I agree with Alex that race and public housing are closely related , because public housing tended to be for minorities who were attracted by the low prices that they could afford. However, as she mentioned, the public housing situation wasn’t pretty- it was overcrowded, dirty and noisy. In addition there was a lot of minority violence and crime, which gave the area a bad reputation. This further increased segregation and racism because the wealthy whites who lived in their nice, expensive suburban towns heard about all this crime in the poor minority neighborhoods, and take it to mean that the minorities are dangerous and inferior, like savages. So then they’ll continue to further keep their distance and separate themselves, increasing segregation and ostracizing the minorities. However, what they don’t realize is that the reason for crime and violence isn’t inherently the minorities’ fault. It’s not like all minorities are prone to violence, it’s because of the poor living situations. There is an increased crime rate in poorer neighborhoods, and people get confused and think that the issue is a racial one, which it is partly, but it is also an economic one, which people don’t realize. If a wealthy African American moves into a white suburban neighborhood, it doesn’t mean crime and violence will go up because of the black family- the violence, I believe, is confined to the poor neighborhoods where people are desperate and angry, which leads to crime and violence.
I think its awful that these housing situations for minorities deteriorated after the Civil War and World War II. It’s so mean- the minorities fight alongside whites in the war, defending America, their country and their freedom, and how do we repay them once it’s over? By throwing them in the slums. Yeah, that’s real nice. Also, in the movie they spoke about the GI Bill and how they conveniently made up reasons why it shouldn’t apply to different minorities, like the African Americans. That’s just a dirty trick. Not nice!
I also noticed a lot of people discussing white being the “Times New Roman” default race, and if they would still be the default race if other minorities had a larger population- would white become the new minority, and say African American the new majority, or default? I just want to say that the words “minority” and “majority” in this context are not based on population (I don’t think). I’m pretty sure it has to do with which group is in power (the majority) and which groups are the oppressed (minorities), or so I’ve been told in my sociology class last semester. So if we take that to be right, then it doesn’t matter if some minority groups grow to out-populate the white majority, they will still be minorities until there is a shift in “power” or of some other sort. As long as a group is being discriminated against, it doesn’t matter how large your population is, you are a minority.
