Arguments Against Segregation

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Segregation; an action as opposed to a neutral condition or state of being. Segregation brings to mind physically separated boundaries, which, while an accurate depiction, doesn’t reveal the whole picture. Segregation, directly connected to land ownership and wealth deprivation, don’t exist in a vacuum, rather are the result of orchestrated government policy to ensure that African Americans don’t have the ability to live in certain neighborhoods or use ownership of property as a way of accumulating wealth. The practices that the United States government uses include the practice of redlining, overseen by the Federal Housing Administration, and restrictive covenants. Although these practices may appear to not have any racially targeted language, excavation reveals that the application of such policy was directly intended to maintain racist…show more content…
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program and redlining. Redlining was the practice of rating neighborhoods based on the perceived stability of those neighborhoods to determine whether they would be eligible for FHA backing. The grade of an A meant that the neighborhood was in demand, and also had no Black people or foreigners. These neighborhoods would likely receive insurance and FHA backing. Neighborhoods where Black people or foreigners lived were rated D and were considered ineligible for FHA backing.3 Redlining had the direct consequence of preventing Black people from obtaining mortgages on homes, or creating a system where neighborhoods could have the resources provided by the FHA. A consideration is that Black people are not permitted to reside in certain neighborhoods regardless of income under the rating system.4 This dispels the idea that if Black people work hard enough, a notion entrenched in respectability politics, that they will be able to do just as well as white
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