in our cities".
NPR this morning finally gave us some useful information regarding our race/poverty problem with their interview of Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute by NPR Morning Edition host Steve Innskeep.
what a surprise to hear that policies by white politicians the last fifty years created the ghettos and poverty we now have in our nation.
I can't find the text of this interview, but here is the audio:
http://www.npr.org/...
One of the several devastating points Rothstein makes is segregation policy by white politicians is partly responsible for creating ghettos we have today in our cities. and that this segregation has a huge impact on economic opportunity for black people.
The example he provided was Levittown, PA, a well known intentional community created in the 1950's for white middle class families. WHITE people only.
Levitt & Sons would not sell homes to African Americans. Levitt did not consider himself to be a racist, considering housing and racial relations entirely separate matters.
in the 1950's the houses in Levittown cost around $8,000. today they sell for up to $400,000. Rothstein pointed out how white home owners used that equity to send their children to college and pass it on to them; and that black people living in apartments in cities don't have that opportunity. they are in fact paying to build the equity of the apartment building owners.
and we know this model was repeated across the United States as a large number of black people moved north from the south.
Rothstein's work backs up similar data regarding segregation policy to be found in the biography of the first Mayor Daley of Chicago, American Pharoah. in the book it's clear that Mayor Daley and other Chicago officials, business people and white citizens wanted Chicago to be segregated-- so much so that the placement of the Dan Ryan Expressway was intentionally located to separate white and black neighborhoods.
the head of the Chicago Housing Authority at the time attempted to integrate public housing in Chicago but met enormous resistance from white racists, who rioted when a black family moved into "their" housing development. the housing authority was eventually fired by the Daley administration; she moved on to NYC where she became a well known activist for integrated housing and other social causes.
The racists among us today like to pretend ghetto's apparently just sprung up in cities out of thin air. it's time to learn exactly who is responsible for them, and for black poverty in general.