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Documentary Analysis: The House We Live In

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According to Nicki L. Cole’s article, “Definitions of Intersectionality,” the concept of intersectionality “refers to the simultaneous experience of categorical and hierarchical classifications,” including race, class, and gender. Consequently, the different forms of oppression, such as racism, classism, and sexism, depend on one another and intersect to form “a unified system of oppression” (Cole). Using the concept of intersectionality as an “analytical tool,” social scientists may research “how different forms of privilege and oppression exist simultaneously in shaping [one’s] experiences in [society]” (Cole). In the article, “The Case for Reparations,” the concept of intersectionality reveals that capitalists purposely pitted the various …show more content…

For decades, the housing market completely excluded African Americans (The House We Live In). In 1968, however, President Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act, which outlawed the refusal to sell a house due to one’s race (The House We Live In). Despite this effort to promote equality in the housing market, capitalists managed to profit from racial segregation. As stated in the documentary, The House We Live In, when even one African American family moved into a predominantly white neighborhood, the value of the houses in the area decreased. Then, capitalists “made moves to scare white folks to sell their homes at under market value” in order to prevent further losses (The House We Live In). After, to make a profit, capitalists resold these houses to non-Whites at “inflated prices” (The House We Live In). These practices encouraged “white flight” and transformed the new integrated neighborhoods into predominantly non-White ghettos, where house values were low (The House We Live In). In the documentary, The House We Live In, a white man in an integrated neighborhood claimed money as the reason for disliking the neighborhoods turning white to black. He explains that there was a huge difference of home value in a black neighborhood compared to other similar neighborhoods without

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“The Czar of all the Russias is not more absolute upon his own soil than the New York landlord in his dealings with colored tenants. Where he permits them to live, they go; where he shuts the door, stay out.” (Riis 148). By saying that, Riis said that the landlord has complete control over where the blacks live. The average African-American paid $10 to every white man’s $7.50.

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Clark (1989), made references to urban ghettos being overcrowded and the housing stock in decay. Like the rest of the New York City Housing Market, residential buildings in Harlem were built before the 1900’s. The conditions of housing stock in Harlem were poor, all except the newest buildings

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According to The Editorial Board New York Time’s, “The Housing Crisis Lives on for Minorities” December 26,2016, mortgage companies such as Fannie Mae are discriminating and being racist towards African-American and Latino homes. The writer emphasizes the neglection Fannie Mae had towards these minority homeowners and specifies the contrast between white areas and black areas. The mortgage crisis that ravaged the economy eight years ago, is a driving factor of the editorial. The writer is informing New York Times readers, educated citizens, and intellectuals about the racial allegations towards Fannie Mae. The Editorial Board affectively convinces their audience that there is an unjust gap between white and minority homes through the use of

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The initiative challenges the idea of American exceptionalism by critically reviewing the economic, political, and cultural mechanisms that have sustained racial disparity. It reveals the ongoing consequences of colonialism and racial oppression, such as discriminatory policies, wealth inequality, and systematic racism, by emphasizing the experiences and viewpoints of oppressed communities. The 1619 Project seeks to challenge the prevalent historical narrative and open a discussion about colonialism's continued effects on modern-day America. According to one of the project's articles by Matthew Desmond, continuing residential segregation and unequal access to opportunities are the effect of racial discrimination in housing regulations, showing how colonialism and racial injustice still have an impact. The 1619 Project also questions the idea of American development as a linear path, focusing instead on the cycle of history and the deep foundations of inequity.

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Then they’d bring in another black family, rinse, and repeat”. Buying the property at a low price, then selling at a high rate to lower income black families just to gain profit. Another example Coates uses is a black family in a white neighborhood, who had a cross burned outside their front lawn. Coates used pathos very well in this article. He wants the reader to understand the hardships that were created for

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Keywords that are most important to the documentary are, War on Drugs, incarceration, drug involvement/abuse, and racism. All of these words are loosely or heavily connected to each other. The words drug involvement/abuse highlight the purpose of the film, and the reasons for the War on Drugs and numerous laws created to fight drug abuse that cause death and destroy abiding citizens of communities. Furthermore, the War on Drugs simply labels the struggle against drug use and the governmental involvement to enforce anti-drug laws. The word incarceration and racism also link together to explain how as a result of the War on Drugs, the U.S. is one of the top countries with the highest imprisonment rate and more African-Americans or low-class minorities are convicted of drug crimes than any other ethnicity or social class.

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(38) – The film The House I live in, is an extraordinary film that gives light to one of the biggest problem in the United States, and that problem is the war on drugs and how such creates sociological problems such as mass incarceration. Throughout the duration of this documentary, a Correctional Officer by the name of Mike Carpenter is interviewed and gives his opinions on the ideologies governing our society. He strongly believes, that people in prison are paying for the fear that we as Americans have created over the years. In my interpretation, what Officer Carpenter is trying to get to is basically this whole idea of blaming those who are inferior. The war on drugs created the impression in our society, that those responsible for many of our problems were young African Americans; what did we do in return?

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As suburban Americans began to own the same consumer goods and believe in the same values, the prospect of inclusive thought began to disappear. The aesthetic homogeneity with men’s clothing, for example, left very little room for men to dress up in anything other than the bland suits characteristic of the 1950s. Among the varying forms of homogeneity present in the suburbs, none had the effect on conservatism that racial homogeneity did. From the 1950s until “the 1990s, nearly 90 percent of suburban whites lived in communities with minority populations of less than 1 percent,” showing how the suburbs created conservative thought that would last nearly half a century in the suburbs. In order to achieve this racial ubiquity, “the suburban builders…openly advertised the fact that their communities excluded minorities,” revealing their conservative and racist beliefs William Levitt, the father of the suburbs, argued that “if we sell one house to a Negro family, then 90 or 95 percent of our white customers will not buy into the community,” further showing how minorities were feared to be a threat in a white society These racialized advertisements and thoughts encapsulated the attention of their audiences by reinforcing the idea of minorities (primarily African-Americans) being a threat to security, which dates back to the 17th Century with the institution of slavery.

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The relationship between society and the law is direct, and housing in America is a conclusive example of that. As argued by both authors, once society has made up its mind about a certain group of people or place such as the ghettos, even the law can’t change those facts. It often happens that people of color and minorities get overlooked and stereotyped into something that they are not due to the hierarchical and discriminatory principles of the law. It has been engrained into society to think that minorities are poor, lazy, and overall less productive in the public

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Based on this we can conclude that the mere image of being black is shattered and anywhere you go you will be judged as lower class. The fear created by the media make it seem like if you were to rent your home to a black descent, they’ll destroy your home or yet create a hostile environment and make it uncomfortable to other people. Another fear that sticks around with Africans Americans is that they “promote the gang lifestyle or are anti law enforcement” (Glassner 122). Though the realtor shuns African Americans from renting the homes they would not even rent/sale the home to a black family, even if they were well qualified, with higher incomes, and was willing to pay a higher down payment. From the book The Black Image in the White Mind by Andrew Rojecki and Robert Entman, they present us with white beliefs stating “the media conveys “problematic” images of African Americans even after decades of heightened awareness and vigilance to rid the media of stereotypes”.

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Natalie Moore writer of The South Side says “In Chicago, black people always do the best with what they have, and so we see high rates of homeownership in a number of communities on the South Side. We see strong neighborhoods, but even if you’re doing the right thing, if you’re in a black neighborhood or in any neighborhood that’s 10 percent black, your home value

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He realizes that blacks were paying more for their homes than whites as he says, “As a general rule the Negroes were paying one hundred per cent more than white tenants in other part of the city for a smaller number of rooms and worse service” (Schuyler 38). The author added this in the novel to make the issue of inequalities between the two races obvious. It also shows why most blacks are wanting to go through the transformation into white as Max did so they didn’t have to pay so much for so little. In an interview with Melvin Oliver he states, “So you had this great opportunity. But it was a color-coded opportunity.

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Fed Up is a documentary made in 2014 that is based on the issues caused by the American food industry. Fed Up, uncovers America’s true secrets about the food people consume every day. More specifically, it reveals the affect sugar has on people’s bodies. As a result, the amount of sugar in food, the bodies consent of glucose, and the satisfying taste it brings, too much sugar could cause certain sicknesses causing the body to not work the way it supposed to. To start off, the amount of sugar put in America’s food is predominately high.

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Housing wealth is disproportionate due to the fact the African American families parents and grandparents grew up in segregated areas where it was hard to gain any financial capital. According to the article in paragraph 5 Melvin Oliver claims that African

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For bringing the home within the reach of a black purchaser, however, the speculator extracted a considerable price.” (Jamelle Bouie,How we built the ghettos, page 2) This is like when Lena the mother of Walter and beneatha bought a new house and only had to put a small down payment on it in order to buy the

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