Americas Segregation
Essay by review • November 3, 2010 • Essay • 1,458 Words (6 Pages) • 1,410 Views
America Segregation how has it been affecting the society of Americans for so long? Well according to American Apartheid there just hasn't been enough time for the 1960s civil rights laws to work themselves out. How long will this take, and will it ever just work itself out? Why are there ghettos and how did they come about. Why are most ghettos in towns and cities in parts that are usually run down? Well if we can remember back in time when immigrants started to enter the United States the different cultures established in the same neighborhoods and communities. Why did they do this? Because they were around people that made them comfortable they were around their cultures and communities that they were accustomed to. They were around a society that was their own. So how did minorities end up in the ghetto? I don't think they ever got out. When commerce was booming in the city most people lived in the city because that's where the action was. The jobs, schools, bakeries whatever you needed was in the city. Back in the day when there was no cars or a form of transportation people had to walk or ride horses to where they were going and by being in a place that was condensed with all of these things it made it easy to live there.
I think it was a case of a couple different ideas that all had an effect on minorities but primarily I think that the major ingredient was that the elites of the community prevented minorities for exiting the poverty stricken lifestyles and here is how they did it. Education, transportation and flat out racism. These three factors play a major role in why there is segregation today in the U.S. let's start with transportation.
I started with transportation because with transportation came elites moving out of the city to the suburbs. When this happened only people with some kind of money could afford a car to commute to and from the city. These people were the ones who had good jobs and power. Mostly whites had cars at the time and few blacks. These elites moved from the city to establish communities of their own and I am pretty sure that minorities were not welcome. Without transportation minorities were forced to stay in the city and as the suburbs grew larger and larger jobs and commerce that at were one time in the city had now left for the booming suburbs. Business was better in the suburbs and money was the bottom line for these businesses. This left minorities without jobs and gave them limited resources this was the start of the ghetto.
Education is a major factor and maybe the biggest denying one of an education will make it very difficult for one to ever exit poverty and become self sufficient. The elites mostly whites were threatened by the black community they feared that they (African Americans) if educated would start some kind of social uprising and destroy American communities. Elites had denied a quality education to minorities in the following ways. By not giving them quality atmospheres to learn in. i.e. Buildings, teachers and materials such as books and school supplies. Blacks were forced to stay in the old run down school systems in the cities while the whites were in new buildings in the suburbs. Without a proper environment and with limited resources blacks and minorities couldn't go to school they had to work and make money at low-end job to help their families scrape by. Without a proper education blacks and minorities had no way to fight back and that's exactly what the elites wanted. They (elites) wanted uneducated minorities that were more interested in getting by then to be able to fight with them to get their piece of the pie.
Racism has been around since the beginning of time and still exists. Racism is a major role in keeping poor minorities and blacks in the ghettos for a simple reason N.I.M.B.Y.. I don't want to live in a rundown neighborhood and I don't want to have a nice house and next to it is a trailer park that is rundown and has uneducated people that have their cars on cinder blocks and their twelve kids running around the yard crying cause they don't have enough food to eat cause their dad is in jail. This would definitely ruin the resale value of my house and make me go insane. People tend to live in the same communities and neighborhoods according to their social status I don't care if you are white, black purple or green but if you are my neighbor I would want you to keep your house in good standing by taking care of your lawn and maintenance on your house I wouldn't want a white neighbor if his septic tank backed up and came in to my yard hell I wouldn't want him if just the smell came into my yard. Its not a white or black issue it is a economic status issue.
Who kept the minorities down and how did they do it for so long? White social elites kept these people down. They did it for the money these are
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