The Effects of a Silent Prejudice

While listening to good ol' NPR a while back, I came across a fascinating segment: titled, "For People of Color a Housing Market Partially Hidden From View", this segment brings to light the hidden racism of the housing market. It cites a study, conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Urban Institute (a nonpartisan think tank in Washington), that found the following data:

1. Black renters learned about 11 percent fewer rental units, and black homebuyers were shown about a fifth fewer homes.
2. Asian renters learned about 7 percent fewer rental units, and Asian homebuyers saw about a fifth fewer homes.
3. Latino renters learned about 12 percent fewer units. (Interestingly, the study found that there was not a statistically significant difference in the way whites and Latino homebuyers were treated.)

In addition to this, whites were often offered lower rents than their minority counterparts. Clearly, it can be concluded that discrimination exists in the housing market. The real question is, what is the effect of this discrimination? 

Well to begin with, it makes housing less affordable for minorities. As stated previously in rental units the price is often simply more expensive for minorities. In addition to this, fewer housing options means that housing can be more expensive.

One less obvious effect that comes from discrimination in the housing market, is the effect it can have on a kid's education. As a resident of the Chicago land area I know that public schools in the northern suburbs are often ranked higher educationally than inner-city public schools. As you can see from the demographics map below the northern suburbs are almost entirely white. This means that white realtors may not offer as many possible housing options in the white northern suburbs as actually exist; thus, not giving minorities an equal chance to enroll at some of the higher ranked schools.

As you can clearly see, even today, the words of Malcom X in his 1964 "Appeal to African Heads of State" reigns true, "America preaches integration, but practices segregation". Although we have come along way since then, it seems that segregation (and the inequality that inevitably follows) still lingers. The only difference is that now it's harder to see, that is, unless you look closely.

Social Mobility... (For Some)

“a limousine passed us… in which sat three modish negroes… I laughed… ‘Anything can happen now’... I thought” -The Great Gatsby, page 69.

In modern times, many Americans like to believe in Mr. Carraway’s comical thought that “Anything can happen” or as my father has often told me “Anyone can be successful.” That's the American dream, is it not? People usually cite examples of wealthy or powerful minorities, such as our current president. But, in reality the minorities that make it into the upper (or often even middle) class are exceptions, and the majority of minorities have very little, if any, social mobility. The factors that lead to this lack of social mobility are, discrimination in the criminal “justice” system, and a subconscious, as well as, conscious, racism held by many Americans.

As the tragic events that took place in Ferguson made clear to many Americans, discrimination is still very prevalent in law enforcement. For example, “45% of non-whites are frisked when pulled over compared to only 29% of whites, even whites are 70% more likely to carry a weapon”. This racial profiling by law enforcement results in more incarcerations for minorities. A Huffington post article confirms this saying, “One in every three black males born today can expect to go to prison at some point in their life, compared with one in every six Latino males, and one in every 17 white males” (Knafo). Racial profiling by law enforcement results in more incarcerations for minorities, and being incarcerated undoubtedly keeps you in the lower-class. Thus, we can conclude that the myth of justice being blind was not, and is not, true in America. Which, results in lower-class minorities staying in the lower class.

In addition to the discrimination of law enforcement, discrimination by everyday American citizens also hampers the social mobility of minorities. In research for an older post I found that minority homebuyers are offered roughly 10% fewer units than their white counterparts. Additionally, minorities were often offered a higher rent. Both the higher rent, and secrecy when it comes to properties in certain neighborhoods is because realtors want to keep minorities out of the wealthier white neighborhoods. One of the consequences of this is allow parents to give their kids the best education because the schools in the North Shore receive much more funding than the CPS. As you can see from the image below, this secret form of segregation unfortunately seems to be working.

From the demographics map on the left, one can clearly see just how shockingly divided Chicago really is by race. I took the liberty of drawing in some lines to make these divisions stand out. And after overlaying this map of divisions on to the map of income on the right, I found that race undoubtedly correlated to income. The predominantly white northern suburbs are blanketed in red dots (100k+) while the predominantly black communities to the south and west have a clear trend of dark blue (20k-). If America was as equal as many American’s would like to believe, then why do we see such clear divisions between different races and different classes, and furthermore, why do we see a correlation between the two?

While the racism of realtors is a very conscious decision to keep minorities out of wealthy white neighborhoods, a more subconscious racism exists in the minds of many Americans. The article Professors are Prejudiced, Too showed that professors are more likely to respond to an email from a white student than a minority student. According to the data from the article, “87 percent of white males received a response compared with just 62 percent of all females and minorities combined” (although the data includes information on gender, focus on information on race for the purposes of this paper). What’s even more shocking is that it made no difference whether it was a black student emailing a black professor or a white professor, they were discriminated against regardless. This leads me to believe that it couldn’t have been a conscious choice to discriminate, rather they didn’t respond to the students of racial minority because they subconsciously view minorities as less than, and thus don’t feel like they have a responsibility to respond. Evidently, many Americans identify a person’s class by their race, and treat them accordingly. 

Many minorities cannot rise from the lower-class due to a number of factors in American society that encourage inequality and discrimination rather than social mobility. Chris Rock illustrates this, in a quote from his stand up routine Kill the Messenger, "I live in a place called Alpine New Jersey. My house costs millions of dollars. In my neighborhood there are four black people: me, Mary J. Blige, one of the greatest R&B singers to ever walk the earth, Jay-Z, one of the greatest rappers to ever live, and Eddie Murphy, one of the funniest actors to ever do it. Do you know what the white man who lives next door to me does for a living? He's a fucking dentist." So while yes, the passengers of the limousine in The Great Gatsby, the President, a number of celebrities, and many other American citizens of various racial minorities have achieved success, they have done so despite the hidden yet powerful forces of discrimination that continue to hold minorities in this country back even today.

The Expectations of a Higher Education

A blog post was recently published that discussed recent trends in college majors. It cited a study of Yale University that showed a drastically declining number of English majors, contrasted by a large increase in the number of economic majors. This may be due to the increasingly common view that college is largely a monetary investment.

Why is college being viewed as a monetary investment? Well, largely because the students themselves have a larger stake in it than ever before. As of 2014 the debt of American students from their student loans has totaled well over 1 trillion dollars (Frizell). This increase in student loans has corresponded to the increase in the cost of college itself; which, was largely due to the increase of total students applying to college.

But, not only is college viewed as a monetary investment by students, it's also viewed as a monetary investment by parents. This pressure from parents to "succeed" (an American saying that often translates to: go to a competitive college and earn a lot of money) is largely in effect at my school, New Trier High School. I was discussing this subject with a classmate of mine who said that she received a low ACT score the first time she took the test. In response, her parents got her a tutor and her score increased significantly allowing her to get into a better school. This story is so common at New Trier (my own parents payed for both a class and a tutor) because the school is located in a high-income neighborhood. But, the reason why people want to be able to afford a tutor in the first place is because it essentially buys you a competitive ACT score. A competitive ACT score gets you into a competitive college. And (if you take the right major, like say, economics) the prestige of going to a competitive college will merit a high-income job (or at least that is the theory held by many parents in my neighborhood). My dad offered me similar advice saying that I should consider going to a larger school with more "name recognition" instead of the smaller liberal arts schools I have been looking at. Clearly, parents want their children to be "successful," will steer their education from the sidelines in that direction.

Roughly 20 students of my schools graduating class received a perfect score on their ACT

Although I will not feel the financial pressure of the many students taking on college debt because my parents can afford (and are thankfully willing) to put me through college, I do feel the pressure to succeed. It's the reason why I took solely business electives until my Junior year, and the reason why I will in all likelihood take yet another math course my senior year that I couldn't care less about. After all, with so many Americans (many far less advantaged than I) striving for "success," I feel a twisted sense of guilt whenever I consider striving for something else.

Silencing Our Students

This past week, I got sent to the advisor chair (my school's equivalent of the Principal's office) for the first time. Why? Well, because I was "planning to spit sunflower seeds out the window" and "being argumentative". I didn't have any sunflower seeds. I only spoke up when I was trying to explain that we are normally allowed to have our phones out in class (it's a very independent class) after a peer of mine was sent out in class.

What's the significance of this story? Well, this interaction and the events that followed opened my eyes to how silent a student's voice really is.

After being sent to the advisor chair, I asked the substitute if she could come to the advisor chairs office with me because I strongly disagreed with the reasoning behind why I was sent there. The sub refused and told me to get out. After this I went to the advisor chair's office, and explained the what had happened. Having heard my story, the advisor chair essentially told me that "I usually give kids a couple of morning detentions in a situation where they were sent out of class, but since this is your first time being sent here, I'll let you off with a warning." So in other words, he told me that I was in the wrong, and the only reason why I wasn't being punished was because it was my first time getting in trouble.

What I found to be more fascinating was that he told me he essentially had a standard punishment for all kids who are sent out of class. So regardless of what I say, I just look like every other kid trying to explain how they didn't do anything wrong, and as a consequence, I will be given the exact same punishment. This situation might have been avoided if the substitute would have talked to the advisor chair with me, but she simply refused, avoiding all accountability (that I thought existed) in the process.

Clearly, regardless of how innocent or guilty you are, you have almost no way to prove your innocence because the teacher doesn't have to talk to the advisor chair with you, and at the end of the day you just become another kid who is saying that he did nothing wrong. So regardless of what you say, you are simply giving the "usual" punishment.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any articles on students getting in trouble unjustly. This is probably because the only people this affects are students and teachers, and evidently students opinions aren't valued so the only people that really get heard when kids get in trouble are teachers. The reason why I find this story so important is because it entirely goes against everything we are taught in schools; expressing our opinions, advocating for ourselves, and standing up for what we believe in.