Race v. Ethnicity
As an African American, I have never been asked “What ethnicity are you?” As we discussed in class, race in America is the most recognizable marker of “otherness” and it is assigned to you by other people. Ethnicity is something that is individually constructed and harder to distinguish by the general public. In America, it is more desirable to be any other ethnicity than African American (regular black).
The African American culture has become devalued and things associated with the culture are markers of being a racialized minority. Although my grandmother was half Native American, this is not a part of the race that I have been assigned. The only time I am ever asked about my heritage is by other African Americans; they can tell by my hair and skin tone that I am “mixed with something”. Until we had the discussion in class on racialization and how race and ethnicity play a role in inequality, I had never thought about how the question of what ethnicity I identify myself with has affected my life.
One of my favorite movies growing up was Imitation of Life. In the movie, the story centers on an African American mother and daughter who struggle with race and ethnicity during the 1920’s. The mother, Annie, was very dark skinned and worked as a nanny for a White family. Her daughter was very fair skinned and could pass for white. Throughout the movie, the women struggle with the implications of being African American at a time when this association caused them physical and mental abuse. I have often wondered what life would be like if I had stronger looks that denoted my Native American heritage. Perhaps I would be even more stigmatized or maybe its best that I identify with the same race that people designate me as.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
St. Louis Housing Market
Racial Discrimination in the Housing Market
The discussion that we had in class about they way that race becomes a marker of “otherness” and how it is used to keep racialized minorities out of certain aspects of American life reminded me of a conversation that I had with my grandmother and my great aunts. My mother’s family has been in St. Louis for generations and the slides that we saw about the discrimination in the housing market here is something that I had just discussed with them the week before.
The church that I attend is in the Ville neighborhood which was historically an area of St. Louis where the well-to-do Black people lived. The Ville was home to its own supermarket, schools, tailors, cleaners, printers and even college at one point. This city within a city arose out of the housing laws in St. Louis that banned Black people from most communities. At our church, there is a copy of one such document that clearly forbids the sale of any houses in that particular neighborhood to “colored” people.
My aunt told me that when she first went to buy her house back in the 1960´s she had a similar experience with realtors. They would only show her houses in certain areas of St. Louis regardless of where she requested. She also said that when she finally found the house that she wanted, she went to make the down payment which she paid cash for and the banker hassled her about where she got the money from and warned that they didn’t take drug money. If she had been a White woman, the banker would have happily taken her payment and welcomed her business.
Something so essential to achieving the American Dream has been taken away from many Americans through housing discrimination. As the market starts to stabilize and people begin to buy homes again, one can only hope that this type of discrimination will be outweighed by the need for the market to go up again.
The discussion that we had in class about they way that race becomes a marker of “otherness” and how it is used to keep racialized minorities out of certain aspects of American life reminded me of a conversation that I had with my grandmother and my great aunts. My mother’s family has been in St. Louis for generations and the slides that we saw about the discrimination in the housing market here is something that I had just discussed with them the week before.
The church that I attend is in the Ville neighborhood which was historically an area of St. Louis where the well-to-do Black people lived. The Ville was home to its own supermarket, schools, tailors, cleaners, printers and even college at one point. This city within a city arose out of the housing laws in St. Louis that banned Black people from most communities. At our church, there is a copy of one such document that clearly forbids the sale of any houses in that particular neighborhood to “colored” people.
My aunt told me that when she first went to buy her house back in the 1960´s she had a similar experience with realtors. They would only show her houses in certain areas of St. Louis regardless of where she requested. She also said that when she finally found the house that she wanted, she went to make the down payment which she paid cash for and the banker hassled her about where she got the money from and warned that they didn’t take drug money. If she had been a White woman, the banker would have happily taken her payment and welcomed her business.
Something so essential to achieving the American Dream has been taken away from many Americans through housing discrimination. As the market starts to stabilize and people begin to buy homes again, one can only hope that this type of discrimination will be outweighed by the need for the market to go up again.
The Dreaded Pink Slip
Unemployment
I recently got laid off from my job and I have had to navigate through the Missouri unemployment filing system in order to get the money I need to pay bills. During this process, I have been cognizant of what we discussed in class that it is expensive to be poor. I don’t need the money as much as the other people who have to go through the same thing but it was still extremely frustrating.
The first thing you must do is file a claim with the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations which you can do online, on the phone or in person. This is where the first hassle reared its head. Because I worked for the federal government, I had to file my claim over the phone. As I continued to hold for going on the second hour after numerous hang-ups, I thought about how many people who are unemployed don’t even have access to a computer or a reliable phone to stay on hold for two hours. These are the people who have to go to the office in person which will most likely require the use of public transportation. This can cost upwards of $15 per week before they can even start receiving money.
After I finally filed and was determined to be eligible, the waiting game began. It ultimately took me 5 weeks to receive any money, which I did get all at once when it finally came. During this time, those who really depended on their jobs to provide for themselves and/or their families would really have to be resourceful. I assumed that the process was slowed due to the high volume of claims from the rocky economy but I don’t think that would be much help to someone who has an entire family depending on them for their basic needs.
I have never complained about the amount of taxes that I paid before and now that I have seen and experienced first hand how important unemployment benefits are to those who really need them, I don’t think I ever will. There will always be people who abuse the system but as long as those who really need the services get them and benefit from them, I think it should be kept in place.
I recently got laid off from my job and I have had to navigate through the Missouri unemployment filing system in order to get the money I need to pay bills. During this process, I have been cognizant of what we discussed in class that it is expensive to be poor. I don’t need the money as much as the other people who have to go through the same thing but it was still extremely frustrating.
The first thing you must do is file a claim with the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations which you can do online, on the phone or in person. This is where the first hassle reared its head. Because I worked for the federal government, I had to file my claim over the phone. As I continued to hold for going on the second hour after numerous hang-ups, I thought about how many people who are unemployed don’t even have access to a computer or a reliable phone to stay on hold for two hours. These are the people who have to go to the office in person which will most likely require the use of public transportation. This can cost upwards of $15 per week before they can even start receiving money.
After I finally filed and was determined to be eligible, the waiting game began. It ultimately took me 5 weeks to receive any money, which I did get all at once when it finally came. During this time, those who really depended on their jobs to provide for themselves and/or their families would really have to be resourceful. I assumed that the process was slowed due to the high volume of claims from the rocky economy but I don’t think that would be much help to someone who has an entire family depending on them for their basic needs.
I have never complained about the amount of taxes that I paid before and now that I have seen and experienced first hand how important unemployment benefits are to those who really need them, I don’t think I ever will. There will always be people who abuse the system but as long as those who really need the services get them and benefit from them, I think it should be kept in place.
Private v. Public schools
Miss Porters School for Girls
I went to visit boarding schools with my mom and sister this weekend that she will be potentially attending next fall. The two schools, Loomis Chaffe and Miss Porters´ School for Girls were both located in Hartford Connecticut. After reading Jay MacLeod´s Ain´t No Makin´´ It, I thought that it would be interesting to compare the school for the upper class to that of the schools I attended and the school in MacLeod’s book. As I suspected, the environments were completely different.
As we toured the schools and sat in on classes, I kept going back to the part of MacLeod’s book that talked about equal opportunity as a crude invitation to the party that they know you will inevitably decline. One of the classes that we observed was a 9th grade Ethics class . . . I’m taking the same class now as a senior in college. They talked about the traditional applications of ethics such as Kant’s deontology and Aristotle’s virtue ethics; we just did this in my class the week before. When children are privy to such high levels of academic coursework at such young ages while others are barely learning to read, is there ever really going to be an equal playing field?
Another thing that I kept replaying in my mind as we wandered through the castle-like campuses was the ides that children are socialized through the education system into workers and leaders. To go back to the ethics class, the teacher asked the girls to apply the there ethical theories to leadership roles . . . not homosexual marriage or euthanasia like we discussed in our class . . . but to a situation that you will encounter as an executive. He asked them what they would do if they were the head of a company who that was downsizing and they had the list of those being laid off when a close friend asks them if their name is on it. These girls are being trained to be leaders and not workers. Just as the Hallway Hangers and Brothers were being funneled into low-wage work, these children are being groomed to be the next movers and shakers of America.
I went to visit boarding schools with my mom and sister this weekend that she will be potentially attending next fall. The two schools, Loomis Chaffe and Miss Porters´ School for Girls were both located in Hartford Connecticut. After reading Jay MacLeod´s Ain´t No Makin´´ It, I thought that it would be interesting to compare the school for the upper class to that of the schools I attended and the school in MacLeod’s book. As I suspected, the environments were completely different.
As we toured the schools and sat in on classes, I kept going back to the part of MacLeod’s book that talked about equal opportunity as a crude invitation to the party that they know you will inevitably decline. One of the classes that we observed was a 9th grade Ethics class . . . I’m taking the same class now as a senior in college. They talked about the traditional applications of ethics such as Kant’s deontology and Aristotle’s virtue ethics; we just did this in my class the week before. When children are privy to such high levels of academic coursework at such young ages while others are barely learning to read, is there ever really going to be an equal playing field?
Another thing that I kept replaying in my mind as we wandered through the castle-like campuses was the ides that children are socialized through the education system into workers and leaders. To go back to the ethics class, the teacher asked the girls to apply the there ethical theories to leadership roles . . . not homosexual marriage or euthanasia like we discussed in our class . . . but to a situation that you will encounter as an executive. He asked them what they would do if they were the head of a company who that was downsizing and they had the list of those being laid off when a close friend asks them if their name is on it. These girls are being trained to be leaders and not workers. Just as the Hallway Hangers and Brothers were being funneled into low-wage work, these children are being groomed to be the next movers and shakers of America.
Private v. Public schools
Miss Porters School for Girls
I went to visit boarding schools with my mom and sister this weekend that she will be potentially attending next fall. The two schools, Loomis Chaffe and Miss Porters´ School for Girls were both located in Hartford Connecticut. After reading Jay MacLeod´s Ain´t No Makin´´ It, I thought that it would be interesting to compare the school for the upper class to that of the schools I attended and the school in MacLeod’s book. As I suspected, the environments were completely different.
As we toured the schools and sat in on classes, I kept going back to the part of MacLeod’s book that talked about equal opportunity as a crude invitation to the party that they know you will inevitably decline. One of the classes that we observed was a 9th grade Ethics class . . . I’m taking the same class now as a senior in college. They talked about the traditional applications of ethics such as Kant’s deontology and Aristotle’s virtue ethics; we just did this in my class the week before. When children are privy to such high levels of academic coursework at such young ages while others are barely learning to read, is there ever really going to be an equal playing field?
Another thing that I kept replaying in my mind as we wandered through the castle-like campuses was the ides that children are socialized through the education system into workers and leaders. To go back to the ethics class, the teacher asked the girls to apply the there ethical theories to leadership roles . . . not homosexual marriage or euthanasia like we discussed in our class . . . but to a situation that you will encounter as an executive. He asked them what they would do if they were the head of a company who that was downsizing and they had the list of those being laid off when a close friend asks them if their name is on it. These girls are being trained to be leaders and not workers. Just as the Hallway Hangers and Brothers were being funneled into low-wage work, these children are being groomed to be the next movers and shakers of America.
I went to visit boarding schools with my mom and sister this weekend that she will be potentially attending next fall. The two schools, Loomis Chaffe and Miss Porters´ School for Girls were both located in Hartford Connecticut. After reading Jay MacLeod´s Ain´t No Makin´´ It, I thought that it would be interesting to compare the school for the upper class to that of the schools I attended and the school in MacLeod’s book. As I suspected, the environments were completely different.
As we toured the schools and sat in on classes, I kept going back to the part of MacLeod’s book that talked about equal opportunity as a crude invitation to the party that they know you will inevitably decline. One of the classes that we observed was a 9th grade Ethics class . . . I’m taking the same class now as a senior in college. They talked about the traditional applications of ethics such as Kant’s deontology and Aristotle’s virtue ethics; we just did this in my class the week before. When children are privy to such high levels of academic coursework at such young ages while others are barely learning to read, is there ever really going to be an equal playing field?
Another thing that I kept replaying in my mind as we wandered through the castle-like campuses was the ides that children are socialized through the education system into workers and leaders. To go back to the ethics class, the teacher asked the girls to apply the there ethical theories to leadership roles . . . not homosexual marriage or euthanasia like we discussed in our class . . . but to a situation that you will encounter as an executive. He asked them what they would do if they were the head of a company who that was downsizing and they had the list of those being laid off when a close friend asks them if their name is on it. These girls are being trained to be leaders and not workers. Just as the Hallway Hangers and Brothers were being funneled into low-wage work, these children are being groomed to be the next movers and shakers of America.
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