Skip to main content

Welcome to the Neighborhood...

"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 freedom and choice of the minorities who may be moving for a fresh start, and prevents for the progression of diversification. As the Government became aware of these illegal discriminations, they began to develop and introduce new acts and laws. The main law that was produced was the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which officially made blockbusting and other racist actions against minorities illegal, However, even with this act and the other laws, the racist practices of the agents and citizens continued. In my opinion, I believe these laws are not enough, therefore, we need something more stable and stronger. While I do believe that the Fair Housing Act is doing good, I think that, behind the scenes, evaluations and protocols need to be updated. By updated, I mean that real-estate agents need to be re-evaluated to determine whether they have the right mindset or not when it comes to selling. Similarly, I think protocols need to be updated by improving the selling and buying process. For example, maybe instead of having only one real-estate agent, have two. This way fairness of the customers is more likely to be ensured. 

Comments

  1. Julia StarrDecember 8, 2019 at 9:55 AM

    I like how you said evaluations and protocols need to be updated. Even though the Fair Housing Act was a law passed, it doesn't mean people will stop their racist and discriminatory practices. There comes a point when a law isn't enough anymore and things need to change even more.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is the Green Light?

While only a few chapters into, "The Great Gatsby", a distinct symbol that has been presented multiple times, is the green light. At the end of chapter 1, we saw the green light as Nick spotted Gatsby, and later on, we see it again. "Involuntarily I glanced seaward--and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been at the end of a dock" (Fitzgerald 21). This quote signifies how the green light has multiple meanings behind it. The green light represents Gatsby's undying love for daisy, the American dream, and wealth. Since the quote explains that the green light is on a dock, us readers can infer that this dock is daisy's house and with Gatsby staring at it, it shows his strong love for her. The green light also represents the American dream and wealth. This green light is not exactly tangible for Gatsby. Although Gatsby has seemed to achieved the American dream through his wealth, he did not do it the right way....
3 comments
Read more

What's So Great About Poetry?

Poetry- the unit that most students dread to learn about in their English class. But why is poetry so disliked among high school students? A few of these reasons, and that I can attest for personally, are that poetry is seen as old, it can be quite difficult to understand/interpret, and we just fail to see the point of it. However, after interpreting some poems in class, my perspective began to shift (only slightly not significantly though). While I am still not the biggest fan of poetry, I am beginning to see a different side to it.  Yes, poetry is all of the negative things that I stated above (at least in my opinion) but once poetry is understood, the lesson becomes that much clearer and applicable. Understanding and correctly interpreting poetry is not only a beneficial skill to have but it also opens your eyes to a deeper understanding to things that are important in terms of culture, history, and etc. For example, poetry has effectively been used to advocate and teach about i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Everlasting Mistakes: America Never Seems to Learn

America is essentially naive. We take what we want and we take what we have for granted. If something is going to propel our status up, whether it's for wealth, our social lives, or just out of selfishness, we don't seem to even hesitate to act. As we observe in Raymo's piece, the act of selfishness and naiveté is what drives their decisions, and eventually, will lead to their own death. The piece takes place in 1987, which is only around 25 years from when we learned how harmful cigarettes actually were. Just like in Raymo's piece when the six-year-old girl "rubbed the glowing dust on her body" not knowing that the "beautiful dust" would "damage her living cells" (Raymo 212) and kill her, our society did something quite similar and acted out of same naiveté. We did the same thing with tobacco and cigarettes and blindly rushed into using them because "they were cool" and "the new thing". Then once it was already too late...
2 comments
Read more