexual activities when women/girls think they won’t get pregnant with condoms and birth control. Compared to the Tuskegee study, the Lost Children of Rockdale County, children were discovered to have STD during the outbreak and have given people an open-eye to prevent it spreading and help the children however, in the case of Tuskegee, the hopeless one are cast off.
Construct a response to the following article, in light of having watched Pt. 3: The House We Live In. How much has changed in our nation since racist FHA practices? What do you think of what’s presented in the article here? Does this affect you– maybe even your community?
Not much has changed at least in my eyes. There are neighborhoods who have predominantly minority tenants living in those areas and neighborhoods with mostly white families living in them. This can be a cause of maybe the lack of education between minorities and white people. There are also instances where landlords also practice discrimination against minority tenants even though it is illegal. What is presented in the article seems pretty accurate because of some of the things mentioned like white families being scared out of their apartments simply because a minority family is living right by them still happens today. This does affect my community because there are certain parts of the neighborhood where there is no other families other than low income minority families living there and a little further away from the neighborhoods you start seeing better homes with white families living in them.
How much has changed in our nation since racist FHA practices? What do you think of what’s presented in the article here? Does this affect you– maybe even your community?
i think fair housing policy has changed things a little bit but the practices of unfair housing are still going on today. fair housing laws do protect most people ;however, landlords can still deny you an application for a rent based on other things like credit reports. this affects everyone in our communities because most people would rather move to a different place than spend money on lawyers. also there is cases where people can be given unfair treatment in a building that they live, and would rather move than living with other neighbors. as a minority, i can say that people still follow those practices and it hasn’t changed a lot.