Ethnic pride and identity often creates certain situations that may be conflicting to various members of a community. As seen in our readings such conflicts can result in violence and protests that in the end harm both groups of people involved. Racial tensions are often heightened among a particular community so that differences are apparent between them but in the end no one benefits except those who have highlighted the differences in the first place. For instance in the documentary we watched in class, housing policies created this barrier between minority groups and those of a higher class (mostly white Americans), yet people often overlooked those creating these policies in the first place who also benefited from them.
Furthermore, we read about the violence and riots associated with the Italian American community against the African American community in the articles by Sciorra and Reider. It’s interesting to note that there was such a defensive nature to ones neighborhood among the Italians. This is still sometimes seen today as various people mark certain neighborhoods as their own but it was more overtly expressed during the earlier immigration waves. However, its also surprising to me that there was such a violent past behind many neighborhoods of New York City. Often kept on the “down-low” we don’t really get to hear or read about the real immigration issues surrounding the history of New York’s population. Though it becomes clear that race and identity greatly shape the behavior of communities across the city.
I definitely believe that the issues related with race and social/economic class are still deeply rooted within our system. Certain domestic policies make it so that the majority of the minority groups aren’t really able to move up the social ladder and have those “equal opportunities” that everyone supposedly claims to have. Conflict is often used as a clever technique to distract the mainstream public from the real issues at hand.
Finally regarding Susan’s question, like others have said, this is a challenging question because it involves dealing with issues of race and social class with a different approach. Isolating this community is a problem within itself but creating this clear barrier is even more so problematic. Like I’ve stressed in my other blogs, I strongly believe real change must come from the way policies are structured in the U.S. This would mean change from the government down. Without this change in policy, many of the problems we face seem like they will be never solved because only a few powerful people benefit from these issues while the masses of people have to suffer consequently. Race, conflict, identity are all important topics that have been discussed in this week’s readings and will be continue to be important topics in the upcoming years as international conflict largely becomes a part of everyone lives.
