Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal for White Americans Only

In the article The Construction of the Ghetto by Massey and Denton, there are several policies and practices that still has its effect on racial structure today. Among the several practices and policies are the Government Issue (GI) Bill for veterans and housing loans. At a political view, the GI Bill for veterans helped them buy houses at a lower price due to their contribution in the war. Since White veterans have the GI Bill, they moved out to the suburbs during 1940-1970, which was during the time of suburbanization. Because Black veterans did not receive the GI Bill, they were unable to move out and buy houses. This effect is still present today, considering that in the statistics, Blacks are less likely than Whites to own houses.

The racial undertones of Detroit have been extremely problematic to Detroit’s real estate market for well over 50 years. These social disruptions continue to have an effect on the current residents of Detroit. During the middle of the nineteenth century, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) introduced real estate tactics such as redlining, which is the practice of flagging minority dense neighborhoods for the purposes of denying approval of mortgages or inflating the price of the homes. Redlining had a profound social and economic effect on all residents of Detroit. The white majority began abandoning and selling their homes in fear that the value of the home would plummet, leading to a great financial loss when minorities moved in the area. This idea is known as white flight, and is the primary reason that Detroit has one of the highest African American populations in the country. However, through revitalization and gentrification of the Midtown/Downtown area, Detroit is slowly becoming more diverse. Throughout history, racial politics of the mid-to-late twentieth century affected Detroit 's real estate market by excluding minorities from the real estate market. Although adding stadiums, high end retail, small shops, and restaurants is economically valuable to the city of Detroit, this is conflicting and potentially problematic for the original residents of the area because the prices of these new establishments are often much higher than the residents can afford.

Now onto the HOLC- Homeowners Loan Corporation. The idea of the HOLC was to guarantee a safety net to homebuyers. The HOLC created a national standard for appraising the value of real estate and it decided the value of all types of properties- single family homes, empty lots, large estates, etc. However, this proved to be a dangerous venture because it often took ideas from social divisions to determine appraisals. Property values were linked to the race, religion, and ethnicity of the community’s inhabitants. As a result, The HOLC did not offer loan assistance to most African Americans, Jews, and other immigrants. Therefore, they deprived many of the opportunity to own property- an essential part in the American Dream. The HOLC set a dangerous precedent for the future of

Wilson (2011) research proves that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), contributed to the early decay of inner city neighborhoods by withholding mortgage capital and making it difficult for these areas to retain or attract families who were able to purchase their own homes. As the federal government created this program it excluded certain inner city neighborhoods. This exclusion created “redlining” which assessed primarily on racial composition. People who wanted to get out of public housing and purchase a home in a redlined neighborhood were denied proper mortgages, even if they had sufficient funds. Wilson (2011) says that such restrictions such redlining restricted many opportunities for building or even maintaining quality housing in the inner city, which in many ways set the stage for urban blight that many Americans now associate with black neighborhoods. Policies like this one were created to make blacks stay in the inner city

Different areas of the private sector took control of the racial segregation. Areas such as real estate, banks, labor, and toxic waste locations have participated in some way to continue the segregation and inferiority of people of color. “African Americans and other communities of color are often victims of land-use decision making that mirrors the power arrangements of the dominant society” (Bullard [1994]2004:269). The land-use decisions are used by the real estate industry. The real estate industry along with the bank industry have worked together in order to make it almost impossible for people of color to acquire their own homes. When individuals of color do obtain their own homes the real estate industry corrals them all into one zone. Then the banks charge homeowners in these zones high interest rates on the mortgages needed to maintain their home ownership. “Zoning is probably the most widely applied mechanism to regulate urban land use in the United States” (Bullard [1994]2004:269). When people of color are corralled into a neighborhood the quality of the neighborhood is diminished. The

As he pointed out in the very early part of his article, for instance Clyde Ross, resident of North Lawndale Chicago, was denied when he first tried to get a legitimate mortgage; mortgages were effectively not available to black people (Coates, June 2014). Also, just like what we talked about in class last week, Ross and many other black families were forced to live in those redlined neighborhoods with “contract house.” Basically, Ross had not signed a normal mortgage. He’d bought “on contract”: a predatory agreement that combined all the responsibilities of homeownership with all the disadvantages of renting—while offering the benefits of neither (Coates, June 2014). This is a perfect example of how these ghetto-neighborhoods were created; it was created by white supremacists and people in the government who chose to ignore “the elephant in the room.” All these black families left with no choice. They ran from the South, thinking that they could finally go the land of the free. They quickly found out that, it was no different in the North, or even the West. They were forced to stuck with the

An argument for reparations is that african americans, during the period of the 1930’s through the 1960’s, were denied of a morgage through the means of redlining. “Neighborhoods where blacks existed were rated “D” which were normally viewed as ineligible for fha support.”

The story of Clyde Ross and Lawndale is just one example of the obstacles faced by blacks even after slavery was abolished. It is clear that it was specifically black families that were targeted by contract sellers and that were bypassed by the FHA to be given insurance. The appearance of equality overshadowed the reality of the situation for blacks, which was that they were frequently exploited and contained in neighborhoods that did not receive governmental assistance, while whites were benefitting from the new governmental agencies while many of them simultaneously

With the amount of power and funding the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) had, various policies and laws were created with the sole purpose of prohibiting the selling of houses to African-Americans. To fulfill this, property owners and builders positioned an infinite number of barriers to African-Africans. Advocates for these barriers genuinely believed that racial exclusions would further improve their property values. However, as viewed in both chapter five and six of The Color of Law, racial integration actually increases property value. Given that many African-Americans had little to no housing alternatives and desired to escape from urban communities, the demand for single-family and duplex houses rose. Specifically, the Country Club

One legacy of discriminatory policies is that African American families today are more vulnerable to foreclosures, which destroys a large amount of their wealth. According to a study by Shapiro et al. of Brandeis University in February 2013, “Homes are the largest investment that most American families make and by far the biggest item in their wealth portfolio. Homeownership is an even greater part of wealth composition for black families, amounting to 53 percent of wealth for blacks and 39 percent for whites. Yet, for many years, redlining, discriminatory mortgage-lending practices, lack of access to credit, and lower incomes have blocked the homeownership path for African- Americans while creating and reinforcing communities segregated by race. African-Americans, therefore, are more recent homeowners and

It was a way to constraint African Americans to areas that were far away from those with status, class, and power. Segregation led to discrimination in economic opportunities, housing, and education. The black culture has suffered from the barriers that were placed through segregation. However, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 tried to limit some of the discrimination associated with segregation. It was discovered that even a “rising economic status had little or no effect on the level of segregation that blacks experience” (Massey and Denton 87). The authors imply that “black segregation would remain a universal high” (Massey and Denton 88). The problem with the continuing causes in Segregation is that even though the Fair Housing act was placed, many realtors still discriminate against blacks “through a series of ruses, lies, and deceptions, makes it hard for them to learn about, inspect, rent, or purchase homes in white neighborhoods” (Massey and Denton 97). Segregation and discrimination have a cumulative effect over time. Massey and Denton argued that the “act of discrimination may be small and subtle, together they have a powerful cumulative effect in lowering the probability of black entry into white neighborhood” (98). William Julius Wilson had

FDR was to many people of that time a proactive, assertive, and brilliant president. He assembled a group of intelligent people to help create and implement changes in America known as the Brain Trust. (Shultz, 2014). Furthermore, in 1933 he established organizations, committees, safety nets in an attempt to prevent a depression ever occurring again. Moreover, the New Deal was developed and implemented, it expanded government control.

Chinatown, Olvera Street, and Compton all contributed to culturally diversity and the expansion of Los Angeles. Although Los Angeles has become rich in cultures, its evolution did not go without racial tensions and segregation. With the arrival of blacks from the south, white-Los Angeles did always recognize the minority community. Angelenos did not always embrace diversity with pride, but perhaps the sad part is not the fact that racial segregation took place, but the fact that it was not created by just the individual, but also by the organization. Federal programs like the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Homeowner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC) divided up Los Angeles into a complex socio-economic racial-class system. The influences of the local level influenced the federal level and revolutionized the finance industry. (Avila, lecture 2/5/02) These federal organizations blatantly labeled minorities as derogatory, uneducated, second-class citizens that brought down property value in “white” neighborhoods. Latinos and Black were often labeled as a “minority problem” and even as a “disease” on official HOLC documents. The HOLC implemented strict government guidelines and kept maps of white neighborhoods confidential. It also devised a formal and uniform style of appraising homes by breaking neighborhoods into race classifications by letter. As Waldie states, “The Montana Land Company made it clear that lots were

Agents are well aware that the necessity for homes in middle class neighborhoods has greatly increased, so “...agents charge their black customers more for housing… as a means of making more money” (Roychoudhury and Goodman). Due to the color of their customer’s skin, agents believe they have the right to do as they please by increasing house prices. Although real estate agents do not do this to just exclude them from white neighborhoods, but because realtors feel African Americans are more likely to pay more for houses. Realtors believe this as it is statistically proven African Americans have a higher demand for houses, particularly in white dominant neighborhoods, as their children would be given a better education due to higher taxes to public schools (Roychoudhury and Goodman). Real estate agents use this knowledge to their advantage when selling houses, however it negatively affects their African American customers.

All of this led to an increase in the number of Americans that can own their own homes. Government rigged the housing market to encourage Americans to become property owners. The government then started to underwrite the property owning idea, and that is what brought lenders and buyers together. The episode then goes on to describe a wall that was built because the government required it to be built. On one side of the wall it was mostly white residents. That was the side that was aloud to receive loans from the government. On the other side was a neighborhood with mostly black residents and those residents were not aloud to receive loans from the government for mortgage because “African Americans were regarded as fundamentally uncredit worthy” (Cwhite2000. Safe as Houses). This incident separated the city by not only credit, but by race. Those that were in the black part of town had to pay a significantly higher interest rate than those that lived in the white part of town. These two types of borrowers were later listed as being “prime” or “subprime.” During this time, blacks were excluded from being involved in the new property owning society. This exclusion caused an increase in urban, racial violence. The violence was mostly against property due to this decision. Although there was violence caused by this decision that was made, property ownership is still a considerably good investment.