This week’s readings fueled the idea that has been brewing in my mind for a while that racism, if it does not exist blatantly and on the surface, exists as a form of racial paranoia. The Black Corona reading made me think of the demographics of a city as a sort of cocktail. It didn’t occur to me that community boards can actually alter the type of races that move into a community. I found it particularly interesting that the Lefrak organization offered a free month’s rent to fifty black families to encourage their moving into the buildings that had been predominantly white, and that they also brought in elderly white people to further diversify the “cocktail” of races.
But isn’t this discrimination within itself, for the Lefrak Organization to only allow free rent to black families? What about other races that had experienced discrimination in the past? Additionally, giving too much preference for a certain race (in the act of trying to stop discrimination of that race) in turn promotes racism towards the initial race (in this case, the Lefrak’s policy would end up being discriminatory towards the whites). I think all of these acts are a product of people being so scared of being considered racist. I think it is impossible to make every race equal the way that we fantasize about, not that we shouldn’t keep trying to find a way that works. Since people are so different, to try to equalize people, let alone entire races, is a huge project that is perhaps too technical to achieve in real life.
