Your Weekly Dose of Sawyer

"Aggressive use of eminent domain also damages the social fabric of poor communities because the displacement of residents, businesses, and churches undermines social ties."(Somin 6) Eminent domain:  the right of a government or its agent to expropriate private property for public use, with payment of compensation. However, in many cases, the government does not pay the right amount of compensation that they should be paying. While others might say that eminent domain is only productive and beneficial for communities, I believe that statement to be false. The government acts in the same, selfish way as a casino. Once you enter a casino, you are manipulated into spending more and more of your money, until you are left with nothing. Similarly, the government manipulates and takes whatever they want, no matter who it'll damage in the long run. When something is taken from you like this, you feel like they left you with hardly anything, sometimes even nothing. They manipul...

"Them houses they put up for colored in them areas way out all seem to cost twice as much as other houses. I did the best I could. " (Hansberry 93) A major topic that we see pop up in the name of racism, is the right of whether anyone (no matter their background) should be able to buy absolutely any house they want, at any time. Whether they are aware of it or not, many realtors carry and express racist tendencies when it comes to selling a house. The victims that receive this racism the worst are African-Americans. Blockbusting, redlining, and steering--the most common examples that are used by these real-estate agents, but sadly, these aren't the only methods. An example of blockbusting is when in a multi-racial neighborhood, the real estate agents will alert the dominate race members that their neighborhood is "changing" (or growing in number of minorities) and that they should sell their property. This practice that is exercised by the agents declines the f...