In response to the Great Depression, President FDR enacted the New Deal Program. One part of this program was to give out money for housing. However, when deciding who received this money and who did not they drew red lines around African American neighborhoods. If you lived inside those redlines it made it a million times harder for you to receive loans. In the video, The Disturbing History of the Suburbs they play a game similar to monopoly except one team is playing by the unfair rulebook the government has given to African Americans and the other team is able to purchase property and expand their wealth with ease. This has to be one of the most frustrating games I have ever witnessed. Of course, over time the federal government made it illegal to ban African Americans from specific neighborhoods. However, the story of Harvey, a WWII veteran, told in the podcast "Redlining" shows that African Americans were often forced out of their homes if they tried to move into predominately white neighborhoods and then would be persecuted afterward for instigating riots and plotting to lower market rates.
As we learned in the previous module, public schools are primarily funded by property taxes, so the schools that are in African American neighborhoods, or as the video Segregated by Design coined slums because of the toxic power plants that were placed there and their likeliness to be overcrowded, are less funded than the schools that are in the mainly white suburbs. A common misconception is that people of color have the ability to move, but choose not to. In reality, they were not given the same opportunities for wealth as most white people. The houses that were previously banned from being owned by African Americans have skyrocketed in value. This profit has given white people the funds to send their children to college and to buy bigger houses in even nicer suburbs. People of color were never given the opportunity to purchase houses in the first place, so they did not get this same privilege.
Hey Kassi! I really enjoyed reading your blog this week and also read the same sources you used and they show many different aspects about our schools. I think it is interesting how we are learning and reading about all of these things in history and it all connects and effects other courses as well. Our history is such a big factor within our lives and it is time for a major change so things can get better rather than continuing to be worse. I agree that these games are frustrating and isn’t fair to everyone especially those who haven’t done anything. It is disheartening to hear and read about how we are supposed to all have fair and equal opportunities but in reality, it is far from that. We as future teachers have the best opportunities to make these changes and speak up to people encouraging these wrong actions.
ReplyDeleteHi Rylee! Thank you for reading my post! I also agree that history plays a huge role in the way our public school systems function. It is our jobs as teachers to understand this, so that we can fight against it!
DeleteHello Kassi , I really enjoyed your blog this week and I enjoyed the article you used to back up your opinion and statements you made. I really enjoyed how you started off your blog with some back up information about the new deal. Loans where harder to receive because of the redling rule. I completely agree it is a frustrating thing to witness. Seems like all because of an opinion these people can’t live their lives and live where they want. Every time you talk to someone who is about to buy a house they always say it’s in a good school district. This matters the place you live matters for the school your kids go to. If someone doesn’t let you live in a certain area because of the color of your skin this effects your children’s education and this is why we see it in schools. Property taxes play a huge part in the funding of these schools too.
ReplyDeleteHi Hanna! Thank you for your response! I think many people are unaware that schools are a direct reflection of the neighborhoods surrounding them. If a neighborhood is in poverty then that means the school is not receiving enough funding.
DeleteHi Kassi! I enjoyed reading your blog this week, I also was frustrated when watching the game in the video "The Disturbing History of the Suburbs". I think watching this video brought attention to how things really were in simple terms, but allowed the audience to learn. I think it is sad that because the segregation and racism in the past, that schools and kids are not able to have equal opportunities. The redlining in history has irreversible consequences that can be seen in todays world. In the assignment 3-minute pause I talked about how those policies are still effecting people today. African Americans or other people of color were never able to get out of those redlining zones or slums once the policies were lifted because housing was too expensive or they were bullied out of living in predominately white areas. Schools are also taking a big hit because of the policies. Where ever the kids live, they go to the closest school no, meaning that if they live in a lower-income area the school might not be as good as if they lived in an upper-class white neighborhood. This all leads to how much funding the school gets from property taxes, then is able to give to the students. As future teachers, it is our job to do our best to give all of our students equal opportunities.
ReplyDeleteHi Caroline! Thank you for responding to my blog with this helpful information! I think you made a great point when you said that many of these sources are simple because they are there to help people begin to learn. It is up to us to seek out more information on this topic to get the details.
DeleteHey Kassi, I really enjoyed reading your blog and all the support you put behind it to be able to get the point across and back it up and show that this is still happening and that though it has changed it hasn't changed enough because it is still in are world and still in are school no matter how hard we try to push it away. It is horrible that so much has happened in the past and we fought to change it and we fought for everyone to have equality and be treated the same and feel that they are meant to be in this school but yet even if its not as bad as it was in the past it is still here weather we try to ignore it or not. As teachers we should fight to stop this show kids that no matter how we look or speak we are all meant to be hear and all of are voices matter.
ReplyDeleteHi Aaliyah! Your response was really inspiring! I completely and wholeheartedly agree that our biggest job as educators is to make sure that our students know that their voices are being heard no matter what.
DeleteHey Kassi! I really enjoyed reading your blog this week and hearing about your thoughts. I thought it was interesting when you brought up FDR and the new deal laws that were put in place. Redlining is something that happened so long ago and we are still seeing the impacts it had and the struggles people are faced with. The source you brought up where they played the game that was similar to monopoly was something I also thought was very interesting because it portrays redlining pretty well. Even in today's time, African Americans struggle to buy their own houses and property's just like years ago when redlining was legal. It is sad to see that this has left a lasting impact in society and is something so many people struggle with.
ReplyDeleteHi Maya! Thank you for your response! I think that in order to fully understand how and why schools are segregated today, it is essential to look into the New Deal and its racist redlining policies.
DeleteHey Kassi! I found your blog to be very interesting and informative. To be honest, I did not listen to the podcast “Redlining” but it sounds like I need to. The New Deal Program was supposed to be something positive but has turned into just the opposite. That program that was created years and years ago has continued to cause problems for African Americans to this day. The fact that they could not even move where they pleased without being persecuted is disgusting. I appreciate how you mentioned the last module being about property taxes because these two modules really do go hand in hand. The reason why there is segregation in schools is because of all these laws having to do with taxes and housing. In my opinion, the two should not have any correlation at all. Where someone lives or how much money they have should have nothing to do with the quality of education they receive.
ReplyDeleteHi Riley! Thank you for your insight! I would highly recommend listening to the redlining podcast. It really enjoyed the way the speakers made the information personal by telling stories about real people who experienced the racist policies firsthand.
DeleteHi Kassi! After reading your quote "The Disturbing History of the Suburbs they play a game similar to monopoly except one team is playing by the unfair rulebook the government has given to African Americans and the other team is able to purchase property and expand their wealth with ease." I can definitely say that reading this made me feel frustrated. not mostly angry and sorry for these people. The fact that everything that happened in the past does not seem like "a big deal" in today's world. It seems this way since things have changed a little. but not tremendously like it should. People should also learn to have a voice. It seems as if people do no want to speak up because they aren't in "their shoes." Since when has this been this way? The color of your skin does not and should not determine the opportunities you should receive.
ReplyDeleteHi Ashley! Thank you for your response! I unfortunately agree that too many people think that America has changed drastically when in reality the change is minor, and they are giving our public school systems way too much credit than they deserve.
DeleteHi Kassi! I really enjoyed reading your blog this week! I especially enjoyed how information your blog was. Giving all this data and facts from outside resources was very helpful to read and understand your writing. What do you think we can do to help compensate for this damage in the school system? I was thinking since it would be difficult to change the housing issue we could give more resources to these schools with a majority of minority students. In your opinion would this help fix the issue of segregated schools? What are ways we can help to support these low funded schools? I think it would be difficult to get better teachers into these schools because of the bad stereotype around them. In an ideal world we could bring in lots of different teachers who could help raise the school morale and change this stereotype. Since this topic is so complex I just don't know a perfect solution to the issues you brought up in this blog.
ReplyDeleteHI Kacy! Thank you for your response! Sadly, I do not have all of the answers to your questions. I think that people becoming more educated about our segregated past and how it is making our present segregated is the best way to end the cycle.
DeleteHello Kassi this is a really great blog you wrote for this weeks question and the comments that you made were very good. African Americans were never really given a chance to be able to live peaceful in a country that is considered to be treated equally for all. But the government put policies in place to stop the Black community from being treated equally. As the result of these polies has caused so much hurt and pain in the African American community because they had to deal with living in over crowded housing, toxins going into their bodies, the schools being low funded, and etc. This has set the culture back so many generations and we are slowly trying to catch back up to the Whites, but we will never fully be equal until everybody is educated enough on the subject. We have to go back and unpack every generation of discrimination to see why the government made this decision to treat Black this way.
ReplyDeleteHi Mackenzie! Thank you for your response! I agree that we have to look into our past in order to make amends and change the viscous cycle that is currently taking place.
Delete