Week Ten - Neighborhoods and Segregation
Share an idea or two from this week's reading. What was most interesting to you? What was most strange? How does the reading this week fit into issues and discussions we have had in this class?
Week Two - The Emergence of Civil Rights as A National Issue in the United States
Share an idea or two from this week's reading. What was most interesting to you? What was most strange? How does the reading this week fit into issues and discussions we have had in this class?
Preston Lauterbach’s essay "Memphis Burning" focuses on 384 South Lauderdale in reference to its racist housing policies. The author sets the framework as to how the city of Memphis is built on white supremacist ideals. He writes further about understanding the implications of inequality and how it is essential to understand housing policies to understand poverty and crime rates that are linked to marginalizing people of color. In the article, Lauterbach pinpoints black residents that were targeted due to their threat on white supremacy; as a result, their houses were burnt down. Lauterbach sets the historical backdrop of Memphis to understand the historical context as to why residential segregation is still so heavily seen today due to the pushback against integration.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lamisa's observation. I have read Preston Lauterbach's Memphis burning piece for multiple courses and each time I am struck with the intense level of which Memphis was and still is segregated based upon residential area. Growing up in Memphis, I witnessed the new waves of white flight as people began to leave even the suburbs of Memphis such as Cordova, to smaller cities such as Lakeland and Arlington. In his work, Lauterbach provides his reader with the historical context needed to understand how these trends of white flight first began and why they continue to be particularly strong within Memphis and the surrounding areas.
DeleteIn response to both Lamisa and Britney, I wonder about our contemporary response to white flight, housing discrimination, and racist housing policies. As Lauterbach provides historical context for, Memphis has a history of sequestering away black folks, displacing them, seizing their land, and most of this is done by white folks in positions of power (city council, land use and land development firms). While these practices persist, there are also many attempts to combat these ills and it seems that every young person in Memphis has a worthy justice cause they are attached to. However, I worry that these efforts are not being carried out in a sustainable manner. To what degree are neighborhood members being contacted and how is their input being honored?
DeleteI have listened to a few podcasts featuring Preston Lauterbach, therefore I was excited to read another one of his pieces for this class and not surprisingly chose to reflect on it for my blog post this week. In this work, Lauterbach writes “poverty and crime are the symptoms of inequality, not its root causes.” This phrase particularly stood out to me when I was reading through this piece and when I moved on to other readings. Today, it is extremely common for individuals to routinely associate poverty and rime within a society as the cause of inequality. I agree with Lauterbach that although these two factors play into the issue of inequality they cannot be directly labeled as its root causes. Moreover, when attempting to address the issue of inequality within cities, poverty and crime are two important issues however they are not the only ones. Inequality is made up of a plethora of different issues that come together to inhibit individuals from access to crucial resources to help fight the inequality epidemic rampant across our cities. Issues such as but not limited to transportation, public education, and they way individuals and societies perceive things such as race, all play into the way inequality effects society.
ReplyDeleteThis point about inequality likewise drew my attention. I agree with Taylor and Lauterbach, that poverty and crime are symptoms and not roots of inequality, and that there are a score of facets to inequality that must also be considered when addressing it. In the context of these readings, I think it is important to point out that segregation and separation cause inequality in society. This has always been the case. Separate is not equal, and it in fact breeds inequality. It allows those with power and privilege to blind themselves to their privilege and the suffering of those they other. The “other” is out of sight and out of mind when you block them out of your space, which perpetuates processes of inequality-making. In a capitalist society that is so focused on competition between people, it is important to maintain strong cohesion between people of different strata and privilege in order to prevent the empowered from totally oppressing the “other” in the name of ‘winning’ the ‘competition’. Part of this means maintaining a degree of spatial proximity, i.e. keeping neighborhoods open and promoting diverse relationships.
DeleteThe Supreme Court’s decision in City of Memphis v. Greene elucidates the racial inequities present within feet of Rhodes campus. Although they decided that it did not pose a disadvantage to the black community, the manner in which the two communities have developed visibly refutes this conclusion. The vast difference in property values and reputations of the two neighborhoods, as well as the physical barrier that exists creates an active deterrence to crossing between the two neighborhoods, severing the neighborhoods from each other.
ReplyDeleteThe segregation of neighborhoods in Memphis is a significant problem that leads to a plethora of other issues, such as fear and distrust among people of different backgrounds, segregation and inequity in public education, and the furtherance of poverty. A wall, like the one the residents of Hein Park wished to erect, solves none of the institutional barriers that African Americans face in regards to these issues. Instead, it simply allows white people to ignore the injustices their neighbors face, resting in their privilege while depriving African Americans in Memphis of equal opportunity.
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ReplyDeleteI found the case of the City of Memphis vs. Greene to be very upsetting. Similar to my blog post for the week on “Grassroots advocacy and Government Action”, I believe that marginalized communities are regarded as less desirable and should therefore be excluded from the prospering white communities. However, this will only perpetuate the unjust racism that is so prominent. I remember when we looked at the maps of redlining as a class and it became very apparent to me that residential segregation is still very prevalent in our society. While it is important to progress and develop neighborhoods, this progression cannot be at the expense of others, especially minorities. I assert that we need to hold our lawmakers more accountable in creating legislation that is fair for all, and reflects the opinions of everyone and not one specific group of wealthy people.
ReplyDeleteUnlike some of my classmates, this was the first time I encountered the Memphis Burning article, and it was eyeopening. Again, this week's readings were very relevant to Memphis and helped me understand just how tumultuous it was for African Americans here in the 20th Century. The burning of 384 South Lauderdale was utterly heartbreaking. Boss Crump sounds like an evil man, and I found it interesting to see how he used FDR's policies to help enforce his segregation (I wish I went to the lecture on Boss Crump that was at Rhodes a few weeks back). It made me think back to Klarman's readings how FDR was not concerned with Civil Rights, and the New Deal was not purposely designed to help the African American community.
ReplyDeleteThis weeks readings and discussions, particularly the Green case, led me to question the fence we currently around Rhodes College. I am left questioning whether the fence is keeping others out or keeping us in. Is the fence serving as a way to disassociate the campus from the city of Memphis? I think that we need to consider the serious racial implications that were not entirely accepted by the Supreme Court. The fact is that fences and street medians are effective ways to isolate communities and have inherent racial implications in cities like Memphis
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to go back over this reading while I was also working on my research for the final white paper. I'm making heavy use of the Memphis Burning article, and I can't help thinking that in many ways, it feels like EH Crump is still active in Memphis, at least in terms of legacy of his political approach and thought. There's a statue of Mr. Crump at Overton Park, in the middle of Midtown, where much of the urban wealth of Memphis is concentrated. I find tremendous symbolic value in the placement of this statue, as he is responsible for much of that concentration. Little has changed in terms of where wealth was concentrated during the time of the Crump machine. As business moved east, money was still kept out of segregated, marginalized communities.
ReplyDeleteI also referred to the Memphis Burning piece when doing research for my final paper, and I found your point about the symbolism of such a statue to be very thought provoking. It's interesting that a statue of Mr. Crump does't illicit the same contempt and disgust as the statue of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forest. Although Crump isn't associated with the legacy of slavery like the General, he played a big roll in further hindering African Americans in Memphis. I would make the argument that very few people in such areas are aware of the historical weight that this statute exemplifies.
DeleteThis weeks readings raise some thought provoking issues. Namely who has what rights when it comes to the issue of framing public space. When it comes to gated communities, what purpose does removing an area of space from the greater community at large actually serve. In a more immediate sense, how does a supposedly plural and accepting institution like Rhodes College reconcile the fact that it has erected a wrought iron fence around the entire campus?
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting I found in this week's reading was our first in-depth encounter with Boss Crump's political machine in Memphis. In "Memphis Burning", the burning of R.R. Church's mansion is a jarring example of the disintegration of black power by the infamous Memphis population. His furthermore establishment of a massive public housing project on the former hallowed ground is an astounding stiff arm to the black community of Memphis. This fits into the class because it shows how white political elites in Memphis were disposed against blacks.
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