Can we end discrimination without ending segregation?
The former Henry Horner high rises being demolished. "Death of the Projects 3" by fueled by coffee on flickr.
In Chicago, “mixed-income” is the word. How do we fight poverty? We mix incomes.
But what about race?
Last week, I sat with homeowner Jewel Ware who lives on the West side of Chicago, in a mixed-income community where the former Henry Horner high rises used to stand.
“Why are we only worried about income?” Jewel asked me. “Why aren’t we also talking about race?”
Is it enough to just talk about the amount of money people make? Or if we really want to end poverty – to end the systematic way we ignore struggling communities – do we need to end racial segregation too?
Today is International Human Rights Day, and the theme is discrimination.
“Discrimination lies at the root of many of the world’s most pressing human rights problems. No country is immune from this scourge. Eliminating discrimination is a duty of the highest order,” said Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Map of racial segregation in Chicago from the 2000 census
But what’s the root of discrimination? Can we end discrimination without ending racial segregation? Is it possible?
It’s a significant issue here in our city. Chicago is the most segregated big city in the nation, and it’s not hard to tell. There’s still a lot of white folks in town who don’t dare travel South past Roosevelt road, as they believe it’s still the “wrong side of the tracks.” Even those that don’t tend to stick to their own neighborhoods, where people look like them and talk like them.
Or do our racist roots go too deep? If we keep our neighborhoods segregated by race, we may always see the color of our neighborhoods when we distribute resources and decide policies, rather than the need.
Today’s residential segregation is a remnant of our years of racist public policy and racial steering in housing.
If we want to abolish discrimination in our society, is it enough to just hope we’ve gotten rid of it within our minds? Or do we need to get rid of all its vestiges, all its holds on us, and be free from our past?
It may not be enforced by law anymore, but it might as well be.
What are you doing to try to combat segregation without our city and our society?
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Megan Cottrell, Poverty2Opportunity. Poverty2Opportunity said: @mmcottrell writes about the role of segregation in addressing discrimination this Human Rights Day. http://bit.ly/8wMUGT #HR2009 [...]
I’ve long thought that the way to level racial disparity is to tackle issues of poverty that contribute to racial segregation. Is it really the color of resident’s skin that keeps people from going south of Roosevelt or is it fear of traveling into an impoverished community and all the criminal elements that are there?
Good question. I don’t think it is an either or issue. Race and poverty are so intertwined that it is hard isolate one from the other, rather, they are layers. Anytime you add the issue of color to the issue of poverty, things get exponentially worse. We will never be able to tackle poverty if we don’t have an honest discussion about our biases and how they affect our decisions.
In response to another comment. See in context »I agree, Doug. I think race and wealth are so tied up in our historical policies, and reinforced over and over in our minds, that it’s hard to pull them apart.
Most people may be afraid of the impoverished communities where crime is prevalent. But it just so happens that every single one of those communities is predominately minority. That’s not an accident. We have to pull apart those closely intertwined strands of race and poverty and crime and wealth to see how they’re connected.
Thanks for commenting, Laura and Doug!
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] how discrimination impacts housing and education policies in Chicago. Today’s post, “Can We End Discrimination Without Ending Segregation?“ illustrates how we skirt the race issue in housing and poverty by shifting the discourse [...]
I love Chicago more than New York City…. but the segregation of this city is troubling, and I was really taken aback by it when I moved here. Scratch that, I am still appalled. The first settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable!
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/unknown-chicago/2009/10/father-of-chicago.html
[...] in the nation, our public school system is one of the largest but one of the worst, we live in one of the most segregated cities in the United States, and if all these issues weren’t bad enough, they don’t hold a [...]