Don't forget, this country was built on racism. In fact, western capitalism was
built on international racism. All those white European explorers, going off to
find natural resources in foreign lands where they would then subjugate the
populations, none of them white, so they could steal their gold, diamonds, oil,
rubber, sugar, etc. And they're still doing it. And which populations are the
first to be destroyed by drought and flood caused by our plunder? Those people
in what we now call, "the global south". I've been listening to James Foreman
Jr. being interviewed on several podcasts because he's recently written a book
called, Locking Up Our Own. He has some fascinating things to say about racism
and also about the class structure in the black community.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2017 9:28 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: THE COLOR OF LAW A Forgotten History of How Our
Government Segregated America `
It's been a while since my computer took over and decided to send a message I
was just working on. Must be this pesky heat.
But back to clear memories out of the past. Seattle in 1950-1960 still red
lined residential areas. But even neighborhoods such as the one Judy and I
moved to, was rarely visited by Black families hoping to buy a home. Most
realtors had an unspoken code, agreeing that they would do all within their
considerable power to discourage such activity. In 1962 my neighbor decided to
move up in the world, and listed his home. For weeks there were no offers.
Finally he contacted a Central District realtor. Soon the house was being
shown after dark. My neighbor on the other side of this house came scooting
down the alley one evening and banged on my back door. "Did you see whose
looking to buy Dick's house?" she panted breathlessly.
"Negroes! What are we going to do?" I was stunned. This lady, a Sunday School
teacher, a member of our church choir, a woman who went door to door to raise
support for our two young missionaries in Sierra Leone, unwilling to have a
Negro family as neighbors.
The word spread like wild fire around the neighborhood. My in-laws lived two
and a half blocks from our home. My mother-in-law expressed her shock that I
was not doing all I could do to stop such a thing from happening. "What would
you do if some big Black man jumped out of the bushes and grabbed Judy?" She
demanded.
"Well," I said thoughtfully, "I'd do the same thing I'd do if some big Green
man jumped out of the bushes and grabbed Judy. I'd run for help". She did not
think I was funny. This was basically a Blue Collar neighborhood. My
father-in-law was a maintenance mechanic for a mattress factory and my
mother-in-law was a meat wrapper for a chain grocery store. Both were good
union members and voted Democrat. Both were full blown racists. Somehow a
young couple managed to buy a home about three blocks the other side of me.
They had two of the sweetest and prettiest young daughters. Each Sunday they
would walk past our house on their way to Sunday School. But after a couple of
months we did not see them any longer. The children in their classes had been
told by their parents to have nothing to do with "those two little Darkies".
The couple themselves were both teachers, They kept their home looking like a
model home. But the neighbors gave them wide birth, in case they tried
anything.
Even earlier, around 1951, my sisters and I had a Halloween Party. We each
invited friends from our own classes. My elder sister invited our high
school's only Black student. Al was a friendly, quiet spoken fellow who was
quite talented. He had a band, and played in local supper clubs. As a White
fellow, he would have been seen as someone to get chummy with. But as a Black
fellow? After the party several of my friends came to the house and said that
they wanted me to know that if we ever had another party, we should let them
know if any Negroes were coming. Because they would not.
Even as late as the 80's in Renton, Cathy and I had people in for various
meetings. Some of these people were Hispanic, some were White, and some were
Black. Also, from time to time I would have my Training Center students and
the staff come to our house for a backyard barbecue. One of my staff was a
Black woman. One very dark night, around 3:00 A.M. a bright light rose up in
our back yard.
Fire! A fire was burning on our lawn. We called the fire department, and they
quickly put out the flames. "Look at that," one fireman said to another.
"Been a long time since I saw a cross burning in someones yard". And by golly,
that is exactly what it was. Layers of newspaper laid down in the shape of a
cross, doused with gasoline and torched. It was an act that caused no harm,
but sent a message.
Later we had a storm window shot out by a pellet gun. But other than me,
sleeping with an old baseball bat beside my bed, and double checking all
windows and doors each night, other than that we went about normal lives.
And even as late as 1992, a young Black man jogged up and down the very steep
hill we lived on. Several joggers, all White, ran as a group. But this man
ran alone. One day, as he was coming back down the hill, our neighbor across
the street stepped out in front of him and demanded to know why he was casing
our neighborhood. Our neighbor made the rounds of the homes nearby, telling us
all that we should be on guard. "Don't let him fool you, he's up to no good."
Experts have proven that such behavior as racial prejudice is learned behavior.
I, for one believe it. Raised with no racial prejudices, I never had the
emotional reaction over the mixing of Colors.
Interestingly though, even though it was a non topic, I grew up very prejudiced
toward Gay Men. A prejudice I had to struggle with for many years. But
despite the jeers and ugly chants by my school mates, I never felt that Blacks
were any different than Whites. I never thought of Jews as being cheap, as so
many of the children I grew up with believed. I do have some lingering
negative feelings toward "Japs" and "Nazis". But only the ones on old movies.
And as much as this government has worked at turning us against socialism and
communism, I find such people to be as charming and bright, and as big hearted
as I hope they find me.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/25/17, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My first wife and I were married in June, 57 years ago. 1960. While
it's difficult to reconstruct the world of 1960 totally, there are
some memories that are as clear today as when they happened.
On 6/25/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From the New York Times Book Review section THE COLOR OF LAW A
Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America By Richard
Rothstein Illustrated. 345 pp. Liveright Publishing. $27.95.
In the summer of 1950, with Americans reeling from the news of North
Korea's invasion of South Korea and Senator Joseph McCarthy's ever
expanding 'Red hunt' in Washington, Time magazine ran a disarmingly
cheerful cover story about the nation's housing boom, titled: 'For
Sale: A New Way of Life.
Featuring the builder William Levitt, who had recently transformed
some Long Island potato fields into a sprawling complex of starter
homes -- two bedrooms, one bath and an extension attic for $7,990 --
it spoke reverentially of the development's parks and playgrounds and
many rules.
'Fences are not allowed,' Time noted. 'The plot of grass around each
house must be cut at least once a week,' and laundry couldn't be hung
outside 'on weekends and holidays. One rule, however, was
conveniently absent from the piece. Homeowners in Levittown were
forbidden to rent or sell to persons 'other than members of the
Caucasian race. Asked about this so-called 'racial covenant,' Levitt
blamed society at large. 'As a Jew, I have no room in my mind or
heart for racial prejudice,' he said. 'But I have come to know that
if we sell one house to a Negro family, then 90 or 95 percent of our
white customers will not buy into the community. This is their
attitude, not ours. As a company, our position is simply this: We can
solve a housing problem, or we can try to solve a racial problem, but
we cannot combine the two. At first glance, Levittown stands as a
prime example of de facto segregation, which results from private
activity, as opposed to de jure segregation, which derives from
government policy or law. Levitt, after all, appeared to be an
independent businessman responding to the prejudices of the home
buyers he hoped to attract. In truth, it wasn't that simple. As
Richard Rothstein contends in 'The Color of Law,' a powerful and
disturbing history of residential segregation in America, the
government at all levels and in all branches abetted this injustice.
'We have created a caste system in this country, with
African-Americans kept exploited and geographically separate by
racially explicit government policies,' he writes. 'Although most of
these policies are now off the books, they have never been remedied
and their effects endure. Levittown reflected this dynamic. Popular
with World War II veterans and their families, its 17,500 houses
required no down payment. The federal government guaranteed
low-interest bank loans for Levitt to build them, and low-interest
mortgages for veterans to buy them.
The government also made clear that developers receiving these
incentives must sell to whites only. It didn't stop there. In the
1950s, following a Supreme Court decision that restricted the scope
of racial covenants, an African-American veteran bought a house in a
second Levitt development outside Philadelphia. A white mob formed,
the house was pelted with rocks and crosses were burned on the lawn.
Amazingly, the black family held out for several years before moving back to
a segregated neighborhood.
Rothstein
sees this incident, and dozens like it, as an insidious form of de
jure segregation -- the failure of racially biased police and public
officials to protect African-Americans from unlawful intimidation.
One of the great strengths of Rothstein's account is the sheer weight
of evidence he marshals. A research associate at the Economic Policy
Institute, he quite simply demolishes the notion that government
played a minor role in creating the racial ghettos that plague our
suburbs and inner cities. Going back to the late 19th century, he
uncovers a policy of de jure segregation in virtually every
presidential administration, including those we normally describe as
liberal on domestic issues. Indeed, some of the worst offenses
occurred with Franklin Roosevelt in the White House. One of his New
Deal centerpieces, the Public Works Administration, built 47 public
housing projects, all rigidly segregated, 17 for blacks, the rest for
whites. His vaunted Tennessee Valley Authority put white employees in
a 'model village'
of 500 homes, while blacks endured 'shoddy barracks' far from their jobs.
When war came, the Roosevelt administration provided housing for
white defense plant workers, but only temporary, poorly constructed
dwellings for black workers. The few protesters included Eleanor
Roosevelt, whose pleas for fairness fell on deaf ears. The president,
no friend of civil rights, argued that ending the Great Depression
and winning World War ll must take precedence over divisive social
issues. Among Rothstein's more telling examples is Stuyvesant Town, a
9,000-apartment complex built on Manhattan's East Side in the 1940s
by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. The process of
construction began with the city condemning 18 square blocks of a
racially integrated neighborhood and transferring the land to the
company, which received tax relief as well. Met Life executives made
it clear that Stuyvesant Town was for 'white people only' -- a policy
that led to protests and a compromise whereby the company agreed to
lease a handful of apartments to 'qualified Negro tenants,' while
building a 'smaller development' for black renters in Harlem. By this
point, however, Stuyvesant Town was almost fully leased. Blacks were
shut out, and would remain so, because New York City's rent control
laws kept turnover low for the original white tenants and their
'lawful successors,' while rapidly rising rents for its vacated
apartments made the development unaffordable for even middle-class
families.
Today, African-Americans constitute a minuscule part of Stuyvesant
Town, which sits in one of Manhattan's most famously 'progressive' districts.
(Donald Trump received a paltry 15 percent of the vote there in the
recent presidential election.) What are the remedies? Here, Rothstein
has less to add. A number of his pet ideas have no hope of gaining
public acceptance, he readily admits, like withholding mortgage
interest and property tax deductions from those living in
neighborhoods that actively exclude blacks and the poor, or having
the federal government buy a percentage of the houses that come up
for sale in Levittown, which would then be resold to African-American
buyers for $75,000 -- far below their current market value but equal,
in today's dollars, to the original asking price of $7,990.
Sadly, there is no easy fix. Though many states place restrictions of
some sort on 'exclusionary zoning,' a few have gone further to
mandate 'fair share' requirements for low- and moderate-income
suburban housing, with incentives both for developers and local
communities -- a plan Rothstein favors. As a call to arms, 'The Color
of Law' may be difficult for potential allies to embrace. Interracial
alliances break down, Rothstein insists, 'when whites develop overly
intolerant judgments of the unfortunate -- from a need to justify
their own acceptance of segregation that so obviously conflicts with
both their civic ideals and their religious ones.
Supposedly
blinded by bigotry or ignorance, they refuse to acknowledge what
Rothstein seems to see as self-evident: that the myriad social
problems plaguing the inner cities today arise from race
discrimination, and race discrimination alone. To dare to challenge
this -- to speak of individual agency, for example -- is akin to
flogging the victim. End of discussion. Rothstein, moreover, rejects
the phrase 'people of color,' because it lumps African-Americans with
groups that didn't suffer as systematically at government hands --
like Asians and Hispanics. (First- and second-generation Mexicans
live in segregated neighborhoods by choice, we are assured, not
because they are forced to.) While the history of African-Americans
is undoubtedly unique, ranking groups by the discrimination they
endured may not be the most productive way to proceed. In his
preface, Rothstein writes that America has a constitutional
obligation to remedy de jure segregation in housing, and that its
story must be told. While the road forward is far from clear, there
is no better history of this troubled journey than 'The Color of Law.
PHOTO: Police and demonstrators in front of the home of a black
family in Levittown, Pa., Aug. 20, 1957. (PHOTOGRAPH BY SAM
MYERS/ASSOCIATED PRESS).
