THE GOVERNMENTS CREATION

Max Webers, Life Chances, emphasizes the likelihood a person has, of obtaining valued, economic and cultural resources. This focus on Life Chances allowed the introduction of middle class,. In the Podcast entitled, “House Rules”, narrated by Nancy Updike and Nikole Hannah, it looked at and researched how racism still exists to this day. Yes, we’ve come a long way, but now a days; racism is done in the dark, meaning that, its happening right in front of your eyes, and you don't even see it. The fact is, that this country admits that they wrote in documents that, “You have to take proactive steps to dismantle the segregation that you helped create”, speaking in essence about the government redlining of African Americans and refusal to grant them loans to purchase homes.

Act one reveals how Superintendants of buildings were discriminating against African American citizens looking to rent apartments in NYC. A non-profit organization called Fair Housing Justice Center would send black and white men and women out in the city of NY to attempt to rent apartments. The land lords, or supers, would tell the black men and women that  they didn’t have any apartments available  for them specifically, but always find one available for the white testers. They would even charge the white tenants less than the quote that they would give to the blacks. This explains how people who share a common class position, often share conditions and experiences, this includes, health, education, work, lifestyles, and most important, politics. The government created things this way for a reason, which is to keep poverty stricken citizens merged together in one particular community, with no way out, and it seems the supers feel the same way, or were given an order to act this way, one or the other. Your character doesn’t matter, neither does your income for that matter. Eventually, law suites began to be brought to court against these building owners. Nicole Hannah Jones wrote, housing can affect every part of your life,  “ Cancer rates, infant mortality, unemployment, education, access to fresh food, acces to parks, whether or not the city repairs the roads in your neighborhoods”,  all these things are a reflection of where you live.

Act one starts out discussing how many segregated blacks and whites still live in segregated communities in America. What stood out to me was how Nancy Updike noted that, cities like Chicago and New York with large African American populations have plenty of all black communities, but all white neighborhoods rarely exist anymore. She further explains, that the best way to visualize the segregation in certain cities, is when you fide the train. For example, when I was younger and rode a crowded train; I would go and stand in front of a white person, because I knew they weren’t going no further than 96 st. Nowadays, this isn’t true, being that whites have been migrating uptown for the past couple of years. Furthermore, in the 1930’s the government understood that ownership would be the way to build and structure middle class. The Roosevelt Administration began to give back loans, but only to whites to create what we have today, and undercover racist structure. This was a process called redlining, which banks and others used to deny loans to minorities based on race. People believed banks popularized this practice, when in reality it was the federal government. What eventually happens is, between 1934 and 1964, 98% of home loans insured by the federal government , go to white Americans, creating white middle class, by allowing them to become home owners. (98% SMH)

By 1967 Lyndon, who was the president at the time, signed into law the civil rights bill, but had no intention of moving forward with supporting the Fair Housing Act Law. The president brought along Walter Mandale, a young Senator from Detroit, along with him to help him lead the push for the housing bill in the senate. Nikole Hannah noted, that whenever Mondale brought up the housing bill, some o the liberal senators told him, “Your embarrassing us with this, your making us look like hypocrites by exposing our Hypocrisy”. Even Reverend Martin Luther King went to Chicago in support for Northern and Southern States, for what he called “Open Housing”. A lot of Americans found it blatant racism and discrimination that was totally unacceptable, but weren’t prepared for their own lives to change. Once Modale began to get testimony from African American Vietnam Veterans coming home from war, and finding it impossible to find housing because of their race, people began to really pay attention

Act three focused on the following election, which Nixon came to be president, and this time he chose George Romney, yes, Mitt Romney’s father, who when he was a senator was quoted as saying, “ The white suburbs had created a noose around the black inner cities”. He was given the job of Secretary of HUD, Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1968. Once there, he realized the US Department of housing was giving billions of dollars in grants for different projects in the country to develop communities across the country. Romney decides that if the communities are going to be taking federal dollars, then they’re going to have to be willing to let African Americans into those same communities. Nixon didn’t agree with Romney’s views, and once he began to get complaints, mainly from powerful political parties who had actually gotten him into office with their support, Nixon had cut contacts with Romney. Eventually Nixon had Romney transferred to Mexico as ambassador to make him go away. Romney ended up turning down his new position and later resigned. Later, Nixon has his team of attorneys look through the law books to make it seem as if he’s supporting the law and the lawyers come back and tell him, “ What Romney was doing was actually within the law, and I don’t think we can ignore this mandate to be active in breaking down segregation”. Nixon wasn’t pleased at all, told them to go look again.

In reality, this all leads to class and global inequality, In a time when you go to college and put in the money, the time, and the hard work, to still have doors slammed in your face. Again, it doesn’t matter if you’re smart or have a good job or not, its still a problem. The government’s capitalist class and status creation, has created a toxic structure in this country. The Fair Housing Act, is not that every black person in America has to have a white neighbor, it’s for everyone to have an equal opportunity at housing that they obviously can afford, not to have housing testers from some non-profit organization monitor every dishonest super of a building in this country.