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"On February 4, the Fair Housing Justice Center (FHJC) announced the filing of a federal race discrimination lawsuit against a real estate broker, Amelia Lewis, and two housing cooperatives, Silver Beach Gardens Corporation and Edgewater Park Owners Cooperative, Inc., located in the Throgs Neck area of the Bronx, New York."

http://www.nationalfairhousing.org/


     Okay, So I'm not a Realtor, but I have worked in way too many sales jobs already to keep my head above water as a poor student.  I also know that in the last few years if you have to sell your house, GOD BLESS YA, cause its gonna' take awhile.

      With this in mind, how do things like this EVER happen?  Is it really possible that this is some kind of accident?  Lets see, with a name like the "Silver Beach Gardens Corporation", one might assume that this neighborhood co-op is composed of some pretty damn nice places.  Now, to have the means to purchase a nice joint you've either got to make a boat load of money, OR your parents made a boat load and gave you a good share of it.

     Regardless, lets assume that most of these people actually earned their money, which as research has shown over and over how education and income share a strong correlation.  This means that many of these folks must have gone to college, and were required to take some of the same courses you were.

     You'd think that SOME of these folks would think to themselves "Hey, you know what, our neighborhood is flippin pale, I wonder why that is?" 

OR maybe this is not the case, maybe it was a simple oversight, due to an antiquated protocol that overlooks such things.  But really?  Its safe to assume that many of these folks had to get the same 3 letters of recommendation from current owners to be able to purchase THEIR place, so doesn't that mean that this place is solely inhabited by all the "cool kids" from high school that still wear their "Senior Keg 1992" t-shirt while mowing the lawn?

This whole thing perplexes me...and I'm not sure how to best address this sort of issue?  I mean, what are you going to do, enforce affirmative action for buying homes?

Jeesh.... 

 

 

Author Tim Wise does an excellent job describing the state of racism in America (both before the age of Obama and during his 2008 presidential campaign). Wise's book is broken down into two main parts, or essays as he describes it. The first is an overview of racism and discrimination in America, citing both explicit and subtle forms of racism within the realms of employment and income, housing, education, criminal justice and law, health care, and even going into great detail of the inequality demonstrated during hurricane Katrina in 2006 and the 2008 presidential campaign. This portion of the book was mainly aimed at getting across the point that racism in America is still going strong, despite the fact that statistics show that most white Americans believe Obama's election as our president signals the end of racism in our country. Wise argues that although the election of a black man to our highest ranking position is a big step in the right direction, it does not mean that white people view black people on the same level they may see the president (he uses the analogy of Bill Cosby and the Cosby Show in terms of how white people view him differently because he does not fit the stereotype-consistent role of the "black man in America". Wise also spends a good portion of this part of the book criticizing Obama for his failure to address racism in a more direct fashion, stating that Obama has often side-stepped the issue of race in America and what needs to be done to promote more equality within the realms I mentioned above. My question regarding the first part of the book is: Is it really Obama's task to focus more of this effort on racism in America because he is our first black president? Because of the fact that he is our first black president, does it just come with the territory, whereas presidents before him were not "expected" to tackle this issue because they were old white men?

The second essay of the book focuses on what needs to be done to help alleviate modern racism (or racism 2.0, as Wise refers to it). In particular, Wise focuses on what white America needs to do in order to help promote equality in our country. He mentions five main goals for white America: 1) Take personal responsibility addressing racism and white privilege. 2) Listen to black people regarding racism. 3) Stop the denial of our disturbing history dealing with race. 4) Connect with anti-racist white culture to help promote understanding. 5) Speak up! - When you see racism, no matter how subtle, take action and make a difference.

Overall, I thought this book was a well organized argument for how racism is still a very big issue in our country and it can be seen where ever we go. Wise definitely did an excellent job getting the point across about how Obama's election to president does not mean racism is ending, it is simply not what it used to be....racism has evolved. Wise point out several instances of racism and discrimination in the book that relate to many concepts we have discussed in class, including stereotype threat, ingroup/outgroup biases, situational factors that bring out hidden prejudices, and institutional and modern racism. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a good overview of where America stands in our battle against racism and discrimination.

The Pulitzer Prize winner To Kill a Mockingbird is a timeless classic written by Harper Lee. The story takes place in the small southern town of Maycomb County, Alabama in the midst of The Great Depression. The narrator of this riveting story is a young girl named Jean Louise Finch, or Scout. Scout is not the typical delicate, shy, and ladylike child that society expects her to be. She is an outspoken, rambunctious and free spirited tomboy who wears overalls, plays in the outdoors alongside her older brother Jem, and is far more intelligent than most in her age group. She and her brother Jem are the children of Maycomb County defense lawyer Atticus Finch. Atticus can be considered an untraditional man in several respects. For starters he is a single father raising two children. He also encourages and stresses the importance of an education and egalitarian beliefs to Scout and Jem during a time when it was very unpopular to do so.

Throughout the text, Scout walks us through her childhood adventures in this conservative southern Alabama town alongside Jem and occasionally their best friend Dill. At first life seems simple. But when their father Atticus takes on the case of his life, they all begin to realize the severity of racial turmoil that defined American society during this time period.

  In the story, Atticus takes on the case of a Negro man named Tom Robinson. Tom is a young family man whose only crime is that he is African American. He stands accused of raping the eldest daughter of Mr. Ewells, an impoverished social misfit in Maycomb County. The Ewells are an unpopular family who live on the outskirts of Maycomb in the midst of the town's dump. They are known by everyone in the county for being aggressive, dishonest, uncivilized, unclean, and uneducated. Despite these facts they hold a great advantage over the most civilized and honest African Americans: they are white.

 Scout and Jem encounter dirty stares and insults by many of their fellow townsfolk because their father is defending a Negro. Through example however, Atticus teaches his children that the color of your skin does not define what kind of person you are. Everyone should be treated with kindness and respect. Scout and Jem manage to hold their heads high and support their father's cause. Despite the best efforts of Atticus however, Tom is convicted of raping Mr. Ewells' daughter and is sentenced to death. Scout and Jem learn the grim reality that justice for all does not exist in the ignorant and racist American culture.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a wonderful text to read when learning about stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. Readers can get examples of all three of these elements throughout the entire story not just in the context of black versus white, but also society versus women, and poor whites versus everyone else. Some of the social psychological underpinnings of this novel deal with constructs such as categorization, Social Identity Theory, depersonalization and dehumanization, out-group homogeneity, social motives such as self-enhancement and control, and the list goes on.

Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird is a wonderful representation of the struggles experienced by generations of minorities as well as females throughout American history. From a social scientific standpoint, the novel gives social psychological novices a well rounded summary of stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination along with solutions to such issues.

Here's an article that was on MSNBC's page: http://www.thegrio.com/opinion/the-state-of-black-america-unemployed.php

Some of the statistics here are pretty bad. "African-Americans are twice as likely as whites to be unemployed, and in some areas of the country, nearly one in four young black men are out of work." The recession has affected some people more than others. What can be done to alleviate this problem?

                With all of the talk we had in class and in the news about colleges and the graduation rates with minority students being considerably lower.  I found an article that discussed the busing in high schools.  This is taking place in North Carolina and in a high school they want to end their busing system and diversity policy.  This has caused a lot of controversy among minority groups.  Their policy used economic information to create diversity within the schools.  This plan is up for vote this week to end it.  The president of the NAACP in North Carolina disagrees with this idea.  He was quoted as saying:

"All of the research shows that when you create highly re-segregated schools, you create high poverty schools, high teacher turn-over, low-teacher quality schools and that affects education directly. We have thirty-nine failing high schools already in North Carolina. Ninety-nine percent of those schools are ninety-percent re-segregated, so we know what happens."

http://www.fsrn.org/audio/north-carolina-school-board-votes-ending-diversity-policy/6308

            I find that taking the busing possibility away will not help these children in getting the best education then they can get.  Since this school bases their diversity on socioeconomic status, it will be the kids who live in poverty, which will have to go back to these schools that aren't as dedicated to education as the schools which are over the poverty line.