The End. Almost
The focus of my essay was about segregation in America and it's potential effects of achieving the American Dream, defined as educational and occupational success. I got my ideas from "Dreaming in Black and White" by James Loewen in The American Dream in the 21st Century. Wow I'm sounding boring. I'll spice this up.
Okay. When people think of the American Dream, they think of the white suburbs, a white picket fence with green grass and a nice house. This is the white American Dream, as Loewen defines it. I never realized the drastic measures people took to forbid African Americans from remaining in their towns. Loewen recalls how "suburbs used zoning and informal policing to keep out black would-be residents and eminent domain to take their property if they did manage to buy some" (61). I know how bad segregation was in the form of segregated schools and bathrooms and water fountains, but I didn't know they went through such lengths to exclude them. And it wasn't just African Americans. Chinese Americans and American Indians all face similar unjust treatment. It really struck me how "the worse race relations got, the more whites blamed blacks for the situation" (67). That makes no sense; whites are the ones who put them in this situation in the first place. And it is interesting that the more segregated things got, the easier they were able to "demonize African Americans and their segregated enclaves" (67). It makes me angry and makes absolutely no sense.
My research has also supported the fact that segregation leads to very dire consequences for these groups. It's a domino effect, really. In Douglas S. Massey's “Shaping American Communities: Segregation, Housing & The Urban Poor: Getting Away With Murder: Segregation And Violent Crime In Urban America”, he shows that segregated communities lead to an increased crime rate. As the rate of poverty and segregation increase, so does the crime rate. And he's got numbers. his data shows that "a neighborhood crime rate of 57.8% and a neighborhood crime rate of
84.2%-is the difference between a city with no racial segregation
and a black poverty rate of 20% and a city with complete racial
segregation and a poverty rate of 30%" (14). My other sources show how the attaining educational success for Latinos is already low, and even lower when accounting for one's income. The poorer the schools, the less likely the kids are the graduate. It's absolutely unfair. And while my research shows that Asians have about the same educational success (and by that mean various test scores and graduation rates), they are still very segregated.
It's hard to believe that these problems still exist today. People talk about how much progress we've made, but we really haven't made as much progress as we should. These groups are still marginalized, and until segregation is eliminated, America will be continued to be divided. And a divided America is scary. We need to identify the things that need to be changed and realize that these have a cumulative effect on these groups. We need to stop it and take action.
I also wrote my essay on a topic relating to oppression. That being the discrepancy between men and women achieving their American Dream due to women being oppressed in the workforce, education, politics, etc. I want to say it sucks certain people are held back from their dreams because of their gender, or in the case of your essay their race, but at this point it seems so redundant and something that has been occurring for ages.It is hard to believe these issues still exist today. It seems whenever we think progress is being made, something come out in the news that sets us right back.
ReplyDeletePrior to changing my topic to the impact of gender and the American Dream, I was looking into this idea of the correlation between segregation and the American Dream. It is interesting to see your ideas on this topic. It is hard to believe that racism and segregation has been thriving for so many years and although we have some progress to show for it, racism is nowhere near eliminated in our society. It’s just sad. There are no benefits to oppression, racism, or discrimination. All of these things create negativity and hostility in our society, and peoples of races other than the white race are held back from reaching their dreams, or in this case the American Dream, due to their family’s roots that they cannot control. No one chose their race nor are any races more superior to others, yet somehow some races are perceived as higher status and therefore carry some advantages in life that other races do not have access to.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you added some personality in the beginning of your blog! Haha it made me want to read more! This was an interesting read because I did not research the same topic, so I learned some new things from your blog. I feel like people mostly pay attention to racial inequality in African Americans, and they forget about other citizens like the Chinese Americans you mentioned. They all get mistreated, yet African Americans seem to stick out the most, and I don't quite understand the reasoning behind that. It upsets me too knowing that other races are being treated so unfairly. I learned about increased segregation led to increased crime rates- which I also found intriguing. Being in the twenty first century, I would also like to believe that we have leveled the playing field for all and there is opportunity for everyone, but stats like you mentioned dispute that. Indeed, we have made progress, but hopefully we continue to progress and move in the right direction.
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