Both the articles clearly show that our government is (or should be) a proponent of harm reduction and health among the population. It is very interesting to note that none of the articles spoke about the population doing anything, rather the blame falls largely on the government. It is also interesting to note that both articles seem to say that the government should be sympathetic towards the public, and specifically in the Harm Reduction article we see that banning drug use is NOT the answer to our problems.

What I took from this was a much better understanding of harm reduction. It always seemed obvious to me that in order for drug addicts to come clean, they really truly needed to do it on their own, and that if they aren’t sincere about the coming clean, then it wouldn’t matter, because they’ll always slip back in. I now realize just how much the government has to do with it. The government has to care for its people, because after all, the government is its people. In a democracy, the people run the government, not one person, nor a group of people acting on their own, but the population. The reason for that is so that everyone has a say in the government. So when everyone has a say, everyone needs to be taken care of, from the drug addicts to the poor, to the orphaned children, to the abused children, and to the homeless people of our population. Everyone deserves to be taken care of. The Harm Reduction article even shows just how helpful the government can be. It also shows that these drug addicts, who are frequently believed to not be able to return to society, can and will, and they do get better.

My question is: Why is the US so slow to adopt these principles if the Dutch government, which seems to share a lot of principles with the US government, was so quick to adopt many of the principles at once? We have the data to back up a lot of the assertions made in the Harm Reduction article. Why are we taking our time with this? Why are we wasting these drug addicts lives? We have so much to do, and so little time to do it.

Harm reduction is a term that is not heard of often in the United States due to the massive stigmatization of drug addicts. When focusing on drug education, children are taught the “just say no” approach to drugs in public education programs such as DARE. Last semester, in my Intro to Sociology class, we discussed the ineffectiveness of programs such as DARE and some said that it led to an introduction and an increased curiosity in drugs rather than an aversion towards them. The “just say no” approach does not prevent drug usage and rather stigmatizes those who decide to take drugs rather than providing rehabilitation. It reminds me of abstinence-only sex education programs that take place in some regions of the United States. Just like the case with sex education, drug education policies are generally more liberal in areas in Europe than in the United States, although there are countries, such as France and Sweden, that have stricter drug policies. But, the United States, though having a relatively conservative drug policy, may end up having a slightly more liberal drug policy as debates about marijuana legalization become more prevalent. The issue of harm reduction also mixes in with the article “Emerging Strategies for Healthy Urban Governance” because drug policies are one of the most common issues that affect urban public health. What urban areas need are stable government programs that would enable the health of the people as well as to make sure that health care initiatives are affordable. This reminds me of the argument in the book Ghost Map, in which policies did not combat cholera, viewing the epidemic as based on people’s unhygienic choices. By viewing drug addiction as a stigma rather than as an issue of public health, urban areas, especially the poorer regions are paying the price.

The biggest thing that stood out to me was the somewhat offhand comment that Michelle Alexander made in Chapter 5. Mass incarceration stands out to many African Americans as not being evil- it is rather a necessary function of society. The fact that most African Americans in society do not realize that the system is singling them out as being primary suspects only shows just how blind everyone is to the situation. I fully agree with Alexander’s point, but I wonder why they haven’t realized it yet? Is it because it is actually doing something to help them? Or is it because they have been impacted by society’s values in such a way that there is traces of self-racism within these communities.

Following up on that point, I would venture to say that education of the African-Americans would prove to be extremely useful. Years of a certain habit tends to blur the fine lines of the situation and tends to acclimate the population to a threshold of accepted wrongdoings.

I think that we could all agree that the first people that need to be educated is not the people at large, but the people affected.

In Chapter 5, Michelle Alexander writes about how Jim Crow and mass incarceration are similar and how they are different. The similarities are argued in the previous chapters  and they include historical parallels, legalized discrimination, political disenfranchisement, exclusion from juries and closing of courthouse doors, and symbolic productions of race. What she recently addressed was segregation, which interested me, especially due to the untrue claim that segregation is over. The claim that segregation is over masks the effects of de facto segregation, something that ensures that segregation occurs just as much, maybe even more, than it did during Jim Crow. Differences from Jim Crow included absence of racial hostility(I slightly disagree with this- I believe that there is a reduction, but not a complete absence), white victims of racial caste as a way to “prove” that the criminal justice system is not racist,  and black support for “get tough” policies(but she argues that a lot of black people are perplexed about whether or not the policies are beneficial). In the end, she argues that Jim Crow and mass incarceration are pretty similar, but not completely the same.

Chapter 6 mentions about Alexander’s belief in collective action as a way to eliminate mass incarceration, starting with the Jena 6 protest, which had a lot of potential, but eventually died. She mentions about the denial of civil rights advocates and criticizes them for focusing on affirmative action, which she believes does more harm than good. She also criticizes such advocates for being “colorblind” and for supporting the “good black person” as compared to the “criminal”. She criticizes Obama’s approach on drug policies as well as the civil rights advocates’ support of him. Alexander, in the end, mentions about the All or None approach, which would include all races, including poorer whites, believing in a different approach to civil rights that would ensure collective action rather than the emphasis on the successful black people.

I generally have mixed views on the last chapter, since I do agree with some of her approaches to her argument, but disagree with others. The idea of calling Affirmative Action a “racial bribe” and pitting it with white privilege did not appeal to me, especially since affirmative action does benefit other groups otherwise than black people. In addition, her approach to how collective action should ensue was a little shaky. But, there were areas in the chapter that were extremely effective, such as the fact that we should not equate racial success to a black president or just “good black people” and that we should ensure the success of everybody.

StopAndFriskRpt

Based on the direction of the discussion in A New Jim Crow was going, it was quiet obvious to expect more facts that place previously incarcerated individuals into a second class. However in chapter four, I was surprised to see Michelle Alexander compare the current Hip-Hop culture to a form of a minstrel show. I always thought of the Hip-Hop scene’s references to drugs and gang related violence as a form of expression and rebellion, but thinking of it as a minstrel was always a little farfetched for me. The following reference is one reference to rap and hip-hop becoming akin to minstrel shows and I think it has a point when listening to hip-hop songs that have and had charted on the Billboard Top 100. Nas and Nick Cannon perform the following video, where they pose in blackface and make a mockery of themselves to show the audience that Hip-Hop may change in a negative way if artists continue performing about music that mocks their culture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRVqVwGWocM

I can empathize with her case of treating a group of released felons as a second class and expect them to not react in a negative way. I also believe that there should be some leeway for prior felons in receiving benefits such as food stamps and accessing HUD in unbiased ways. Perhaps if the “box” changed from asking if an individual was ever arrested or associated with a crime to asking if an individual was previously arrested or associated with a crime in the last 5 years, it would help curb some of the discrimination on the federal level. I am sure that even if the “box” was changed for private employers, companies could get around it by conducting background checks. It would be an advantage to not asking the prior felony question at all, because omitting the felony question would immediately start to raise red flags when an applicant is “suspected” to be a criminal. As I have been building up on my previous responses, I cannot wait to read Alexander’s proposed solution for the problem. Since she is so knowledgeable on the topic of what happens when one is incarcerated, she should know of some methods that can be done in the public and private sector that may be able to remedy the situation.

What interests me about this chapter is that it mentions about how racism affects the black community and how messages pervasive in them are internalized. This internalization creates the message that black people are completely at fault for their failures. Michelle Alexander mentions about Bill Cosby, who mentions that the problem with the black community is that black men have no shame. This creates the image of the “good black person” as compared to the “bad black person”, with the “bad black person” being the creation of the stereotypical black person by American society. This is a reason why when a black person acts in a way like the “bad black person”, that they are seen as “making all black people look bad”.

The image of the “good black person” as compared to the “bad black person” is depicted in the media. In sitcoms, such as the Jeffersons, the Cosby Show, and Family Matters, the families are “good black people”. More media today depict the stereotype of the “bad black people”, in reality TV shows, hip hop music videos, and shows like Maury and Jerry Springer. In Tyler Perry movies, there are depictions of the “good black people” and the “bad black people”. The creation of the “bad black person” causes the black community to scorn a black person who has been to prison (even for mild drug offenses) and to view him as a criminal.

Ending the distinction between the “good black person”, who is from a middle class family and goes to church regularly and the “bad black person”, depicted in hip hop music videos and reality TV will only end if the stereotypes of the black person from other racial and ethnic groups end.

Instead of me and Joseph summarizing Chapter 4 tomorrow in class, here it is now:

• Brave New World
  •  Most of the time when someone pleads guilty to a minor drug charge he is unaware of all the consequences, such as that he will be excluded from juries and he may lose his right to vote. He also is often not told about the discrimination he will be faced with when he is officially labeled a felon.
  • A felon is stuck with the label for the rest of his life. This label can make him ineligible for some government health and welfare benefits, food stamps, public housing, and federal education assistance. His driver’s license can be suspended and he may no longer qualify for certain jobs. If he gets arrested for another crime he will be treated as a repeat offender, and he cannot enlist in the military or legally own a firearm.
  • Not all judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys understand the ramifications of calling someone a felon. Society shuts out criminals and doesn’t let them back in once released from prison.

• No Place Like Home
  • Many newly released prisoners have nowhere to go and have a hard time finding somewhere to live because they can’t get any public housing assistance and housing discrimination against felons is legal.
  • Clinton’s “One Strike and You’re Out” legislation along with the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 gave public housing agencies the authority to exclude and evict drug offenders and other felons, as well as allowing the agencies to bar applicants who are suspected of using illegal drugs or being an alcoholic. To repeal these decisions, one would need a lawyer, but someone in need of public housing usually can’t afford a lawyer.
  • HUD encourages the agencies to screen applicants’ public records and create their own exclusion guidelines. As a result, people can be excluded for even the most minor crime.
  • Arrests are enough cause to be rejected by public housing officials whether the arrest resulted in a conviction or a fine or not.
  • If a public housing tenant, or guest of tenant, participates in any drug-related activity (in or out of the public housing unit) the tenancy can be terminated and the Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that someone can be evicted whether they knew about the illegal activity or not, so innocent people can be evicted and left homeless.
  • A study from the McCormick Institute of Public Affairs showed that nearly a quarter of people in homeless shelters had been in prison within the previous year; a California study estimated that 30-50% of people on parole in San Francisco and LA were homeless. Corporation for Supportive Housing in New York State did research showing that when people with criminal records were provided with housing, prison use went down over 40%.

• Boxed In
  • In 40/51 jurisdictions parolees are required to “maintain gainful employment” and if they don’t, they can be put back in prison.
  • Most states let private employers discriminate based on criminal history whether they were convicted or even only arrested. Also, many professions are being legally barred from hiring people with certain criminal convictions.
  • Only 40% of employers are willing to consider hiring an ex-offender but the number goes down to 25% when referring to drug-related felonies, down to 7% for a property-related felony, and less than 1% would hire someone convicted of a violent felony (can you blame them?).
  • Also hard for them to be self-employed because felons can be denied professional licenses.
  • Most offenders haven’t even finished high school, let alone college.

• The Black Box
  • In San Francisco, Ban the Box and All of Us or None got the city government to remove job discrimination because of criminal record by getting rid of the box on job applications for public employment positions. Employers will still be informed, but not until they have looked at the potential employees’ other credentials.
  • Some scholars argue that when criminal history is not included, black males will face even more discrimination than when it is because employers will use race and other factors, like education levels and gaps in work history, to discern who likely criminals are and they may end up treating all black men like criminals.
  • Equal Employment Opportunity Commission warns employers that flat bans on criminals may be illegal if the employer does not consider the story behind the criminal offense.
• Debtor’s Prison
  • Many ex-cons, even ones with jobs, have large debts. Throughout the US newly released prisoners have to pay several agencies. In some places they even have to pay for drug testing. Some service fees include jail book-in fees, public defender application fees, public defender recoupment fees, and fees put on people in residential or work-release programs. Some are charged monthly and failure to pay can result in community control sanctions or modification to the offender’s sentence. Some states have “poverty penalties”-penalties for not paying the other fees
  • A former inmate can be charged by multiple departments at the same time and can be forced to give up his/her entire paycheck.
  • In some places people “choose” to return to jail because they can’t pay the fees
  • Many prison inmates work for very low pay and their accounts are charged for things relating to their incarceration so they can’t save up for when they leave prison.

• Let Them Eat Cake
  • Clinton signed welfare reform legislation that ended individual entitlements to welfare and provided states with block grants. Temporary Assistance for Needy Family Program has a five-year limit on benefits and requires all people who benefit to have a job. This law also permanently bars people with drug-related felonies from getting federally funded public assistance. Only 13 states and DC have opted out. Most partially opted out.
  • Result is that there are pregnant women, people in recovery or treatment for drug abuse, and people with HIV/AIDS who are denied food stamps because they were caught with drugs once.
• The Silent Minority
  • 48 states + DC prohibit inmates from voting while incarcerated for a felony. Most states don’t allow voting while on parole either. Some states have a set amount of years that a person can’t vote after being released.
  • United Nations Human Rights Committee has charged that U.S. disenfranchisement policies are discriminatory and violate international law. Most democratic European countries allow prisoners to vote.
  • Each state has a different process for restoring voting rights but most require jumping through bureaucratic hoops and paying fines.
  • Following the 2000 election it was reported that had 600,000 former felons been allowed to vote then Al Gore would have won.
  • Some who can vote don’t because they fear that registering will bring them unwanted attention.
• The Pariahs
  • “We [black men] have three strikes against us: 1) because we are black, and 2) because we are a black male, and the final strike is a felony.” (p. 163)
  • People are nervous that it will become a badge of honor to have been in prison in some communities, but studies of some of these communities have shown the opposite.
  • Instead of returning home to people who love and care for them, people newly released from prison return home to people who look down on them and are embarrassed by them.

• Eerie Silence
  • Mass incarceration isn’t talked about in communities of color because it is so shameful, so many people don’t realize how many others are suffering from silent grief over incarcerated family members

• Passing (Redux)
  • Many family members of prisoners lie about their incarcerated relatives. They lie out of shame, to avoid stereotypes, and so it does not impede any social mobility.
  • Lying about incarcerated relatives brings about self-hate
  • Lying about mass incarceration and keeping it hidden prevents people and communities from healing

• Gangsta Love
  • Just because the prison label is normal doesn’t mean it is acceptable.
  • “Gangsta culture” is embracing the stigma, and while that is a good coping mechanism, the problem is that “gangsta culture” is embracing criminality. A stigma has been forced upon them, and when they try to embrace it then we condemn them for it and look down on them even more.

• The Minstrel Show
  • Minstrel shows were designed by whites to make themselves feel comfortable and entertained by black oppression. Majority of the audience by these were blacks.
  • Some say blacks attended them because they felt in on the joke, or some say that they were attracted by the remnants of African culture which were always suppressed.
  • Black minstrels were seen as celebrities, even though the basis of what they did was degrading.
  • Rap music changed after the start of the War on Drugs and the incarceration of so many young black men. Once that was the new stigma they embraced it in their music.

• The Antidote
  • Most people would pity the minstrel who is mirroring the contempt shown toward him by whites and portraying it for their entertainment.
  • If we were to hate the crime and not the criminal and show some respect to those leaving prison, mass incarceration may not exist today.

In Chapter 2 of The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander talks about the Fourth Amendment, which warrants against unreasonable search and seizure, which is rarely mentioned today. I then realized that the problem now is that we are not told about our civil rights and liberties, which results in our loss of agency and power. This especially happens to more disenfranchised groups such as African Americans and Latinos, in addition to other racial and ethnic groups deemed “suspicious”. To those who believe that it is fair for black people to be unfairly targeted as “criminals”, is it fair for Latinos in Arizona to be stopped and checked for a green card to make sure that they’re not “illegal”? is it justifiable for Muslim and Arab Americans to be checked in airports to make sure that they’re not “terrorists”? All of these practices consist of the violation of the Fourth Amendment today.

In Chapter 3, a social psychology experiment is mentioned, which show that many white people, even the ones who said that they were unbiased, perceived drug criminals to be African-American. Negative stereotypes occur with other racial groups as well. I read in an article that many Americans reply in hostility when they see a sign in Spanish, because they believe that English should be the main language, even the only language, spoken in the United States. The mild hostility towards people of color is definitely a problem. In order for the criminal justice system to change, not only do Americans have to recognize their rights, but they also have to change their perceptions of others who they view as different from them.

StatsApril11

As I read through the first chapters, I immediately realized how true the words written were. I decided to analyze for myself a little bit of my views on today’s society and realized, although we’ve come a far way, we still have a way to go. As I read through, I realized that this book isn’t unlike Professor Molina’s view. There are a lot of commonalities between the way we’re “using” the criminal justice system, and the way banks used zip codes and other redlining techniques to keep their businesses safe. The idea that the Blacks are dangerous is still a very powerful theme in today’s society. I myself will be feel more safe walking home at night if I saw a White man walking by than if I saw a Black man. But that’s completely illogical because of the fact that I know a few Black people and all of them are the sweetest people I know.
My father relayed to me a story once where he was driving on the highway when his car broke down. He was not far from the hospital he was working at, and apparently this was in a bad neighborhood. He needed a boost and no one on the highway stopped for him. My father said that he was worried as it was late at night and no one would be able to get to him before two hours. After fifteen minutes of waiting for someone to help him, a car pulled up near my father and this really big Black man stepped out of the car. My father was terrified because he thought he was going to get mugged. The man asked my father what was wrong with the car, and my father told him what had happened. The man brought his car over, boosted my father’s car, and then told my father that the area he was in was very dangerous. The man gave my father the cables he used to boost my father’s car with and said that in case of any emergencies, it helps to be prepared. The man, who knew nothing of my father, was, in my father’s terms, the most respectful nice gentleman ever. Looking back on it, my father thought of how silly it was that he was afraid of such a nice man.

Another key concept which I saw throughout the chapters was the idea of the cycle which we saw in Dr. Wallace’s paper. The poverty and inaccessibility is further exacerbated by the fact that the system keeps these people locked in this vicious cycle. Once again we see the trend of cause and effect, and the effect which gives rise once again to the cause.

My question to the author is, as a citizen of a country whose human rights movements seem to be extremely important, why is it that it takes so much effort to change something when the facts are so obviously clear? Is it really that many Americans are just plain stubborn?

The reason why I have been looking forward to reading The New Jim Crow was because I have been focusing on the dangers of the Stop and Frisk law in New York City and across the United States recently, which not only violates against our civil liberties, but also is an act of racial profiling. What interested me even more was learning about how such a practice, in addition to the controversial “War on Drugs” came to be.

Deep-seated racism from white supremacist extremists that eventually become into the hegemonic norm is what causes such discrimination against black people, whether it was in the form of Bacon’s Rebellion, the failure of the Populist Party and its ideals, and the backlash to the Civil Rights Movement from segregationists that eventually manifested into “color-blind” racism through effective tactics from conservative leaders. The latest tactics included the portrayal of black people in the media as violent thugs, moochers, and welfare queens as a way to view “crime” as a problem instead of poverty, a problem which is rearing its ugly head today. The tactic of viewing black people negatively was what caused President Reagan to become extremely popular by many Americans, which caused him to deregulate corporations, leading to the immense class divide today.

The problem of poverty will not be solved unless racism is unlearned, and eventually eradicated. Poor and working class people would not be able to stand up against economic injustice in this society if there are racial tensions and conflicts among them.

What is even worse is that the problem with poverty disproportionately affects certain racial groups and black people are especially affected. The fact that black people are disproportionately arrested for drug crimes and other crimes amount for much more black prisoners, leading to lower voting rates, higher unemployment rates, and higher HIV rates. Even if there is not a change so radical as unlearning racism in the United States, there should at least be a more just criminal justice system.

Ever since the beginning of this Macaulay seminar, I heard information about HIV/AIDS as well as about disastrous effects that residents of the Bronx experience and I was curious as to know why the effect of HIV/AIDS of residents of the Bronx was recurring throughout the class. Once I read the Wallace article, I then understood why.

In Victorian London, the main epidemic was the cholera epidemic. In post-Civil Rights movement Black America, urban renewal was the main epidemic. Now we head toward the main epidemic that will affect the future of New York City: the AIDS epidemic. Like the people who became sick from cholera and the people who face psychological trauma from urban renewal, the people who are affected by HIV/AIDS should not be stigmatized, but like the other two groups, they are.

What leads to such a high rate of HIV/AIDS in the Bronx is perhaps a broken sense of community. Housing loss and homelessness was what was linked to drug abuse and violence, which led to negative effects in terms of public health. Even when there was housing, it was overcrowded and had urban decay. The quality of life that the residents faced was by no means healthy or even satisfactory for any sort of living standards.

This article linked to chapter 8 of Fullilove’s Root Shock, Human Rights in the City, mentioning the South Bronx as an ugly secret of New York City compared to the Disney like feel of Times Square. Residents of the South Bronx are the ones who face the highest rates of AIDS, violence, mass incarceration, and other conditions.

Upon reading this article Fullilove’s quote rings in my ears : “Is Forty-Second Street beautiful if Willis Avenue in the South Bronx is not?” After all, it is injustice that New York City is home to the richest and the poorest of people, to the most fortunate and the least fortunate. And that is a major problem.

I was quite surprised to see the domino effect from neglecting the municipal fire service, to overcrowding, to drug abuse, to HIV/AIDS, and finally to urban decay. Yet when looking at the context of the year that this article was written, I wonder how the lowered stigma of an HIV/AIDS infected individual would still affect the rate of housing decay today. Since discrimination would be less as likely, an HIV/AIDS infected individual would have a lowered chance of getting fired or removed from their job. Therefore, they would still be able to pay their rent and prevent themselves from being homeless. Also, I wonder about the decisions that went into the solutions the paper recommended the city put in place in order to stop urban decay. It makes sense to not cut municipal services, encourage support, and provide low-income housing. Yet it seems quite strange that the paper never mentioned anything about treating the sick or diseased. It seems logical to prevent individuals from becoming homeless and to keep cities from neglecting on their foundational services, but if a city neglects its sick and drug-addicted population, wouldn’t that just cause more decay?

A quote that interested me in Chapter 7 of Root Shock was “People who are outsiders to a place see it as a landscape.” Hence, this is why newcomers and tourists tend to care more about how a place that they visit looks compared to the social cohesion of the place. This quote connects to the subject of Chapter 8 of Root Shock, “Human Rights in the City”, which mentions why American urban planners want to remove “blight”: they do not wish to actually reduce poverty, but to make the poor unseen to visitors of a city. Such an aspect is common in tourism to places in the Caribbean, where people who vacation there want to be in an environment where they view as aesthetically pleasing without a poor person in sight. Another example, which is shown in Root Shock, is the reason why tourists to New York City go to Times Square rather than the South Bronx.

Fullilove also mentions how the role of aesthetics plays into the event of 9/11. There were a lot of social bonds among people after 9/11, which Fullilove viewed as positive. However, she believed that such bonds ended once the plan centered on building downtown buildings. The main problem, she believed, was that urban planners cared more about the way that 9/11 affected the landscape rather than people’s lives and loved ones. I would also have to agree with Fullilove. The problem with urban planning, and the city in general, is that more focus is on the buildings rather than on people, which is rather dehumanizing to me. What needs to be done is for city planning to focus on the needs of people rather than on the expectation of the city to “look good”.

A solution to that is to see cities as a social network of people, rather than beautiful cityscapes. Among tourism oriented New York City websites, the popular Facebook page “Humans of New York” is a breath of fresh air, since it focuses on people who live in New York City from all five boroughs of the city, rather than in just the richer areas and the tourist friendly spots in Manhattan. Although “Humans of New York” cannot solve social inequality within New York City, it is a start when it comes to viewing cities based upon its people rather than its buildings.

As with any controversial case, there are always two opposing arguments. In this argument of urban renewal and displacement of homes, Wick Anderson attempts to advocate renewal by making home displacement sound positive. He says that the original intent was to demolish these existing houses and “build new house there for low-and moderate-income people” (Fullilove 81). However, Mary Bishop completely obliterates that argument by pointing out that the area that the government is planning on demolishing already has low to moderate income families. Furthermore, she points out that the facial expressions of all these people are evidence enough that they do not want to move.

Another major problem urban renewal brings forward is the sense of insecurity. A home is where a person is supposed to feel the most secure. In a time when entire communities can be demolished, it is extremely difficult for a person to live with a sense of security and safety, especially if that person lives in a primarily black community. A strong example is the case of Mr. Charles Meadows, who had bought a large house, finished paying off the mortgages, and began investing in the house, when the government all of a sudden decided to demolish the houses in his community. Meadows received a mere fraction of what his house would have been worth had he placed it in the real estate market. Situations like these coerce house owners to not buy anything and to not make their homes more “homey” as they live with the constant fear of the possibility of having to leave anytime.

In Chapter 4 of Root Shock, Fullilove depicts two opposing views on urban renewal: Wick Anderson’s positive view due to the belief that eliminating “blight” creates better quality neighborhoods and cities and Mary Bishop’s negative view that urban renewal destroys communities. Fullilove fully convinced me to side with Bishop. After all, what would you pick, a low-quality, yet comfortable house that you’re used to living in, or a beautifully designed house that you cannot call home?

But communities are more than just a comfort zone. They are networks in which you could easily interact with others, hence what Fullilove describes as kindness in close-knit communities. Urban renewal destroyed the community of kindness, since the black people who moved into white neighborhoods were usually not able to share their kindness and housing projects provided a different, grimmer experience.

Such a loss in a sense of community occurs within the black and Latino community in New York City. From elementary school to high school, I noticed that some of my peers and their families moved out of New York City and to places in New Jersey, the South, and the Midwest. Even some who live in New York City long for a place that has more social capital. New York City is going through innovative plans of reform, but however, the social cohesion within communities are fading away. The urban renewal that occurred in Roanoke, Newark and Pittsburgh was worse in the sense that the people in the communities had completely no choice when it came to the fate of their cities. Such a thought to me seems absolutely horrifying.

I still maintain the view that root shock is a form of gentrification on a large scale. Mindy Fullilove depicts low-income African-American communities being shattered from their relocation. However, when she states that root shock removes Negros, I believe that this is more of a financial matter instead of a racial matter. In other words, lower economic class brings about root shock when neighborhoods are changed, not race. Although Fullilove goes into how African-Americans of all social classes were segregated into ghettos, I wonder what would happen if the African-Americans in Roanoke were mostly working/middle class and had the local support of communities. The organization that spearheaded the urban redevelopment was the Women’s Civic Betterment Club. What would happen if the African-Americans lived in soon to be development projects all started to demonstrate and appeal for their rights? If they truly are close knit as Fulligrove states that they are, then they should easily be able to muster enough individuals create a movement that is good enough to make headlines. However, this did not happen because of their social class, and since these African-Americans were mostly poor, they were for the most part powerless to do anything. I wonder if root shock ever happened to a well off minority community because of its government’s urban renewal plans.

Root Shock and the effect of Root Shock reminded me of an earthquake where people’s lives were destroyed. And earthquake happens suddenly and though root shock develops over time, the true impact is felt when it actually happens. The image on page 15 by Carlos F. Peterson impacted me the most. When I first looked at this picture, all I saw was a place destroyed. But looking closely there were many interesting parts to the image. The church in the distance and the cross shows the way that religion and belief of God did not necessarily save them from moving but it also shows how their lives’ were displaced and beliefs destroyed. The eye in the corner tells me that either there is someone or something watching all this occur or that they themselves are slowly watching as their land gets destroyed.

My question is why did the government decide to take so much from the people and did they offer any type of relief?

The first three chapters of Root Shock truly brought a meaning to the cliched phrases “Home is where the heart is.” and “Home Sweet Home”. Nobody ever imagines losing their home, the place where they feel the most familiar and comfortable with. And upon losing their home, they lose a sense of hope on what the world is like. When thinking about root shock in such a serious manner, it is not at all surprising that such a trauma would affect mental health.

What tore me apart throughout the reading was the determination of the black community to make their community into the “New Jerusalem” from the Reconstruction-era to the Civil Rights Movement, only to have their hopes completely demolished by the goal of “urban renewal”, a decision that was made by rich, white, corporate men. What disgusted me even more was that such an event is not mentioned in history lessons. However, similar tragic, and horrifying tales about the loss of community is mentioned when telling about the Native American Communities during the Mayflower, the Trail of Tears and Wounded Knee, and the Jewish community during the Holocaust. The housing projects today are the reservations to the Native Americans and the still existing ghettos in Rome to the Jewish people. The idea of tearing communities apart caused it to be much more difficult for groups to unite and fight social inequality.

Root Shock showed the impact on social inequality between racial, religious, and economic groups affects the psychological health of individuals, which is a unique and effective approach to focusing on mental health. The problem, though, is that the effects of root shock are still not mentioned up to this day.

John Snow made a great impact toward science, since he caused the germ theory to replace the miasma theory in terms of public health epidemics. But in addition, by causing cholera to subside in London, he also created the hope of sustainable urban dwelling. Soon, we may live in what is known as a “planet of cities”.

However, disadvantages of urban living still prevail. The disaster of 9/11 occurred in New York City, killing many. In addition, the death rate of people affected by diseases is much higher in New York City than it is in say, a small town in Montana. Such disadvantages are not due to technological advances, however; the 9/11 terrorists used simple tools(knives) and the problem of bacteria is as old as the beginning of time.

Even though New York City is relatively safe for having such a large population, it has to become safer both in terms of diseases and danger in order for the “planet of cities” to become successful.

It was September 4, and London was becoming a Ghost Town. This date was when John Snow finally found a clue that linked to the rising epidemic of cholera, the wells, as he was searching for unpolluted drinking water. It was unsurprising that this clue linked to Snow’s debunking of the miasma theory.

The miasma theory, which was referenced in the previous chapters, sounded ridiculous to me, especially in its claim that “all smell is disease”. With a developed sense of medical knowledge, I knew that smell could not simply lead to such a high death rate. However, the miasma theory was a tradition that otherwise insightful medical and political scholars followed. Edwin Chadwick, who believed in using big government to protect the health and well being of citizens, Florence Nightingale, who challenged gender roles in the medical field, and Dickens, who criticized the abject conditions in which the poor dwellers of London had to live in, were all liberal thinkers. But even as liberal thinkers, they too fell victim to the belief in the miasma theory just like the conservative thinkers who believed that the poor people caused the illness on themselves. This made me think. Could liberals and conservatives alike misinterpret the causes of modern epidemics?

As he battled against the miasma theory, Snow found out the true reason of the high death rate: the well was poisoned. Snow already knew that the miasma theory was not the cause of a high death rate due to the Sewer-Hunter principle, that if all smell was disease, he would have been dead in seconds. Whitehead, in addition to Snow, was also rather critical of the miasma theory. Snow’s convincing case against the pump was that most of those who lived near the pump and drank from it regularly died. Snow’s round of questioning diminished the spread of cholera. What I learned from reading Chapters 4-6 is that in order to stop social problems and epidemics, one must break free from tradition.