The United States has come a long way toward electing its first black president and politicians’ declarations of reparations for the descendants of slaves. In recent years, however, America has seen an increase in racially motivated hate crimes, and the election of Donald Trump as president has further polarized society. In many parts of the country, racially diverse Americans are not neighbors: they go to different schools, shop at various stores, and do not always access the same services. The race continues to be a leading social issue in the United States, confirming that the topic requires attention. Exploring the history of segregation through the example of New York City, one of America’s largest urban areas, will provide a more in-depth examination of the subject.
Before redlining and “white flight,” U.S. cities looked quite different. Previously, African Americans had been legally denied fundamental rights and freedoms; New York City and Downtown Brooklyn, in particular, were no exception. Many city agencies legally segregated white and black citizens in schools, restaurants, stores, and other public places. Unique signs indicated where African Americans could walk, talk, drink, rest, or eat. Various markets and other establishments were divided into types: for white people, as affluent customers, and for black people, as people of amylum affluence. A new phase of anti-segregation in both the North and South began in the 1950s.
After World War II, redlining began to be introduced more and more persistently. It promoted the creation of affluent white neighborhoods for middle- and high-income families. Redlining is the practice of denying services to residents of specific areas and communities, often based on race. “Better” neighborhoods were marked in green on maps; blue and yellow settings were already worse. If an area was unfavorable, it was observed in red. The color ranking was based on several attributes: housing prices, amenities, and the average income of community residents. Often the racial structure of the people living in the region was a deciding factor. Areas where immigrants or dark-skinned people lived were always red.
At that time, large all-white communities began to appear all over the country. The migration of white families to the suburbs became known as white flight, which started the evolution of Downtown Brooklyn as a black commercial neighborhood. This situation can identify the following reasons: racial, race-associated, neutral ethnocentric (Krysan 679). Racial prejudice is an individual-level phenomenon, depending on a person’s level of intelligence, education, and experience.
Racial prejudice is related to stereotypes: crime among African Americans, the characteristics of that people. Neutral ethnocentric motives are related to the fact that city residents are not racist, but they would like to have more people of the same skin color among their neighbors as themselves. It is essential to understand that stages of evolution cannot be defined under one category because migration always depends on different motives: individual, social, financial, and others.
Many people who move to another location do not care about what happened before in that place. They do not consider what was there before or the people who lived there previously (Rosenberg). The Albee Square Mall, now City Point, is such an example: to people unfamiliar with the history of downtown Brooklyn, the place says nothing, but to locals, the mall is a landmark (Dean). It used to be a historic site for hip-hop culture. Although later, it underwent a makeover: the shopping plaza was torn down, tripled in size, and added high-rise buildings with offices and apartments (Newman). When moving, people are more expected to pay attention to the factors they will dislike, rather than to what historically significant place is here and what kind of inner world their potential neighbors have.
Recently, the U.S. has been experiencing internal contradictions, and cultural conflict, including between different ethnic groups, has been exacerbated in American society. Meanwhile, the underlying problem remains: decades after the campaign for desegregation and human rights began, many black and white Americans live separately, with little or no contact between them. Therefore, any measures that would promote better interracial communication should be accepted and appreciated.
Works Cited
Dean, Allison Lirish. “Albee Square: When the Mall’s No Longer Home.” Gotham Gazette, 2007. Web.
Krysan, Maria. “Whites who say they’d flee: Who are they, and why would they leave?” Demography, vol. 39, no. 4, 2002, pp. 675-696. Web.
Newman, Andy. “Deal Would Triple the Size of the Albee Square Mall in Brooklyn and Add a High-Rise.” The New York Times. 2007. Web.
Rosenberg, Zoe. “New York Narratives: A Brooklynite Remembers Fort Greene in the ’90s.” Curbed. 2016. Web.