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.
I questioned if this actually still goes on today. I’m not surprised. The fact that there are people who still prefer to be separated from Blacks are unsettling. From a business point of view I’m not mad at Ephraim if there are all whites he can charge more. It’s weird because he would charge the whites more and the blacks less right? I’m guessing the difference between the two is how the environment is kept inside the building and around it for that matter. If the FHA hasn’t changed much since a neighborhood populated by whites only would have a better environment I’m guessing because there is more money floating around more taxes being paid more care for “their” people. Is crazy because I’ve seen this before there’s a demarcation point which separates Jamaica from Hillside and once you cross that line there’s an immediate environmental difference everything just looks so much nicer. What we’ve watched today and the reading of this article has opened my eyes to the world I’m headed into when considering where to live. How can someone of color get around the system. Even now on tv you see actors and actresses, rappers trying to look more white. I believe Nicki Minaj bleached her skin and now I hear Raven Simone is claiming that she isn’t even black. Are things really that bad? Is race viewed the same in other countries? I wonder if we did have an all black community which were successful socioeconomically with high prestige. At the same level of a white community how different would they be from each other. Would the black houses still be worth less just because it was owned by a black person? Would they buy out the black community and move in White families for profit?
Everything has gotten so out of hand the people of this country are used to things being this way and now the government is just turning profit.
This article re enforced what was shown in part 3: The house we live in. Housing not being made available to African American because the value of the property will go down or Caucasians will not be happy with them there. I knew that Jewish people were doing this because they did that to the building I used to live in. They bought out all the tenants. They fixed what needed to be fixed and charged new tenants twice or triple the rent. Now when I pass by my old neighborhood it looks so different than before. The apartments that used to be $600-800 a month are $1400 or more and all of the people that live there are Caucasians. The last time I went by, I had a conversation with the guy from the corner store that was working there when I used to live there. I told him that I was so surprised how the neighborhood had changed and he said “yes you have to make good money and be white to live around here now”. It’s very sad that things are this way and this article shows you are racism is not only a thing of the past.
To be honest though… I can kind of see the point that the guy in the article is making. Basically it’s all about the money. Renting is still essentially a business, and your tenants are the customers. And while the famous motto “The customers are always right” seems to be in play here, it’s not always the case. But from a business stand point, if you are just talking purely money, and you take morality out of the equation, then that motto is actually sound, since pleasing the customers keeps them paying. I’m not saying I agree with this, but I am saying that I understand his point of view. Although you have to question whether that makes you racist, even if indirectly. I have been to a few apartments before and see a lot of petty disputes that sound kind of like this. I also have a relative that used to be part of the board of association for a building that was being rented out to tenants, but after a couple years, gave up and quit the board because in their exact words “too much drama, and BS, and no one taking advice”, which I can kind of see too, especially with the video we saw in class, and with this article.
A lot has changed in this nation since racist FHA for the Jews, Italians, and other Europeans, but more importantly, a lot more hasn’t change for black African America and other poor minorities. It brings me back to the never ending classification of race and the penalty blacks have to face for the color of their skin. It still shows how the laws and practices affect the opportunities of African Americans, and how it still solidifies racial inequality and differences in this nation. And for Ephraim (developer and landlord), I really don’t want to cast blame on him for his action for putting white tenants in his buildings, because to him, it’s all about business, all about making his money, all about following the roller coaster of the system. However, for me, It’s just unfortunate to know how blacks in this nation have been price tagged – meaning they have been labeled with a tag that shows how to treat them, what to offer them, where to place them, and the like. This has also affect me and I believe others in my community, because there was a mortgage program at York College some years ago and was surprised and shocked to find out that they had programs to lower your mortgage but was hidden from blacks, but widely open to whites. It was just from a good source that I and my aunt (who was the owner of the house) found out from her white friend about the program and was fortunate to get the mortgage lowered down from over $2,300 to a stunning $1,500/change – but not with the surprising expression (as if to say, how did you know about this program?), on the face of the white lady that helped us. How sad racial differences, racial inequality and opportunities is depriving others from living the way they want to live.