SOCI320 W7 Institutional Racism & Segregation-1 PDF

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Mandatory assignments...

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SOCI320 Race and Ethnic Relations: Global Perspectives Spring 2019 Names: This week we are going to examine the causes of racial segregation. This assignment is intended for you to learn about the two important forms of institutional racism that were responsible for the creation of segregated neighborhoods in the United States NOTE: In this assignment, work with a partner in pair/trio. The intention is for you two to work together so you will get more out of the assignment. Think out loud and share what you notice with your classmates. Discussing ideas verbally with someone will help you process the information better and make it stick in your memory. A. Investigating Redlining We will use University of Richmond’s Mapping Inequality tool to get a sense of how prevalent redlining was and examine how redlining works. 1. As with any source of information you use, we should also find out what it is. Click on the Introduction and About tabs and read how the project came about and who contribute to the project. a. What do you think of the credibility of the research team behind this project? 2. Examine the map and look at the cities where the redlining maps are archived. a. How prevalent do you think redlining was across the United States? b. What patterns and themes did you observe any patterns in redlining from the map? Explain. 3. Now, you will examine the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) maps and area descriptions for Chicago, IL. Think of yourselves as researchers investigating where presence of people of color and immigrants influenced how neighborhoods were being rated. Make sure that you examine a sample of neighborhood in each of the rating categories (A, B, C and D). a. Describe your analytic strategy used in your group – i.e. how you went about examining the data systematically to see if race was a factor in how neighborhoods were rated by HOLC for mortgage insurance risk. b. What did you observe from the HOLC maps and area descriptions records? What would be your conclusion about the role of race on redlining?

c. Explore other cities on the website that you might want to learn about if time permits.

4. Now examine carefully the practice of redlining in the Seattle area. a. How much did the practice of redlining affect people of color in the Seattle area?

B. Examining Racial Restrictive Covenants In addition to collecting and mapping records on redlining, researchers have also gathered and digitalized restrictive covenants. In this assignment, we will examine the use of restrictive covenants to exclude people of color from white neighborhoods n the Seattle area. 1. University of Washington’s Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project has compiled a database of restrictive covenants from the King Country. First, read a brief explanation of what a restrictive covenant is. 2. Then, go to the full database that lists all of the restrictive covenants collected by the project in King County. Review the database carefully and note if there are any patterns you could see. (https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants_database.htm) a. What do you observe about restrictive covenants in King County? 3. Now, examine carefully the maps provided on this page the Seattle Segregation Maps 1920-2010 (https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/segregation_maps.htm) a. Describe what you observed about the history of racial/ethnic segregation in the Seattle area. b. You have examined redlining and restrictive covenants in the Seattle area. What do you think their impacts are on racial segregation in the Seattle area? 4. Racial covenants also exist locally in Spokane. A former EWU history student Logan Camporeale uncovered some of the racial covenants in Spokane County and documented them in his blog. He also discusses a little bit of the history of racial segregation in Spokane here in this article. a. Read both articles to get an understanding of the history of racial covenant and racial segregation in Spokane. i. What are your reactions to the history of racial segregation in Spokane?

5. Racial covenants were not limited to the Washington State area but were used across the United States. To see another example, see the map on this webpage a. Note – for this part of the assignment, you only need to scroll down to the section “Our Map” and examine the spread of racial covenants over time. b. What did you observe from this map? 6. In Spokane and elsewhere, people are working to promote awareness of the widespread use of racial covenants. Some are trying to remove the racial covenants from the deeds. a. For example in Spokane, as a result of the awareness brought by Logan’s research, a homeowner whose house had a restrictive covenant has decided to file a lawsuit to have it remove. A Spokesman Review article discusses this case. i. Do you think homeowners should file lawsuits to remove restrictive covenants from the deeds even though the restrictive covenants are not enforceable by laws anyway? What could be accomplished by these lawsuits? Or by keeping the restrictive covenants in the deeds? Explain your positions.

C. General Discussion on the History of Racial Segregation in the US 1. How much do you think past institutional discrimination contribute to the racial segregation we are seeing at present? Explain.

2. How do you think past institutional racism contribute to current racial inequalities besides residential segregation? How could the resources available to white families that were not available to people of color contribute to the current racial gap?...