Documentary Analysis: The House We Live In

“The Czar of all the Russias is not more absolute upon his own soil than the New York landlord in his dealings with colored tenants. Where he permits them to live, they go; where he shuts the door, stay out.” (Riis 148). By saying that, Riis said that the landlord has complete control over where the blacks live. The average African-American paid $10 to every white man’s $7.50.

According to The Editorial Board New York Time’s, “The Housing Crisis Lives on for Minorities” December 26,2016, mortgage companies such as Fannie Mae are discriminating and being racist towards African-American and Latino homes. The writer emphasizes the neglection Fannie Mae had towards these minority homeowners and specifies the contrast between white areas and black areas. The mortgage crisis that ravaged the economy eight years ago, is a driving factor of the editorial. The writer is informing New York Times readers, educated citizens, and intellectuals about the racial allegations towards Fannie Mae. The Editorial Board affectively convinces their audience that there is an unjust gap between white and minority homes through the use of

In “Intersectional Resistance and Law Reform,” Dean Spade proposes that the United States was founded through “racialization…(which) continues to operate under new guises… that produce, manage, and deploy gender categories and sexuality and family norms” (16). More over, these laws and norms tend to maintain the “status quo,” and employ an inherently flawed justice system that is only equipped to address single-axis discrimination issues (5). Thus, the intersectionality movement is largely dismissed by the social and justice systems, as it utilizes “critical intersectional tools… that are often (too) difficult for legal scholars to comprehend” (17). Interstionality’s progress is also impeded by advocates leaving to support single-axis issues. However, Spade warns that this approach is ineffective, as it fails to protect the most marginalized members of society.

Keywords that are most important to the documentary are, War on Drugs, incarceration, drug involvement/abuse, and racism. All of these words are loosely or heavily connected to each other. The words drug involvement/abuse highlight the purpose of the film, and the reasons for the War on Drugs and numerous laws created to fight drug abuse that cause death and destroy abiding citizens of communities. Furthermore, the War on Drugs simply labels the struggle against drug use and the governmental involvement to enforce anti-drug laws. The word incarceration and racism also link together to explain how as a result of the War on Drugs, the U.S. is one of the top countries with the highest imprisonment rate and more African-Americans or low-class minorities are convicted of drug crimes than any other ethnicity or social class.

Clark (1989), made references to urban ghettos being overcrowded and the housing stock in decay. Like the rest of the New York City Housing Market, residential buildings in Harlem were built before the 1900’s. The conditions of housing stock in Harlem were poor, all except the newest buildings

Natalie Moore writer of The South Side says “In Chicago, black people always do the best with what they have, and so we see high rates of homeownership in a number of communities on the South Side. We see strong neighborhoods, but even if you’re doing the right thing, if you’re in a black neighborhood or in any neighborhood that’s 10 percent black, your home value

Fed Up is a documentary made in 2014 that is based on the issues caused by the American food industry. Fed Up, uncovers America’s true secrets about the food people consume every day. More specifically, it reveals the affect sugar has on people’s bodies. As a result, the amount of sugar in food, the bodies consent of glucose, and the satisfying taste it brings, too much sugar could cause certain sicknesses causing the body to not work the way it supposed to. To start off, the amount of sugar put in America’s food is predominately high.

Wealth is one of the factors why residential segregation is an increasing problem. Golash- Boza explains, “Residential segregation happened when different groups of people are sorted into discount neighborhoods” (271). It is because of housing segregation

Then they’d bring in another black family, rinse, and repeat”. Buying the property at a low price, then selling at a high rate to lower income black families just to gain profit. Another example Coates uses is a black family in a white neighborhood, who had a cross burned outside their front lawn. Coates used pathos very well in this article. He wants the reader to understand the hardships that were created for

Based on this we can conclude that the mere image of being black is shattered and anywhere you go you will be judged as lower class. The fear created by the media make it seem like if you were to rent your home to a black descent, they’ll destroy your home or yet create a hostile environment and make it uncomfortable to other people. Another fear that sticks around with Africans Americans is that they “promote the gang lifestyle or are anti law enforcement” (Glassner 122). Though the realtor shuns African Americans from renting the homes they would not even rent/sale the home to a black family, even if they were well qualified, with higher incomes, and was willing to pay a higher down payment. From the book The Black Image in the White Mind by Andrew Rojecki and Robert Entman, they present us with white beliefs stating “the media conveys “problematic” images of African Americans even after decades of heightened awareness and vigilance to rid the media of stereotypes”.

For bringing the home within the reach of a black purchaser, however, the speculator extracted a considerable price.” (Jamelle Bouie,How we built the ghettos, page 2) This is like when Lena the mother of Walter and beneatha bought a new house and only had to put a small down payment on it in order to buy the

As suburban Americans began to own the same consumer goods and believe in the same values, the prospect of inclusive thought began to disappear. The aesthetic homogeneity with men’s clothing, for example, left very little room for men to dress up in anything other than the bland suits characteristic of the 1950s. Among the varying forms of homogeneity present in the suburbs, none had the effect on conservatism that racial homogeneity did. From the 1950s until “the 1990s, nearly 90 percent of suburban whites lived in communities with minority populations of less than 1 percent,” showing how the suburbs created conservative thought that would last nearly half a century in the suburbs. In order to achieve this racial ubiquity, “the suburban builders…openly advertised the fact that their communities excluded minorities,” revealing their conservative and racist beliefs William Levitt, the father of the suburbs, argued 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,” further showing how minorities were feared to be a threat in a white society These racialized advertisements and thoughts encapsulated the attention of their audiences by reinforcing the idea of minorities (primarily African-Americans) being a threat to security, which dates back to the 17th Century with the institution of slavery.

The researcher provides a look at the past, reflections on recent developments, and considerations for the future, based on current trends” (Troost Village Community Association 1). African Americans tried to live in the same neighborhoods as whites, but they made sure that did not happen. Once many people started realizing that they were not going to be able to live in neighborhoods with white people or get as nice of houses they

The relationship between society and the law is direct, and housing in America is a conclusive example of that. As argued by both authors, once society has made up its mind about a certain group of people or place such as the ghettos, even the law can’t change those facts. It often happens that people of color and minorities get overlooked and stereotyped into something that they are not due to the hierarchical and discriminatory principles of the law. It has been engrained into society to think that minorities are poor, lazy, and overall less productive in the public

The expansions of bedroom-communities also materialized to accommodate the large volume of new Americans that was being produced. After the World War II numerous individuals purchased land on the outskirts of urban-cities and use the advancement of technology to create inexpensive houses that was attractive to the baby-boomers. To further accommodate the audience the G.I. Bill of the returning soldiers & their families made housing in the suburbs even cheaper. In a way it was a win-win for man and country. It wasn’t all peaches & roses in the late 1950s for minorities.