Neighborhoods of different Color

 

 

 

When thinking about the dynamics of neighborhoods and how they are socially constructed based on several factors and relations all the way down to the color of skin. Historically, as shown there has been a shift of the color that makes up the area of certain neighborhoods. They have changed to some degree but in a discrete manner. If you look at the construction of urban areas in the past they were built to concentrate blacks in large spacial areas.

 

When looking at the designs of many of the largely built projects in the Chicago area they were all built in long ago and not created with future outcomes in mind. What seem to be a fabolous creation back then tended to become a nightmare of the future. The concentration of blacks in certain areas over time created cycles of crime, lower social economic status, welfare, and a downward spiral of a cry for help. With slum lords in the Chicago Housing Authority the conditions of the complex in which blacks were concentrated to live in were the worst. most were over populated by undocumented residents others were intruded by rats, mice, and roaches. The conditions of the buildings were on the verge of being condemn, sadly so most people were ok with the conditions and willing to pay there 16 dollar rent and deal with the unlivable conditions. This was home for most and what they had become accustom to.

 

Long after, up to the present day, a lot of these buildings no longer exist. They have all been torn down and those occupying them have been scattered to other parts of the city with there aid vochers. In place of those buildings in those vacant lots are now high rise condos in which only well off or upper middle class families can afford to live in. With the disperse of the concentrated crime into different areas of the city created this bigger downward spiral for the Chicago area, because what was once concentrated is now spread throughout the city creating these neighborhoods of different color.

 

As a result the crime in these areas that only was affecting those in that particular area is now an issue throughout the city. Not only are the new residents of these areas uncomfortable but those that were there prior too uncomfortable. We see this today in the closing of schools that force kids to other surrounding schools in order to get an education. Moreover we see blacks come in and take former white dominated areas but never vise versa where whites come in and take over black dominated communities completely.

 

 

 

 

        

 



 https://placesjournal.org/article/housing-chicago-cabrini-green-to-parkside-of-old-town/?gclid=CjwKEAjwuPi3BRClk8TyyMLloxgSJAAC0Xsjs0TgBiPx_Vi3-SyOPIQBAvfCEhXCkcVeFZ0utpCjoRoCN5Hw_wcB
http://www.thecha.org/residents/public-housing/
 





The New Social Distortion

            Sampson talks about a new social distortion which is mass incarceration. He also states how during the 1920’s-1970 the United States has had an average rate of 110 inmates per 100,000 persons. Then by 1990 the rate was at 197 per 100,000. Somehow the rate later escalated to 504 inmates per 100,000 persons. This is a really high rate and unimaginable as he described it. But how do we really compare next to other countries?

            In an article from The New York Times from Adam Liptak Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’ (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/us/23prison.html) he mentions how the United States has roughly 2.3 million criminals behind bars which is more than any other nation though we have less than 5% of the world’s population. With this we would seem to believe that the larger a country the lager their prison population would be. Yet China with four times the population of the United States they are second to us with 1.6 million people in prison. What is believed to cause is that we incarcerate people for petty crimes as mention in the article which could be writing a bad check to using drugs. I believe this is an issue. It is understandable to send drug dealers to jail/ prison as they are the one distributing the drugs, but drug users should not be sent to prison. Instead of spending tax payer money in the prison system it would be better to send them to rehab or get medical attention so they can stop using drugs as they may fall into more problems in prison as they may have not had a criminal record, but now due to being surrounded by other criminals they may adapt to that environment and once they are released then they could actually become a harm to society.

            We have this issue already of having a huge population in prisons, but it does not end there. The other issue with this is the amount of black males that are incarcerated. As discussed in class Dr.Weffer told us about the issue with cocaine and crack cocaine. How they both have the same active ingredient yet one has a more strict charge which is crack cocaine which also is more commonly used by African Americans of low income as it is cheaper. As stated by Morgan Whitaker in her article Criminal injustice: The percentage of African-Americans in prison (http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/criminal-injustice-the-percentage-african) there was a 700% increase in the U.S. prison population since 1971 when President Nixon declared a war on drugs. Though African Americans only make up about 12% of the nation’s drug users, but they represent about 34% of those arrested for drug offenses and 45% in state prisons for such offenses. This shows me that there is a fault within the criminal justice system as it seems to target mainly minorities, specifically African American males. We can also see how black males are targeted more often with a well-known term “driving while black”. If African Americans tend to get pulled over more often than white males then the chances of pulling people over whom also happen to have drugs in their car also increases, while other white males who may also have drugs in their car get away with it due to them being white and not getting pulled over as often.

 I chose this picture because I believe it shows us just how bad the prison system is and how harsh it is to minorities, specifically African Americans.

The Mass Incarceration of America

In chapter 5 of Robert Sampson’s book, The Great American City, he focuses on the mass incarceration that happened in America that began to occur after the 1970’s. He says that scholars have defined it as a national phenomenon as the incarceration rate hasn’t risen as much as it has in American than in other places in the world. Between the 1920’s to the early 1970’s, the United States incarceration rate was 110 inmates per one hundred thousand persons which by 2008 had become 504 inmates per hundred thousand persons. There is a good portion of those that are incarcerated that have been living in poverty. From class we have learned several reasons to why those in poverty are likely to commit crime. Drug involvement is likely the best one to look at when looking at the mass incarceration of America. Everyone in America has likely heard of the war on drugs and it has taken its toll on the penalties involved with drugs. In the first article I found, it points out in its 11^th reason that the average sentencing for drug offenders is 7 months in France and 12 months in England, but America’s average sentencing is 23 months. The number of people in prison because of drug involvement will continue to rise as it is unlikely for a large portion of individuals, who are incarcerated, to get out before a greater number become incarcerated in the U.S. In the video I have found it mentions that in 2010 was the first year in almost forty years that the number of incarcerated individuals did not increase in America.

            Individuals who are poor and arrested are offered public defenders but as my first article points out, they are often overworked and underfunded. The public defender can only then be so effective for the individual but that is if they use the public defender. The article continues to mention that face misdemeanors will rather plead guilty than pay for a lawyer because it would likely overall be less costly for them to do. Because people are just pleading guilty, they can be sentenced up to a year in jail for misdemeanors which increases the incarceration rate. This just then puts those who are poor in a worse situation as now they have a criminal record that follows them around. Finding jobs or places to live become increasingly difficult for those individuals to do. Individuals being released from jail are often don’t have the means, whether money or connections, to get out of the neighborhood in which they committed those crimes. They are then likely to repeat those crimes they committed before because they can’t get out because of poverty and the criminal record that they have.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/06/02/40-reasons-our-jails-and-prisons-are-full-black-and-poor-people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaPBcUUqbew

Graffiti and Murder: The Broken Windows Theory

In chapter 6 of The Great American City by Robert Sampson, he talks about the “broken windows” theory. This theory argued that minor public incivilities “attract predatory crime because criminals assume that the residents are indifferent to what goes on in their neighborhood” (Sampson 125). Essentially, the presence of minor crimes being broken as well as local ordinances or other rules can act as a signal to a criminal that a neighborhood is a good place to commit a crime without being caught. Criminals would be more likely to commit crimes in these neighborhoods rather than others because the presence of minor crime means that the residents are not willing to stop a crime or call the police if they witness something.

When there are neighborhoods that do not have watch programs or concerned residents, any kind of crime can occur. One example is the story of Catherine Susan “Kitty” Genovese. Kitty Genovese lived in a neighborhood in Queens, New York in the 1960’s. One night, she was returning home when she noticed a man standing near the entrance to her apartment complex. She was making her way to a police callbox, but the man caught up to her and attacked her. When he grabbed her, she screamed that she had been stabbed and the lights in a nearby building came on. Someone called out to the man, and told him to leave Kitty alone. The man walked away, and the lights in the building went back off. The man then returned and began to stab her again. When she screamed, more lights went on and some people opened their windows causing the man to run away again. Once the people had turned off their lights and gone back to bed, the man came back and stabbed Kitty again, killing her. The next day, her neighbors woke to police sirens outside their apartment building. None of Kitty’s neighbors called the police during the attack, only after. When the police were conducting their investigation, most of her neighbors said that they figured someone else had called the police or they didn’t want to get involved.

In the chapter Sampson later explains his thoughts on the ideas behind the broken window theory. He talks specifically about the example of graffiti as a cue for a neighborhood having high crime. He proposes that we think of graffiti as a positive influence on the community. He gives the example of the graffiti being on the walls of a college town or arts district and then asks if it would be perceived the same way as it would if it was in a different neighborhood. When I was reading this section, I thought about the way graffiti is viewed in hip hop culture. In hip hop culture, graffiti is art and it is considered a key element to the lifestyle. As I made that connection, I began to think about the different graffiti that I have witnessed in various neighborhoods. Sampson describes being in Paris and seeing graffiti on the walls, but the neighborhood was not the type described in the broken windows theory. The graffiti in Paris is not looked at as disorderly, and the neighborhood is intact. So why is it that the neighborhoods in the U.S are considered disadvantaged or on the verge of “urban decline”? Sampson calls for a reconstruction of the broken windows theory to help us better understand our perceptions of disorder. Personally, I agree that there needs to be another study to observe these perceptions and come to a different explanation.

Article on the murder of Kitty Genovese
http://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/27/37-who-saw-murder-didnt-call-the-police.html?_r=0

Implicit Bias and Racialized Meaning

The title of this blog post is taken directly from a title of a subheading in chapter 6 of Sampson's Great American City. This part of the chapter is only two pages, however, there are a whole lot of discourse-worthy points packed into these two pages. I will approach these points using personal thoughts and anecdotes, as well, I will try to incorporate themes, concepts, and ideas that we have learned and discussed in class.

            The book mentions that stereotypes are “especially tempting” to the untrained intellect. What I gather from this is that any and every human being will be guilty of some level of stereotyping of another individual or group of individuals. These means that no matter how well-intended or pure-hearted an individual may be, they will still partake in some level of stereotyping others. That is only, however, for an individual who is not made aware of their very subconscious stereotyping of others. Once a person is made aware of their stereotyping, the hope is that they will no longer engage in that behavior. Sampson adds to this concept when saying “we make decisions habitually and without much introspection.” So, then, it seems that this action of stereotyping is a natural behavior of a human being. Therefore, until an individual is taught and trained to look inward and contemplate their thoughts about themselves, others, and the world at large, they will in all likelihood continue to stereotype others.

            You may be asking yourself, “What does this have to do with the urban community?” This question can be best answered in this one sentence by Sampson, “A body of research shows that Americans hold persistent beliefs linking blacks, disadvantaged minorities, and recent immigrant groups to many social images, including crime, violence, disorder, welfare, and their undesirability as neighbors.” The last few words of that sentence, which I underlined, are the main connection to our class discussions throughout the semester and the course as a whole. We have seen again and again throughout our readings in the semester the role that race bias and stereotyping play in the formation and/or deformation of a community, particularly the urban community. We saw specifically in American Apartheid, how the real estate industry, for example, played a huge role in not allowing African Americans into certain neighborhoods in the United States. Their “undesirability as neighbors,” which can be argued is founded in stereotypes, is arguably the main reason and explanation for the status quo we now see in many of our larger, segregated urban communities across the United States.

            The links I have included below in this post are to two interesting articles. The first has to do police training and raising awareness among police officers about implicit bias. The second article has to do with racial bias and stereotyping in general. Also, the photo I included is, in my opinion, a very deep and profound reflection of the stereotyping we see in society today (pay close attention to the mugshots and how the accused are dressed in their respective photos).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/destiny-peery/implicit-bias-training-fo_b_9464564.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/upshot/the-measuring-sticks-of-racial-bias-.html

Continuing struggles of Chicago

                                                 The Struggles of Chicago

Sampson introduces the appeal for social science research at the neighborhood level. He teaches us that even in a wired world, physical proximity still matters in shaping life outcomes. He also proposed that the ongoing segregation in particular areas of the city is proof of there being a defined contribution to the effect that include: low economic status, ethnic heterogeneity and residential instability. Sampson makes a very good point about the urban metropolis traversing into chatting away on a cellphone, plugged into an iPod, or even “tweeting”. Social network theorists have proved to us that urbanizes have created non spatial communities. Nowadays, urbanism and social relations are not with your community and instead they are with internet surfing, blog comments and superficial things like Facebook and texting. The classic thesis of decline has been described as “community lost” that posits the idea that the social ties of modern urbanities have become impersonal, transitory, and segmented that creates social disorganization. How many times have you been sitting at the dinner table and you try to have a conversation with someone and they are attached to their phone checking Facebook updates and texting their friends back and completely ignoring the fact that you are in the middle of the conversation with them. It gets really frustrating because their phone continues to vibrate from these texts and the individual today has to read and respond to it right away.

                Going on further in the chapter he emphasizes on what he calls, “A Birds Eye View”. Neighborhoods dramatically differ in their quality, feel, sights, sounds, and smells that much is experiences in out walks. But the diversity of behaviors and social actions that cluster together in space and that define the social organization of the city. Looking at the aspects of Chicago neighborhoods-whether it be the measures of homicide, low birth weight, infant mortality or teen pregnancy, there is compelling evidence point to geographic compromised health. Collective civil engagement and impassioned protest, is not fully modern either. Maybe networks are where globalization instantiates the potential to destroy community differences. Data suggests that the civic life is not dead but instead highly spatially ordered by looking at the outcome of fund drives, blood drives, parades, etc. 

                This makes me think of the movie, “Pursuit of Happyness”. Linda and Chris struggle to make ends meet in their low income neighborhood in San Francisco. They strive to make things work but Linda leaves him one day. Chris struggles with bringing his son to day care each day. Chris learns he's been offered the coveted internship. But it’s unpaid. Despite the financial risk, Chris decides to go for it, but dwindling savings quickly result in an eviction from their apartment. And then another from a motel. Soon, father and son are homeless, staying in city shelters on good nights and in public restrooms on the worst. This correlates really well with Chapter one based on the poverty levels Sampson talks about and the struggles people have to go through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCy3mU-5Pd8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dklNDwmWsk

This clip is extremely relevant when it comes to getting a good outlook on the crime and poverty living conditions inside of Chicago. 

Segregation Alive Today

Most people think that segregation in school ended with the Brown vs. Board of Education, but it is still prevalent in schools today. The desegregation of schools was proved to be a hard law to enforce, especially in the South. The riots and violence that came with desegregating these schools had to have been scary for the first children to go through.

 No school is more noted for the violence that came with integration than with the Little Rock high school in Arkansas. The school board picked nine African-American students to be enrolled into Little Rock Central High. As soon as these students got out of the car by the school they were ambushed by an angry mob trying to stop them from going inside. They even had their own escort to walk them into school and to and from class to keep them safe. Even with that, they still experienced racist comments and stuff being thrown at them when their escorts were not there. Out of all nine kids, only one was able to graduate that year and the rest were set to graduate the following years, but they were forced to go back to their other schools.

            That part of history may seem like so far in the past, but schools are still segregated and no other place is worse than New York City. New York City has one of the most economically and racially segregated education systems and it reflects the cities segregated communities like the ones we talked about in the book. Next year the department of education wants to implement a new pilot system that will try to diversify the schools in that area. Some people have said that this system might be too little too late to change anything, but I think this can still help.

            Another store of segregation comes from San Diego. In 1977 it was revealed that the San Diego Unified Schools were so racially isolated that it was almost impossible for African Americans and Latinos to get a equal education. Forty years later, all except one of the schools are still segregated. Some of the schools are so bad that the co-director of the civil rights at UCLA said that they were like apartheid schools. The Vision 2020 project is trying to build quality schools in the neighborhoods so that these children do not have to leave their neighborhoods to go to good schools. The only problem with this is that the San Diego neighborhoods are racially segregated, so if they go through with this plan the schools will still be segregated because the neighborhoods are.

            Many people have “plans” to try and intergrate these schools, but since the cities are so segregated I think they have to do a little more than just build more schools. I personally do not know how I would fix this problem in the school, but I think it starts with the neighborhoods in these areas and diversifying them. Anyone could have the answer to this issue so I guess the question is, What would you do?

http://prospect.org/article/new-york-city-tackles-school-segregation

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/segregation-in-city-schools-could-get-worse-with-new-strategy/