Racism In Philadelphia

While the United States consistently prides itself on being a worldwide leader in opportunity and champions of equality for all citizens, an analysis of America’s neglect towards blacks reveals a much darker history of systematic segregation and inequality. As the economy booms and augments the national GDP, blacks are perennially left out of profit shares and bear market opportunities. The marginalization of blacks is not a new phenomenon, but rather a domino effect of persistent neglect and accessibility to domestic capital. This paper will focus on the exploitations of Philadelphia and Atlanta, two of the most segregated U.S. cities that exude perpetual injustice towards blacks.

Although Philadelphia is “one of the major corporate centers

The perennial disconnect between increased opportunities for whites instead of blacks success lies in the preexisting culture of racism embedded in Philadelphia’s history. Philadelphia is notorious for police brutality against blacks, where “one of the first race riots of the civil rights era erupted in the city in August 1964 after two police officers forcibly pulled a black woman from her car” which “resulted in over 700 arrests and 200 cases of property damage” (Sauter, 2017). Although a miniscule example in comparison to Philadelphia’s large history, the City of Brotherly Love has not made ample efforts to intervene and reduce racial tensions between whites and blacks. A majority of white-owned corporations and landlords pivot racial injustice towards blacks, which keeps them unwillingly voiceless and poor. Without the employment opportunities of major enterprises, blacks continue to earn low wages and live in government subsidized housing. Desmond states that: “The home is the center of life. It is a refuge from the grind of work, the pressure of school, and the menace of the streets. We say that at home, we can ‘be ourselves.’ Everywhere else, we are someone else. At home, we remove our masks” (Desmond, 293). The perpetuation of low income housing provides a poor foundation for growth. Blacks continue to remain in poverty due to their continual exposure to their disheveled

In Georgia, legislation “often mandated separate neighborhoods for blacks and whites” during the Jim Crow era. The south consisted of a caste system which placed blacks at the absolute bottom of the spectrum. Unfortunately, no change has transpired in Atlanta for blacks still remain at the bottom of every socioeconomic thread. Empirical research shows that about a third of Atlanta is black with a 21.6% black poverty rate in comparison to a white poverty rate of 9%. Similar to Philadelphia, Atlanta’s economy is not the primary issue since it has continued to grow over time. Pooley notes that “Despite Atlanta's reputation as a booming city, and although it has attracted hundreds of thousands of new residents—including many highly educated and high-income migrants—the metro region ranks behind nearly all other large MSAs in terms of providing its poorer residents with access to opportunities for upward mobility” (Pooley, 2015). The crux of injustice lies in the limited accessibility of financial gain to blacks because of preexisting cultural racism and segregation. Pooley states blacks lacks upward mobility because of the crippling disadvantages they endure from historic racial neglect and