Urban Segregation

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In the first paper I talked about the creation of the ghetto and some of its effects on the inhabitants. The former dealt with issues of real-estate lobbying, racially restrictive covenants, blockbusting, and economics. The latter was represented by stigmatization, drug abuse, infant mortality, and nutrition. Near the demolish was a expect on how we go about defining the underclass; are there any distinct ideas or behavior exhibit within it? My position here is that the underclass does not design a distinct subculture. The underclass exists as a result of grievous alienation from political, economic, and social power centers. The values of the underclass are still the demonstrated values of capitalist culture: material success is to be praised (no matter the cost), every dog for itself, and work or consequences of actions should be laid at someone else’s feet.

Notably one other group within American society is busy acting out this worldview with considerable success due to their being at the heart of political, economic, and social power centers. Whereas an enterprising member of the underclass will sell crack, spreading addiction and disease for profit, members of the elite will sell alcohol and all manner of untested dieting pharmaceuticals, spreading addiction and disease for profit. Whereas a desperate man living in the ghetto will rob stores in the neighborhood, thus removing the likelihood that other stores will be opened there, an elite man will overvalue his company’s stocks and rob the retired of their pensions, thus decreasing trust in the market and impoverishing their future consumers. Whereas the underclass will rely upon welfare of various forms to maintain a minimum standard of living, so too will the elites rely on government handouts (corporate welfare) to maintain their lifestyles.

The similarities don’t stop with the behaviors but extend to the attitude of exclusion. The ghetto is a notoriously hostile place for those who don’t look and act the role of the underclass. Ranks are quickly closed when representatives of the power centers, cops or what-not, show up in the neighborhood. Whites are typically seen as invaders. The same attitude of solidarity against “outsider” threats can be seen with corporate elites. Of course, elites have the ability to manipulate the power centers to protect against outsiders, and the underclass doesn’t, they just make easy targets, because they are largely reviled and/or feared by mainstream society. In other words, the underclass follows society’s paradigm, but at a disadvantage and also without the moderating influences of a middle class such as fear of retribution via the justice system and the “let’s produce it a clean fight” rules that the middle class must use for mobility.

Fear of the underlcass leads us into the topic of the paper, which is an effort to see and know the underclass, not by their actions or attitudes but by their effects on mainstream society. Like black holes, which were first detected by observing the curvature of light in their proximity, we can know the underclass by its effects on mainstream society, how it changes the focus of life and alters the views of people in its proximity. I’ll attempt this by using the two chapter handouts from class.

The point of this exercise is made by the feminist fight against sexism. The main charge for many years, and many books/rallies/speeches, was that sexism is damaging to women. Later, writers and activists began lending more focus to how men were damaged by sexism and its accompanying male stereotype of hard-bodied, cold-hearted breadwinner. The focal tactic is appealing, because men are in the power center per sexism, and they have the ability to enforce more change should they be persuaded. Mainstream society has to grasp how damaging the persistence of the ghetto is to their mental, emotional, and spiritual lives in order to make the problem personal and needful of their time and energy, not least in their surveillance of the actions of relevant authorities.

Two communities within Chicago serve as our vehicle. One, known as Beltway, is “farthest from downtown Chicago and the most isolated.”[1] Whites execute up 76 percent of the population while immigrant groups make up most of the rest. Also, over 60 percent of residents in Beltway have owned their home for more than five years. Beltway is, in at least this sense, an kill community instead of a transitional one. For instance, the growing immigrant population is “majority…second- or third-generation…more affluent and better educated,” not unique immigrants.[2]

The other community, known as Groveland, was predominantly white until a “large in-migration of African Americans…halfway through the 1960s.”[3] The blacks who moved into Groveland, and now make up 99 percent of its population, were of the upper class, well educated with a low poverty rate relative to the former white homeowners. People in both communities are involved in living out the American Dream by being active and activating the community, by creating homes they enjoy, and by creating families within a stable community context. Both communities are also acting out a alarm that this stability could be short-lived. Many of their words and actions expose a preoccupation with preventing invasion by the underclass, or those from the ghetto, and the upset of the community lifestyle that would follow. The very existence of the ghetto then engenders a dog eat dog mentality, and defensive stance against “outsiders” often cloaked in offensive posturing found in the ghetto, in communities outside of it.

Beltway is seen as “the last stand” by many of its white inhabitants who had already experienced multiple neighborhoods, which underwent racial turnover.[4] They have had to move several times and now find themselves at the edge of the city. As a result of city-workers being confined to state in the city by law, property values in the “last stand” neighborhood are “soaring.”[5] Also the residents make links between, not objective those known to be ragged ghetto residents, but all people of color and the fate of the ghetto, “growing crime rates and social disorganization, along with declining social institutions and property values.”[6] Because of this linkage, residents view the potential turnover of a neighborhood to ghetto status as “racial battles,” when they are more like class battles between the true estate industry and everyone else.[7] Since local true estate actors actually belong to the same class and race of the white homeowners, for the most fraction, they are not singled out as an Other at whose doorstep the problems of the city can be laid. On the other hand, “the time when jobs were plentiful and neighborhoods seemed safer” can be attributed to black gains during the Civil rights era.[8] This underscores a widespread ignorance, as blacks who actually have power and resources work to protect those by bettering their residential position, not by inciting or participating in crime or drug addiction or lower property values in their believe neighborhoods.

A look at the ignorance inherent wouldn’t be complete without invective. “We’re paying to support all the fucking niggers and minorities,” “let’s start helping…our own people first,” and “gang crime is crawling into these neighborhoods so slowly that it is insidious.”[9] Now this last is very interesting, because it shows that the spurious link being created by all people of color and conditions in the ghetto has now transcended the color line. Young people, typified in the person of Eric McLure, a boy scout, are seen as the tendrils of gang activity stretching into the white bastion and persecuted for their supposed roles.

At a community meeting, 10 year old Eric was introduced as a good kid who had been busy cleaning up graffiti. After a short introduction exiguous Eric is set upon by adults, including a police officer and committee members, who proceed to link him to gang activity and thus the underclass. The ridiculousness of this behavior by adults can only be understood by the dynamics of fear and control. Watching racism, and a genuine desire to have a stable neighborhood, turn to ageism is an obscene example of how the very presence of the underclass and high-density ghettos distorts white, middle-class perceptions of the world. Fear creates a worldview in which one group, the In group, must protect itself from the other group, the Others. We explore with Eric, a member of the In group being alienated and made an Other due to overriding, irrational fear.[10]

And the implications for such insecure behavior are a misunderstanding of roles, such as the parent-child relationship. “I ask them to do one thing and that’s to follow me blindly.”[11] We also find irrational responses to threats such as “advocat[ing] severe physical punishments for delinquents, such as the utilize of rubber hoses and other riot gear,” which would serve to undermine youth trust in adult institutions and further alienate the very people a neighborhood needs for any kind of long-term survival.

Neighborhood loyalty in order to promote stability is a laudable goal, and the means Beltway residents have utilized can be viewed quite positively. Neighborhood organizations, and the creation of strong ties to authorities outside the neighborhood, are very much needed in an alienated society like ours and can be used to accomplish many good things, like resisting the motive force and destructive capability of capital. However, like any human institution, they can be twisted to serve purposes that will not think or react to sincere world conditions, and they can be self-defeating as in the examples above.

Ultimately, should the fear of ghetto-infiltration continue unabated, then whites will move out irrespective of the situation on the ground. Already “the latest census figures suggest that [those trying to preserve the community white] are gradually losing the battle.”[12] This means that with the incoming, working-class Latino’s increasing numbers, the neighborhood could maintain its stability by a racial, and not classist, handover as happened with Groveland. It will be interesting to see how fast, or if, the white homeowners continue to leave Beltway.

Groveland does not have a lot of the problems of Beltway, stemming in one way from the fact that they do not beget a priori associations between being black and being a destabilizing influence. The community actively dissuades this misperception by adorning itself with positive “symbols of shadowy identity,” from the local Catholic church and private businesses to public spaces like parks and libraries.[13] The upkeep of black-owned homes, and beautifying of the yards, has been institutionalized by the block clubs as a means of furthering these positive stereotypes. The positive identifications of what it meant to be black were not followed by corresponding denigrations of what it meant to be white, one reason being, because blacks in Groveland spent “less of their lives in predominantly white society” and “experienced fewer…racial indignities and less outright prejudice.”[14]

Groveland residents mild shared the scare of being invaded by the lower class however, and not without cause, though we’ll get to the underlying assumption soon. The unemployment rate rose “from 4 to 12 percent from 1970 to 1990,” and the poverty rate went “from 5 to 12 percent” over the same time, although it had dropped by 2000 to 8 percent.[15] As our authors make obvious, these statistics were not the basis for the fears, rather talk was of gangs and drugs, single-parent households and renters. They were making associations between low-income and destabilization, where the association is truly one of the underclass, created and maintained by extreme alienation from power centers, and neighborhood destabilization.

What makes Groveland most unique from Beltway is not its dim majority, though the lessening of racial tension is certainly offering a difference in community priorities. Groveland, unlike Beltway, is not isolated, and it “abuts inner-city ghettos.”[16] Fears of youth adopting destabilizing values, probably as a result of rebellion, are real and so is the threat. The threat of ghetto invasion, in the form of drugs and gangs, is made palpable by their existence in terminate quarters with the community. Groveland’s response, and the absence of directing their energies at people who do not offer a threat, means that residents of Groveland will act to avoid the “possibility of unwanted changes,” instead of reacting as if the possibility were an inevitability. They won’t leave and this will support the community remain stable. A major disagreement can be seen here between Beltway and Groveland. The children of Beltway residents are mostly white, and they have many options of living quarters outside the neighborhood yet still in proximity to the city. Groveland children, because of their skin color, cannot be said to have the same advantages and will be more likely to remain.

The two communities are similar in that they are both living in a city with the reality of the ghetto. This promotes privilege and efforts to maintain that privilege. When faced with the alternative, having to depart because your neighborhood is now full of dope-fiends and gangsters, this is a current response and not to be abhorred. Unfortunately it saps the energy and puts the focus on keeping the ghetto out which will, in the end, only serve to strengthen the barriers of the ghetto, not least in granting them justification by tradition. The fight for stability becomes a never-ending fight, as long as the ghetto remains a fixture in society. What we might expect from an enlightened populace, always a rare thing, is an conception that the existence of the ghetto, not the existence of poor or gloomy or young people, is the genuine target for those wishing to support stable neighborhoods relatively free of crippling poverty and lack of options for dinner and drug addiction.

Now for my fun tangent: Massy and Denton make the argument that for the ghetto to be dismantled would require “federal authorities, backed by the American people, [to] become directly involved in guaranteeing originate housing markets and eliminating discrimination from public life.”[17] Unfortunately the impetus for such backing remains in miniature communities who are otherwise occupied in struggles of their own to defend stability in their own neighborhoods. The nature of the ghetto is “an institutional tool for isolating the by-products of racial oppression,” and it has done this well for a long time.[18] More urbanization could lead to greater exposure to the ghetto by white America, although this is no reason to expect more white Americans would opinion the ghetto any differently than the ones in Beltway. More likely is another scenario I’m going to propose.

Increased use of fossil fuels in our society can be correlated with increased trade (via NAFTA and other agreements allowing cross-border manufacture and global movements of goods), the movement of factories from cities, and the movement of business away from consumers in general. Assuming a midline, plateau scenario for fossil fuel production, the global market will face constrictions within the next decade.[19] This practically means more and more businesses moving help into proximity of their immediate consumers and workers. It also means an increase in human labor with the decrease in fossil fuel “labor.”

With America’s attention diverted to an increasing number of global and domestic conflicts over ownership of oil resources, the ghetto will continue as it has.[20] However economic changes enforced by lack of cheap petrol, assuming the plateau scenario, will allow time for capital reorganization so that endeavors like food and clothing production become embedded in the community, or the community will be forced to suffer and eventually leave. Since the middle class whites now reside, in large share, outside of the cities, then that is where the business will be. Those blacks located in the ghetto are going to face not only continued isolation but even a break-down of the minimal service they have received from the federal and state governments thus far. A dangerous situation then faces those communities which are in close proximity to the ghetto, because desperate people have a tendency to occupy at whatever hope they can find. This particular hope will be in the form of resources from these nearby, better-off communities.

An attractive alternative involves the investment of federal resources now to encourage residents of the ghetto to grow their own food and learn vital skills, which would likely prevent much racial violence and better their internal economies now. As this occurs another measure must be taken to prevent the real estate industry from capitalizing on higher property values as a result of the improvements. The value of such an near is that it’s inexpensive, it doesn’t require challenging directly the assumptions Americans occupy about blacks or low-income folks, covered by the media properly it would challenge the spurious assumptions, and it wouldn’t require government agencies like HUD to change their policies. Many hurdles are immediately bypassed. The problem will be finding the good people to do the job.[21] The upright person will be able to convincingly communicate the need to the residents for their involvement, the potential costs and the potential rewards. Also it may be necessary to establish cooperation or at least an understanding with the local gangs. This would be hard for a government stiff to accomplish, but an used hippy might have a better chance.

Privately-funded grants are already available for schools to set up educational gardening programs, though they are cramped and consist of Home Depot shopping cards and money from the National Gardening Association.[22] It shouldn’t be back-breaking work to create a few million available to schools serving inner-city populations via the federal government.[23] The grants could be low-profile and administered by the Department of Education which would remove certain contrary agribusiness and real estate interests. The goal would be to earn gardening more inspiring and an sincere possibility for adults in the area. Cities can actively participate by buying and setting aside vacant lots in the inner city, conducting soil toxicity tests, and making this land available to the community. Projects of this kind can be sold in any number of ways, but for our purposes they will relieve racial tensions, as we experience what will sometimes be drastic reorganizations of the global economy.

[1] Wilson, 14.

[2] Ibid, 17.

[3] Ibid, 130.

[4] Ibid, 19.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid, 20.

[7] Ibid, 21.

[8] Ibid, 23.

[9] Ibid, 38.

[10] Eric’s account can be found on page 41-42.

[11] Ibid, 44.

[12] Ibid, 46.

[13] Ibid, 135.

[14] 144.

[15] 156.

[16] 157.

[17] Massey, 218.

[18] Ibid, 217.

[19] “What is the future for World Oil Production? ” http://www.oilscenarios.info/

[20] This will be complicated by another issue, that of the explosion of the suburban lifestyle which is discussed in a book review by James Howard Kunstler at http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/45418/

The topic of how the changes experienced by suburban residents will affect the ghetto is a much longer one than this paper can handle. I haven’t found any analysis of this type.

[21] Of interest is one internet survey which identified several long-term urban agriculturalists and recorded their responses to various questions. Check it out here: http://www.cityfarmer.org/surveyresults.html

[22] Several grants can be found at http://www.kidsgardening.com/grants.asp

[23] Some grants are also available from the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council and the America the Aesthetic Fund. http://www.america-the-beautiful.org/