You can also take the route and correlate low class people were neglected, which cost many lives and peoples’ homes. It was argued that when Hurricane Betsey hit, the levees were blown purposely so that the water would overflow into the 9th ward (predominately poor African Americans) and protect the more expensive lake areas (predominately rich Caucasians). It is clear that class plays a major part in whether you are cared about by a government. If I was the director of the film, I would change the way that Spike Lee went about interviewing the people. I think that Lee portrayed the affects of the Hurricane Katrina on less affluent people, which made it more biased.
Ferguson & Baltimore, Segregation to Separation: Prophecy Coming To Pass It is unfortunate that, the violent racial riots in Ferguson and Baltimore, that occurred after the death of clearly innocent Black youth, has diverted the public debate to ‘need for better policing’. The casualty has been obfuscation more fundamental issues like; century-old public policy of systematic social segregation, increasing economic inequality, and wholesale abdication by the state of social welfare obligations Century-Old Systematic Segregation According to The University of Chicago’s sociologist, Douglas S. Massey, “Housing segregation is both a consequence and a cause of Black poverty. Housing markets distribute not only a place to live, but they
The two pieces I found most moving during the History class this semester were “Disaster Apartheid: A World of Green Zones and Red Zones” and “An Inconvenient Truth” Both articles made reference to the radical adversity being faced by human, be it internationally through the constant threat of Global Warming, or be in nationally through the threat of discrimination due to ones race or social creed. In Naomi Klein's book, 'The Shock Doctrine' the chapter entitled "Disaster Apartheid" is the author’s interpretation of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe for the many flaws in the actions taken by the government in prevention, survival, and rehabilitation in New Orleans. She points out the lack of planning that allowed the effects of the hurricane to have impact of such magnitude while criticizing efforts made towards evacuation. Her writing argues the segregation of classes in New Orleans, allowing the middle and upper classes to drive to safety while the predominately black lower class was left helpless. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina show other mishandlings of the fragile situation by the government.
A Short History of Reconstruction By: Eric Forner Book Review The Short History of Reconstruction by Eric Foner gives insight about the years after the Civil War and the Reconstruction of America. This book covers the time span of the entire Reconstruction and spans from the end of the Civil War to just before the 1900’s. It focuses more on the South’s Reconstruction than the North, because the war had a greater and more identifiable effect in the South. One of the most widespread complications of the Reconstruction that Forner discusses was the lack of housing and jobs for the newly freed blacks. A great contributor to this issue was racism among the white population.
This was due to the policy of McCarthyism. Southern racists were among the most ardent anticommunists and tried their best to discredit the African-Americans with this theory. For example, this was evident in the late 1940’s when this principle lead to witch hunts where radical right wing opponents of Communism would regularly discriminate black people and used violence against them. This point supports the line of argument that there was little change between 1945-55 because of the huge influx of racial prejudice due to
Central Idea and Purpose The central purpose of all three pieces of media, The civil rights documentary, the news article on Emmet Till, and the song about Till all were created to show the racism that was prevalent at the time. The documentary discusses the murder of Dr king and lynching that took place in the deep south and wanted the viewer to see that during the 1960’s being black was incredibly unfair. You weren’t given the same rights as the white’s and it really wants you to look back and think about how horrible people were and how horrible people were and just how bad it was. The two articles about Emmet Till are very different. One is how the story of Emmet Till inspired the author to study law and pursue his case and find out
“Many Americans held the president personally to blame for the crisis and began calling the shantytowns that unemployed people established on the outskirts of cities “Hoovervilles” (B, 676; CD) The 1930’s also show examples of our continuing inequality in America. As the white males began to lose their jobs and some African Americans continued to work, people believed in this crisis white males had first priority when it came to jobs and started replacing the African Americans. (B, 665; CD) Mexicans during the depression were rounded up and were forced to
What if the Africans/African Americans were the slave owners? Would it be wrong? It made some slave holders and their overseers brutal, it made other white people feel guilty and ashamed. Slavery was a moral sickness upon the society. Most slave owners were of white descent and for them to turn their back on their own kind is awfully inhumane, you could tell immediately that these people had no type of conviction or mercy within their own race.
There is a tendency to view the racial segregation in American housing as the result of several local, uncoordinated decisions made in the past. Typically, Americans are told that once African American families began moving into a neighborhood, their prejudiced white neighbors would panic and start fleeing. This in turn led to plummeting property values, tax revenues, and a cycle of deteriorating neighborhoods that were in sharp contrast to those occupied by white residents. All of this taken together has some truth, but it is masking a far more important factor. For most of the twentieth century, racially discriminatory policies of federal, state, and local governments dictated where white and black citizens should and could live.
Jim Crow Laws had a major influential impact on the United States during its time period due to its cruel ways. Jim Crow Laws were a system of racial apartheid laws dominant in the South beginning in the 1890s continuing for three quarters of a century. The laws affected everyday life, separating Whites and African Americans by posting signs to where either ethnicity could go to school, restrooms, drinking fountains, buses, restaurants, and more. Jim Crow Laws claimed to have treated African Americans the same as Whites through the quote “separate but equal”. Although the laws abided by that particular quote it was visible that African American public facilities low grade quality wasn’t nearly comparable to those of Whites.