This article addresses the issue of African Americans problems with accumulating property through institutional racism in the housing market and stereotypes. Renting or owning your house plays a significant role in how much net worth a person can accumulate. This article presents all the problems that African Americans have in accumulating net worth because of institutional racism in the housing markets and stereotyping that has had a historical trend.
He begins to discuss how African Americans after they were freed were promised a mule and forty acres as part of reparations for slavery this did not happen. After the Civil War, white farmers in the south would refuse to sell their farms to blacks even if the whites were not able to plant crops themselves. This idea led to “sharecropping” for African Americans or working and running the farm but not owing any capital….the whites did. What were African Americans supposed to do walk out? They lived off the land and needed its resources to survive while the owners of the land took a percentage of their earnings. Sharecropping lead to black farmers unable to save any portion of their income or even buy some necessities.
Segregation caused by institutions still exists today. Most Americans attempt to own homes in order to accumulate equity. Renting a home or apartment does not allow a person to save as much money as if they owned a home and yet many African Americans live in the inner city where renting is a popular theme. Home ownership in the U.S. is determined by race and place. A large portion of minorities live in the inner city which is filled with abandon buildings, violence, and other factors that decrease property value. Property values often dictate how much money schools receive through property taxes. The place where a family lives determines their “life chances” which could have a long lasting affect on how successful a person can become. An example of this would be how crummy the Detroit Public School System is compared to Grosse Point.
Residential segregation leads to an uneven proportion of minorities living in the suburbs and a chance to own their own home which decreases their chance to accumulate equity. Housing in African American neighborhoods have low value increase compared to white neighborhoods. And if an African American family does manage to buy a home their home is worth less than that of a white family. The reason this occurs is because the dominant group in society (whites) determine the actually value of the house. This also leads to redlining in neighborhoods, stereotyping that leads to” white flight” and problems with acquiring loans in order to get houses in better areas.
I feel that Conley’s article speaks the truth on how housing segregation has a significant impact on the ability of African Americans and other oppressed minorities to accumulate net worth. He gives some interesting statistics about the tremendous gap difference between the incomes and assets of blacks and whites. Overall, I think that this article main point needs to be better known and not just dusted under the carpet.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
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ReplyDeleteFirst off, I agree with what professor Rudy talked about in the summary. I believe that the issue of African Americans accumulating wealth in the United States is due to a couple of reasons. African Americans have been treated unfairly whether it is due to institutional racism or because of them being so called “ruled by the white man” all of their lives. An example of this is when African Americans were freed, they were promised a mule and forty acres to try and become successful. This did not happen because of the whites wanted to stay in charge. One of the topics professor Rudy brought up was that renting a home or apartment does not allow a person to save as much money as if they owned one. The reason I believe they are forced to rent homes is because of the low wages that they earn. If a person’s income is low then the money they put away has to be significantly low also. This is a situation that most African Americans cannot get out of because of discrimination. Another point that was brought up was “life chances”. We see this everyday in society where someone can’t afford to live in a decent community. These people tend to be minorities that are struggling to survive. People that are in these situations often don’t have much opportunities presented to them in life because of that.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that caught my attention in the article was the stereotype that African Americans often are likely to consume more. I believe that this is partly true in a sense that poor African Americans might need to create an identity or image among society. This generates a low savings rate and is another reason why African Americans net worth is low. These kinds of issues need to be more public to let people know the income and savings gap between whites and blacks. I believe that these issues are related to competing throughout life. The United States is a place of competition in every aspect of life. This is something that will never go away because of our human nature.
Professor Alan Rudy makes some great, valid points in his summary. Back when there was no civil rights and individual freedoms for African Americans, African Americans were racially discriminated against whether it be socially, institutionally, ect. Even in todays society, minorities are racially discriminated against whether it be with housing, job discrimination, and/or institutionally. The author gets across great points when he brings up the different life chances people have. We have no control over the family we are born into, the color of our skin, or the neighborhood we grow up in. These are all external factors that have an effect on our biological and physiological traits. For example: If you are born into a wealthy white family in the suburbs of Novi, Michigan, you are much more ahead of an individual who is born into an African American family in the inner cities because our racism in our society, and the prejudices of our country. These life chances caught my attention in class, and in this chapter because I agree with the author and with professor Rudy. The ideology of our society is "American is the land of opportunity" or you work hard you can be anyone. I think these ideologies are a bunch of crap, and you can't get ahead if there are racial barriers in your neighborhoods you grow up in, and the jobs you work at.
ReplyDeleteAnother section that I was intrigued by was the racial stereotypes. You hear the basic ones everyday, poor people are lazy, african americans can jump higher because of multiple of ligiments and muscles in there legs that white people don't have, or that every african american is a good athlete. Dalton Conley proves good arguments in my opinion with stereotypes. He shows different stereotypes when he states that African Americans are more likely to consume much more than whites, and that most blacks are not self employed, they don't own there own business such as a white individual. The stereotype that most African Americans work for the black market, sell drugs, pimps, ect. I have an African American friend whos parents actually own there own business and are doing just fine. In my opinion, this is just an irrational stereotype, and which all stereotypes are. There is no place in our society for racism, prejudice individuals, stereotypes. We need to look at the different opportunities people are guaranteed in life, we need to look at the bigger picture. Not everyone has the same rights and social justices as others, and this in my opinion is based on the color of your skin. Forty Acres and a mule summarizes all of these disadvantages very straight forward and easily to follow.
What I found most shocking about this article is that although African Americans have less assets, income, ect than whites they are saving about the same amount, they are just as likely to be self-employed and take risks. This article really does demonstrate some of the inequalities that are going on in our society between blacks and whites. There is a stereotype that they are spending more on clothes and things like but really they aren’t spending anymore than white, so that is no explanation either.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Patrick said about America as a land of opportunity being a bunch of crap. It really does seem that way. There are so many institutional barriers that prevent people from becoming “whatever they want to be.” This article clearly demonstrates how African Americans really have a much harder time getting ahead and there shouldn’t be any reason for it.
A point that I found kind of crazy in this article was when the author talked about how some social psychologists felt that maybe become of slave heritage African Americans developed a more consumerist attitude because they were not used to saving anything since they had no opportunities. He does say that this is unlikely because so much time as passed that this couldn’t still explain the problem today but to me that just seems very irrational to believe.
To talk about what Professor Rudy mentioned that white people determine the value of the housing market it does make sense to look at the problem that way. As the reading said, houses that African Americans live in have less value because they are in bad neighborhood but they can’t get out of the bad neighborhoods since their wages are not high enough and it is harder for them to find jobs. It’s just a vicious cycle. I thought this article brought to light many of the inequalities that have existed in our past and that still unfortunately exist in our society today.
Well, Black people have been getting the short end of the stick since the beginning. Where I am from they wont even sell a house to a black person in certain neiborhoods because of a chance the value of the homes in the area will go down. Many times people say when one black family comes in more and more will come and they dont know how to truly take care of a home. You were correct in saying it's hard for a black person to get a great net worth because of the fact that alot of us dont own homes but you have to look at the serounding factors. The places where most blacks live there are not many homes that are for sale. Most are only for rent. If a black person have the means to purchase a home the neigborhoods that have them for sale really dont want blacks to move in. What people are failing to realize that the idea of owning property should not be based on race or color. Instead it should be based on if you have the means necessary to buy the house and help the economy come back to the norm. It's time that all of this oppression is stopped and racial geography discrimination is stopped so that we as a country can finally make advances in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteOn a lighter note I thought this was funny that since they didn't give us the 40 acres and a mule we took the White House and 50 states.