Since we’re talking about fonts, I just want to say that while Times New Roman is a nice font, it’s rather drab. There are many other fonts out there, some just as nice or even nicer. Another thing to consider is that Times New Roman is no longer the only default font. Teachers nowadays will also accept assignments submitted in Arial, Cambria body, and Calibri. But the thing about default fonts is, is that they are all very regular. Conformity is hideous, claustrophobic and unnatural.
The conditions of one’s house was, and is, directly related to one’s race. White people live in the best homes/neighborhoods, and as one’s color gets darker, the housing gets progressively worse. Let’s talk a little bit about these colors, and in the process talk a little bit about ourselves. Puerto Ricans and dark Italians didn’t hate the stereotypes that made them inferior–they were to busy hating themselves. Instead of embracing the color of their skin, they chose to be ashamed of it. Italians argued that the Italian language was very different from Spanish, that they had nothing to do with Puerto Ricans. Puerto Ricans insisted that they were not African American. But no one ever stopped to disagree, to fight the way things were.
There is no such thing as passive resistance. Boycotts, protests, sit-ins may be peaceful but they are not passive. For a darker skin person to buy a house in an exclusively White neighborhood is not passive–it’s active resistance. It’s a battle. For a White neighbor to refuse to move away is not passive–it’s an intentional strike against an unjust system. Jacob Riis’s taking pictures of tenement conditions was more than taking a photograph, it’s a wake-up call for the City.
Like Praveena, I agree that it would be faulty to be angry with the way things have been. Both Pritchett and Sharman seem to be describing the natural order of things. This is how neighborhoods have been built, how communities transition. That doesn’t mean we have to like it, though.
Alexa mentioned, and Pritchett talked about, how crime seemed to follow Blacks and Browns into neighborhoods. This makes it easy to see how stereotypes form. However, one should also see how facilities such as decent churches, hospitals and schools also tend to follow Whites out of neighborhoods. I’m not implying anything. I’m just sayin’.
