Author: Franny

Poli Sci/storytelling major @ Macaulay Honors College at Queens. you talk of blogs? I have no taste for blogs, only the slaughter and groans of dying men.
(yes, just read the Iliad)

Urban Poverty, Housing & The Racial Divide

April 30, 2017 / Franny / 0 Comments

Those like Edward Glaesar, Harvard professor of economics, which in itself should tell you all you need to know, who contend that racial segregation in cities has all but abated, are living in a fantasy. What some may see as the integration of mixed race neighborhoods is often gentrification in reality. As housing costs rise, people who usually would stay in Manhattan are moving out and up to neighborhoods like Flushing, Forest Hills, Williamsburg, and Bayside, and they bring upscale products with them. For instance, new avocado-themed restaurant Avocaderia opening in Sunset Park doesn’t really cater to the current clientele around it, but rather what it sees on the horizon- the gentrifiers of Brooklyn moving in to enjoy their avocado this and that. The worst part is, I understand the appeal of a store like that! I would go there if in the neighborhood, and I can see friends of mine- that are white, read between the lines- specifically seeking the place out for things like savory toasts or sweet salads. But places like that price higher for clientele that can afford their higher prices, and afford the rent that creeps up higher as the neighborhood demographic changes, push out mom-and-pop delis and bodegas that cling to life in ethnic enclaves.

Another contributor to the racial divide in housing is that many landlords actively discriminate against certain races or social classes, even if those applying can afford the rent. In areas where a tenant board must approve new applicants, everyone suspiciously seems to be of the exact same background. It’s like a Stepford Wives situation, except it’s Astoria.

The prison-to-poverty cycle studied by University of Washington sociology Becky Pettit (oh why, why, why is her name Becky) is something I’ve heard talk about except in reverse- the unfortunately termed “pipeline” of minorities, often black people, from bad homes to delinquency in school to the streets to then, prison. To know that it works in vice versa, as such to create a negative feedback loop, is galling. The prison system is an overwhelming problem in American society today, and yet all these studies seem to leave us without solutions, only more proof of the problem.

Housing

April 23, 2017 / Franny / 0 Comments

Homelessness is a pervasive issue in New York City especially, as evidenced by the fact that many of our first thoughts for Issues of New York was homelessness. Interestingly, I don’t think anyone chose to follow up with it, likely because it is so often a dead end policy-wise and emotion-wise. In New York we don’t even see homeless people as human beings, just detritus. The Trevor Noah comedy night we had at Queens College last week involved a whole bit about homeless people trying to get money- as in, to survive- and everyone was laughing because they all know what’s it like from the outside looking in. And yet, these are human beings.

I read this lovely feature in the New York Times about a Girl Scout troop made up entirely of homeless girls and it was heartwarming. That HUD count that pointed out that 66 percent of homeless adults with children live with friends before entering shelters is vital to demonstrating that these families are trying. It’s just that people don’t have the ability to couch surf forever, especially with children.

When I was in elementary school, there was a little boy who used to annoy the hell out of me. He didn’t smell great, constantly fidgeted, and even fought with me. I complained about him to my mother, who went to the teacher, and the teacher, rather than shooing my mother off, actually explained to her that the boy had pent up energy and often was unable to shower properly because he lived in a shelter, and every day when he left school he had to go line up to make a bed for the night rather than playing with children his own age. Things like that exist because children continue to attend zoned schools even after they have lost their homes, often with little help from guidance counselors who have way too many other kids of whom to take care. I worry most about children.

I agree with the idea presented at the end of Chapter 9 that finding permanent housing for people should take priority over making sure they have fixed their substance abuse issues. Having a place to live that isn’t in danger of disappearing on you is essential to feeling stable as a human being, and being able to live somewhere permanently gives one the freedom from that anxiety and allows one to focus on then self-improvement.

Housing discrimination certainly exists, but New York State has taken significant measures (at least on paper) to combat this issue. Of course, the real housing discrimination exists in the price tag.

Why is the United States of America so Damned Unequal?

April 23, 2017 / Franny / 0 Comments

Chapter 10 of the CQ Reader centers around inequality and the distribution of wealth in our country. The United States of America is one of the most unequal countries in the world, despite being among the wealthiest. The difficulty of so many issues facing America today is partisanship. Even the inclusion of Paul Krugman, an economist who should be a valid source in his own right, is qualified as being “liberal economy Paul Krugman”. The man is a Nobel Prizewinner and columnist for one of the most revered papers in the country, and yet his opinion comes down to whether he is a liberal or conservative.

It seems as though decreasing inequality is increasingly just a “liberal” fantasy, and that conservatives are all for augmenting the plight of the poor and working class and letting upper class people coast. I understand that this textbook of issues was created at the time of the 2016 very contentious election, but to continuously make reference to “Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders” or “Democrat Hillary Clinton” really detracts from what is supposedly the objective here: giving a view on the issue of inequality.

“Conservative economists and some liberals” discuss the history of the middle class. Why does it continuously come back to partisanship. The issue with the social sciences like economics and sociology are that so often everything seems politicized. Inequality should be an issue that all have concerns with, as it involves every single person in America regardless of where one is on the social class totem pole, and yet it is constantly grounds for debate. Instead of arguing about solutions, the apparent Schrödinger’s cat issue of the problem even existing is continuously thrown about as much as a football.

This is both a liberal and a conservative issue, both the issue itself and how it is dealt with. So much of the discussion of inequality focuses on finger pointing and blaming others, rather than offering any actual concrete policy goals to combat this. How am I supposed to take this seriously as an unbiased discussion of both sides when both sides are constantly labeled and it’s not difficult to tell who was consulted more?

Ch 8 Response: When the Law’s Not Enough

March 25, 2017 / Franny / 0 Comments

This chapter discusses our present day, but also happens to draw on a lot of history that America is fraught with, from the backlash against desegregation to the origin of the modern GOP and Democratic parties. Hickson of Georgetown makes reference to the fact that Hillary Clinton trusts in the law too much- which is a scary thing to read. Shouldn’t the law be what most people obey above all, living in a secular society? And yet this chapter tells us of how the Republican party under Nixon got so much popularity precisely because the Democrats kept catering to black people. It is strange to read this from the perspective of being mixed race and hearing what those in my family and community have been saying for a while: the Democrats don’t really care about black people. They’re all talk and no action, and the only reason blacks keep coming back is because the other side is worse. Isn’t that what everyone kept saying about the 2016 election? This seems to be a common thread in American politics, that people are voting against people rather than for policies.

Democrats don’t really care about black people.

The fact remains that due to ethnic enclaves and the way cities have been zoned across the countries historically so that black people remained in the ghetto, that black people are often those on the bottom of income levels, living at or below the poverty line. While everything in the news was poking fun at the white Trump voters who accidentally voted against their own healthcare, those are not the people to feel sorry for. Black communities, and black children especially, have been suffering for a really long time.

Flint, Michigan has been left by the wayside by both media and the government since 2014. With the EPA facing severe budget cuts, many other communities who face serious health risks because of environmental concerns are now essentially being left to die. Whatever this chapter was about with a title like race relations, what really stood out was the fact that whether or not legislation is really what changes people’s minds about race, legislation has to be written in order for people’s lives to change. Racism is institutionalized in this country, in our education system, in our urban planning, in our welfare programs. Clinton had a point when she said that making white people admit to our history of racism isn’t enough- we actually have to start putting pen to paper and bringing people up to sit on our level.

And in the meantime, yeah it’d be great if people could understand what the Black Lives Matter movement is instead of bringing up all lives all the time when they are trying to keep out refugees of war.

Response to Ch 7

March 19, 2017 / Franny / 0 Comments

I have to say, the most interesting takeaway from this chapter was about how technology has influenced the rise and regrowth of gang culture. Technology is so often heralded as the hallmark of globalization or how people all over the world can connect, but there really is a dark side to all that connection. It isn’t just about meeting the wrong person on Omegle. It’s things like how ISIS mainly recruited between 2013 and 2015 from sites like Twitter and Facebook. And it extends to gang membership as well.

It’s fascinating how gangs are going more underground now because of the internet. The internet allows for subtlety in public and loud advertisement online. It seems, however, that that would be easier to track. Especially since gangs usually don’t come with IT personnel built in. I’m not really sure how the internet protects gang anonymity more than being on the streets does, except that you can’t really grab a gang member virtually. I would like to read up more on that, because I know that many ISIS members have been caught that way and how can secret signs be transmitted online when they’re public for the most part? The internet is even more public than just graffitiing something because it can reach so many people.

Speaking of people, the “consumers” of this gang culture now have a different skill set to cultivate. The way that gang evolution is described in this chapter is almost like changing trends in business. It’s strange how now gangs have adapted to switch to crimes that police are less likely to go after, like human trafficking. In fact, it seems like that’s a huge area of growth for gang activity. While usually one thinks of foreigners from countries with less gender equality being those to traffick women and girls, now it seems to be homegrown gangs that will do this as well. And to diversify their income? That sounds so mundane for something that’s a lot more long term than merely shooting someone or robbing a store. Human trafficking changes lives irrevocably, and it involves many moving parts. It seems fairly complicated, and perhaps not something that the youth-focused “street gangs” are up to.

Local human trafficking is hardly ever talked about- so often it’s the trafficking of foreign girls who are coerced into coming to the States, but now it appears that it can be local American citizens as well, and that’s the majority of what it is for the gangs that participate in or propagate human trafficking.

Violence is still the “language” of gangs, and that participates in the destabilization of urban areas. Control over violence is what gives a governing body authority, and in cities where gangs control territory it is hard to feel protected by cops or politicians. Until the proliferation of violence can be effectively controlled, I don’t believe gangs can be eradicated or even diminished much.

The human trafficking aspect is really frightening, though. People think of sex slaves as foreign Ukrainian women who can’t speak English, not girls from the neighborhood who walk down the wrong street at night. That definitely needs to be a law enforcement priority.

Racial Profiling- Ch 6 Response

March 11, 2017 / Franny / 0 Comments

I think what is most interesting about the controversy with racial profiling is that the controversy and debate seems to extend across the professional sphere and the private sphere vehemently. Unlike some other topics that we’ve addressed in the CQ reader such as pollution, racial profiling is somewhat of an everyday background issue. It’s not actually a debate in the black community. Black people know, or think they know (to remain unbiased), that for the most part the institution of law enforcement in general is biased against the black man or woman.

Unfortunately, this topic has pretty much pitted police officers against the average everyday citizen, with an assumption that many people of color take that cops are automatically predisposed against them as opposed to white people. This shouldn’t be so offensive to cops, since women pretty much do the same thing walking down the street and seeing a man that people of color do when they see a cop- go on high alert just in case.

However, police officers seem to get really bent out of shape about it. Many feel like their reputation is being smeared. However, the fact remains that there have been too many Eric Garner or Michael Brown incidents where police officers act on their training to shoot first and ask questions later or to react as though they are in danger when they think other people might be- and insist that they are on the defense when they very well may be perceived by onlookers as the attackers.

Both Presidents Clinton and W. Bush pledged to work to combat the issue of racial profiling in law enforcement, yet Obama remained pretty silent on the topic- at least in terms of public speaking. It has been galling for those in the black community- and I speak from experience through my friends and family- to see the first black president stay silent on indisputably black issues like dealing with the police. Especially since Ferguson happened under his term. Unfortunately, he did not have the same kind of leeway that white men had as presidents- he could not afford to make his presidency a “race thing” when he had run on a platform appealing to all Americans, highly advertising his white side and upbringing. It’s a stick situation for sure, and I personally believed work needs to be done on the ground level.

Do body cameras need to be installed necessarily on every policeman? That’s a budgetary concern, and I believe that in a day and age of smartphones there are witnesses who will bring the unlawful to task via the internet and social media. As for preventative measures, I agree that police forces must work within themselves to retrain officers and maintain a friendly relationship with the community members that they work near and alongside in many cases. Racial profiling is a whole can of worms, but its existence cannot be denied- although I’m sure someone will surely, since I’m only the second to post.

Cemetery Space

March 7, 2017 / Franny / 0 Comments

The biggest points I guess are in the business itself, that more people are cremating than ever. Over 50% of people in New York were cremated in 2016. It’s not really affecting cemeteries that people are dying less. The good thing is, is that our cemetery many years ago planned things very well. But many cemeteries are affected by this, and will be affected in the next 10-15 years. It’s a fact that there are more dead people in Queens right now than there are living. It’s not a business thing, it’s a space problem. If you look on a map, places like Manhattan and Queens are not big areas. There’s a lot of space in Nassau County, Suffolk County, upstate New York, but people who want to bury their loved ones in the city are having an issue. We’re lucky that we planned well, but we’ll run out of room eventually. Just think, there are more buried people than those on top of the ground [in Queens]. – Alex, Cedar Grove Cemetery

Climate Change As An (Unfortunately Partisan) Urban Issue

February 26, 2017 / Franny / 1 Comment

The chapter on air pollution and climate change details the trajectory and goal of former president Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan in particular while paying attention to the main issues at hand policy-wise in trying to combat the effects of climate change.

The section on the growth of clean energy cites Bloomberg New Energy Finance and Natural Resources Defense Council, explicitly environmentally friendly organizations. But even news magazines have noted the boom in clean energy. “Clean Energy’s Dirty Secret”, the feature this week from Economist, demonstrates that clean energy’s main problem is how cheap it is in fact becoming. As subsidies become less necessary to offset the costs of solar and wind power, the advent of clean energy risks tanking the natural gas and coal industries (the latter of which should have already died naturally). It will take delicate policy to make this huge shift from fossil fuels to renewables, and it will require financial sacrifice at first. We need policymakers willing to make this sacrifice.

Jobs will explode with the switch to renewable energy. The difference will be that these jobs will require more training than mining. They will also come with the benefit of not slowly killing those who work in them. Kevin Book of ClearView Energy Partners has it right: the government must provide the incentives. We cannot trust corporations to make the switch on their own out of- what, a moral compass? Corporations are legally people, but they don’t exactly shed a tear over rising asthma rates.

When the expert from Clean Air Watch cites the EPA’s new ozone standard as baby steps, he fails to recognize the fact of the matter: no one will accept anything greater. Many of those in policymaking literally do not believe climate change exists or that air quality is important. Just this year, Long Island residents discovered thanks to an EPA survey that the carcinogenic chemical 1,4-dioxane is more prevalent in Long Island than anywhere else in the state, and that it can leech through groundwater into drinking water. Not only this, but this chemical is an inhaled chemical as well as one imbibed through drinking water, so Long Island residents that take showers with their unfiltered water are still exposed to one of the most serious carcinogens out there. It has been in the water for several years now, only just discovered, and finally the Suffolk County Water Authority is acting to combat it with an ultraviolet reactor. We in the city are lucky in that our water is some of the safest around, but examples like these demonstrate the slow response that state and federal authorities have to even just checking for environmental degradation and its effects on human health. Long Island has it much worse with its Republican representatives. Congressman Peter King opposes all EPA regulations strongly. Congressman Lee Zeldin does not even believe climate change exists. Climate change is not a partisan issue. The Republican party, thanks in part to the Tea Party’s rise and extremist views, has remained stagnant on an issue that affects all of its constituents, arguing with scientists about the very work they do.

A main theme left out of this, in my opinion, when it comes to policy, is the fact that as it has stood for several decades, climate change remains a partisan issue. While governors and state senators have taken it upon themselves in heavily affected conservative states like Florida to work on coastal resiliency and the like, many of those in Congress still remain skeptical of the fact that climate change even exists. As long as the Republican party refuses to acknowledge as a party that climate change is not only a grave threat to national security and human health, but also that it definitively exists, policy will always remain halfhearted and ineffective.

In Response to Brandon & All Those Other People

February 14, 2017 / Franny / 1 Comment

Poor Brandon Stanton, he’s an urban internet celebrity. Now he can’t be a proper…are we qualifying him as an ethnographer? He certainly seems to do a lot of what the ethnography video, “Getting People to Talk”, espouses. “I don’t want to be the best at telling a story about humanity, I want to be the best at telling a story about the person who’s right in front of me right now.” This quote from him in the interview seems to best exemplify the kind of response that ethnography wants to elicit at first, before drawing it out to a broader conclusion. While HONY has his commenters to do that, it is up to us as ethnographers to draw conclusions ourselves while still presenting our interviewee’s opinions and stories accurately to the best of our abilities.

When the ethnography video discusses getting over the nervousness of talking to strangers, they alight upon that only for a moment. Indeed, this must be a concern for many in our class. We aren’t all a talkative bunch. All the ethnographers discussing their work appeared to be pretty extroverted people, which isn’t always the case. As for “I’m not selling anything, can you tell me about your jeans?” That certainly comes off as a canvasser or creepy, I’m not surprised people didn’t want to talk to him. I assume for the most part that our Issue of New York post will be about someone specific, that we don’t have to flag down. He treated it almost like speed dating, and I wasn’t sure what the end goal of that experiment was, other than to grab sound bites from people. Our work from what we’ve been told will be a little different.

Another interesting point: ethnography as a philosophical orientation. What on earth was that woman talking about? I understand that she loves her craft, but I far more identified with her acknowledgment that ethnography can be used to gather intel for marketing rather than how it exists as a philosophical orientation. Would love to discuss that more in class. That totally floored me. It actually reminded me of when Isaac was talking about universal truths in class- social science never seemed to me to be very spiritual, but maybe I’m wrong. How does philosophy fit into social science? General question.

A fascinating portion was about exploring people’s space and artifacts. I believe this is the best way to acquire the truth from someone, especially if, as Chris Finlay pointed out, they may not be aware of the whole truth. I never considered the necessity of being with people in their relevant, meaningful spaces. How this will fit into the issues we work with remains to be seen, but I think the use of artifacts can be as vital as they claim. After all, fortunately or no, we are all attached to our things. Material goods often lend insight into a person’s life. I’ve seen that in literature and reality.

I loved the emphasis on getting them to sign the release form. Incredible. As funny as it was, consent is important and I’m glad that they touched upon that.

The surprise portion was interesting too. Hiding one’s surprise will be difficult, but if it will interfere with the person’s storytelling, it must be done. I end with the concept that they did as well: make people sing. When people are at their most comfortable, when a rapport has been built, that is when the good stuff will happen. As for watching other interviewers at work, I’m sure that you (Professor Rogers) have much to offer us in the way of prior experience and maybe some horror stories to share as that poor man Jeremy Alexis with all his nodding!

Author: Franny

Urban Poverty, Housing & The Racial Divide

Housing

Why is the United States of America so Damned Unequal?

Ch 8 Response: When the Law’s Not Enough

Response to Ch 7

Racial Profiling- Ch 6 Response

Cemetery Space

Climate Change As An (Unfortunately Partisan) Urban Issue

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