Racism, location and enduring poverty

Living in a poor neighborhood changes everything about your life

by Alvin Chang on January 12, 2017

In 1940, a white developer wanted to build a neighborhood in Detroit.

 

So he asked the US Federal Housing Administration to back a loan. The FHA, which was created just six years earlier to help middle-class families buy homes, said no because the development was too close to an "inharmonious" racial group.

Meaning black people.

Read and view more  here.

Never forget

My office contains the display of several Native American artifacts.


Often people ask me "Why the Native American material?"


 Natural question, I suppose, since not many people think much about the subject or the people to whom we owe so much.


The ongoing discussion about sports mascots, especially in professional sports and particularly in the NFL with the Washington franchise, offers a reminder and the space to at least acknowledge the issues surrounding native peoples who were dispossessed, largely by my ancestors.


I collect and display the Native American items as a reminder to everyone that oppression, injustice, fear, hatred, racism and notions of ethnic superiority run through our national narrative from start to present.


A people with our history should practice humility and exercise sensitivity far beyond what comes natural for most of us.


The New York Times published an editorial today by Yale professor, Ned Blackhawk ("Remember the Sand Creek Massacre") that brings much more focus and seriousness to the tragic story of Native Americans and the invasion of their homelands.


Here's how Blackhawk begins:


Remember the Sand Creek Massacre
By NED BLACKHAWK
NOV. 27, 2014 NEW HAVEN


MANY people think of the Civil War and America’s Indian wars as distinct subjects, one following the other. But those who study the Sand Creek Massacre know different. On Nov. 29, 1864, as Union armies fought through Virginia and Georgia, Col. John Chivington led some 700 cavalry troops in an unprovoked attack on peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho villagers at Sand Creek in Colorado. They murdered nearly 200 women, children and older men.


Read the entire essay here.

Considering racism: personal reflections

Racism hurts.  In fact, it destroys, and the destruction goes deep into a person's psyche. 

Racism and prejudice are not the same.  All racists are prejudiced.  But racism combines a hateful prejudice with power.  It's the power that gives prejudice teeth, transforming it into a force that works in individual lives and decisions, but even more importantly, it also spawns policies and systems capable of oppressing entire groups of people on the basis of race and ethnicity alone. 

Without a doubt over my lifetime, we've made progress as a nation in our struggle with and against racism.  Still, two factors combine to ensure that our struggle must continue. 

First, systemic racism still exists, and in some situations it is on the grow. 

Disproportionate numbers of African Americans end up in prison in this nation.  Violence against black "suspects" fills our news:  young people in hoodies, an asthmatic adult choked to death, a young man in Ferguson, Missouri gunned down by a police officer as he held his empty hands high above his head in a posture of surrender, organized attacks on various essential expressions of the Voters' Rights Acts threatened to call in question the legitimacy of our electoral process.  I know black mothers who feel compelled to teach their children how to react to authority figures in our culture, especially police officers.  Who am I to question their assessment of the world their children must face even today?  Rather than question or minimize, I just need to listen and learn.  I could go on.  People who protest too much about any conversation involving the so-called "race card," make me wonder about their true worldview regarding the subject. 

Second, seasoned civil rights warriors have been defined in many respects by their experiences in the battle against racism.  Such self-definition must be honored, not rudely brushed to the side.

Many activists in my generation simply cannot forget what went before the progress we have made.  Frankly, it is unfair to ask them to forget that which has defined their lives so completely.  White persons who insist on "moving on" or who urge us to forget the past in defensive responses to words like I am sharing right now, just don't understand.  There is a time for simple listening in a real attempt to understand those who have been wounded and forever altered by the pain of the long night's struggle. The progress many white folks and even younger minorities want to quickly tout would not have been realized without the sacrifice of the generation that calls on us to never forget. 

Sometimes being thoughtful means simply being silent, even when you don't agree, so that real hearing, listening and understanding can happen. 

Deed restrictions and discrimination as "ethical"

My good friend, Randy Mayeux writes in a most revealing way about a problem that persists in other, more respectable forms even today. 

Read what he has to say here.

Dallas Faces Race

Facing Race

Tonight in Dallas: MLK, Jr. Symposium

Dallas Faces Race

Donor concern: Hatred? Really?

Rev. Gerald Britt published another compelling essay in The Dallas Morning News yesterday.  His comments focused on the tragic Trayvon Martin incident.  I hope you'll read and consider his thoughts here.

I received the following email from a person who has been a long-time CitySquare donor.  I found it amazing and thoroughly disappointing.   Here's what he said along with my reply and his final word:

Larry, 

Trayvon Martin's killing brought on a lot of debate, some healthy and constructive, some unhealthy and destructive.  Gerald Britt's article in this morning's paper is the most hate-filled, irrational article I have seen from either side of the issue.  Take me off of your lists.  I can't support an organization that is actively promoting hate in our community.

Signed his name

 ____________________________________________

Thank you for contacting me with your opinion about Rev. Britt’s editorial.

Frankly, your reaction is surprising to me.  I can’t find the hatred to which you refer anywhere in the article.  It would be helpful to me if you could elucidate more specifically to what you are referring.  I would love to talk to you by phone or face-to-face, as I am sure Gerald would as well. 

As I have considered the entire case, my question is why didn’t young Trayvon Martin fall under the protection of the “stand your ground” law in Florida?  He was pursued by an armed stranger.  If he “stood  his ground” in his own defense, how could he be blamed and how could an armed assailant be declared “not guilty.” 

Again, please direct me to the hatred or to the irrationality of Gerald’s article.  I really need your help on this one.

Best regards,

Larry

___________________________________________

Thanks Larry,  That's all I needed to know.  If that article speaks for City Square, we're done.    

Signed his name

___________________________________________

I'm trying folks, really, I am.  But, I can't see or hear the "hatred."  

Can you?  

The fact that we can't have a sensible conversation is a huge tip off that we have a major problem about race and culture in this nation.  

Sad.  

Malcolm X and Richard Holbrooke

Malcolm X's lost speech from 50 years ago found at Brown University.

Listen to portions of the speech and the details of the original setting and discovery here.  Thanks to NPR's program, "All Things Considered."