The question that seems to be floating around this week’s readings is: Are Whites the default race? And as Susan asks, does this same feeling of dominance exist in other countries, by other races?
The importance of race, as many of our readings have mentioned, is purely a figment of imagination. It is made up in order to classify people who are not the same. Race is a way to separate different societies, and was established for the already present Whites of New York to maintain their position of dominance.
To expand on Alex’s suggestion that public housing reinforces the issue of race, it is almost necessary to mention also the movie we watched in class, where we learned that in areas of Long Island, it was nearly impossible for Blacks to buy a house anywhere near where Whites lived, because of the White’s rejection of the Blacks as neighbors, and even as people. When moving into an area, Whites would take into consideration the Black demographic, and if it was too high for their liking, they would choose another area to live.
The idea of race also created problems, because every ethnicity as they moved into the area, began to feel that they were the dominant “race,” which led to many wars between the minorities. People who inhabit one area for many years, begin to think of that area as their own, and they reject any others who move into their area. As Praveena mentions in her post, Orsi talks about how the Italians tried to escape the similarities between them and the Puerto Ricans. Having been there first, the Italians wanted to keep their identity to themselves, and when the Puerto Ricans started moving into their space, they got angry, jealous, and overprotective of their area. This led to many fights between these two ehtnicities. After the introduction of a new race, the Italians wanted to leave the area, not wanting to be associated with the “dark-skinned other.”
In Pritchett’s book, he identifies the problems of public housing projects and how even though they were supposed to promote ethnic diversity in an area, the more ethnicities that moved into Brownsville, the more Whites moved out. As Alex mentions in her post, the more African Americans in the area, the more problems there were with crimes and drug-trades. This, of course was blamed on the increasingly dominant presence of Blacks in the area, and rather than improve the neighborhood, since all the Whites were leaving, buildings and schools began to be demolished in order to increase the amount of public housing.
To answer Alex’s question of Whites being the “default font,” stems from the example Maryam suggested in class last week: that when reading a book, we imagine the characters to be White, without hesitation. This is a hard concept to wrap my mind around, because although early inhabitants of this country were Native Americans, dark-skinned and all, we have this idea that Americans are naturally White. The settlement of Whites in New York City, and their replacement of the Native Americans might have given them an original sense of dominance and superiority over all other ethnicities.
