Institutionalized Racism

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Housing discrimination is one of the most common forms of institutionalized racism. This got me thinking what negative effects this has and how this furthers the gap between white people and black people. By discriminating against African Americans, neighborhoods become segregated. This leads to African Americans living in poorer quality houses compared to their white counterparts. The segregation also contributes to differences in education. Black students have to go to worse schools than white students. The white students have more teachers, a better building, and more technology available for use. Because of this, white students have more opportunity to get ahead and therefore get accepted into more prestigious universities. This allows them to get higher paying jobs which then allows them to live in the nicer neighborhoods with the better schools. This unfair cycle continues and makes it very difficult for black people to get to a higher wealth class. Housing discrimination also leads to health issues for African Americans. The lower quality housing they get because of the housing discrimination will sometimes have lead paint and pests, such as rats. Both of these can result in serious health consequences. Furthermore, the low quality housing often has lots of air pollution, such as dust, which leads to asthma. African Americans in these areas live further away from hospitals than white people. The hospitals in these areas are also worse than hospitals in white areas. They have less supplies and doctors. Currently, housing discrimination is based on landowner's preference to have white tenants. This problem must be fixed in order to stop the cycle. We cannot allow "a dream deferred".

Image result for housing discrimination

Comments

  1. LanceNovember 23, 2019 at 9:16 AM

    I find this blog quite interesting and agree that housing discrimination exists. It's illegal to discriminate tenants based on race, gender, religion, disability etc. in the U.S under the Fair Housing Amendment Acts. Housing discrimination is based mostly on financial stability and those who get the short-end of the stick are unfortunately low-income minorities.

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  2. Allison WeiNovember 23, 2019 at 12:05 PM

    Sohil, this blog is so well thought out! You described institutionalized racism so accurately - it's a "cycle." Not only does the impact of racism bleed over to other generations, but this racist mentality also still informs our generation today. Although housing discrimination is illegal as Lance noted above, the extent to which it still persists is mindblowing. According to the National Fair Housing Alliance, the black home ownership rate has barely changed in the last forty years - it's remained constantly around 41%. Compare this with the fact that 78.5% of whites are homeowners (according to 2005 census data), there is definitely still work to be done and progress to be made on housing discrimination.

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  3. Kyle JungNovember 23, 2019 at 12:54 PM

    Good job Sohil. I really like how you took a deeper look into institutionalized racism and pulled out the specific example of housing discrimination. Also, the image really helps visualize what it is really like.

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  4. Megan CaoNovember 24, 2019 at 10:49 AM

    Fine job Sohil! this is beautiful i like how u kind of analyzed its effects and looked at why this kind of racism persists even after the civil rights movement. It's clear that even though discrimination is not as prominent today, it still exists. I especially loved how you included The Raisin in the Sun quote, amazing job as usual! Love reading Sohil's Story!

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