In Brown v. Board of Education 1953, the Supreme Court of the United States declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. This ruling paved the way for integration and was the first major victory of the civil rights movement. For centuries, Americans have been fighting for social equality in the form of property rights, civil liberties, education and pay. It is imperative to understand that equality between people in a country does not persist unless the governing system endorses these values through federal laws and policies.
Structural inequality emerges when policies established discriminate against certain genders, races and nationalities. Social equality requires the absence of legally enforced social class or caste boundaries and the absence of discrimination motivated by an inalienable part of a person's identity. We tend to think that we have come a long way since public schools were desegregated. However, as I examine below, discrimination based on gender and race still exists and many policies are inherently more equitable compared to others.
Where you live is important. It dictates quality of education, healthcare, as well as economic factors such as poverty, unemployment or whether the city repairs the roads in your neighborhood. In April 1968, at the urging of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Congress passed the federal Fair Housing Act. The primary purpose of the Fair Housing Law was to protect the buyer or renter of a dwelling from seller or landlord discrimination. The implementation of this act, or its lack thereof, continues to be an issue even after four decades of the creation of this law.
In 2010 and 2011, an experiment was carried out by Fair Housing Justice center in New York City to test whether racial discrimination exists within the housing market. When two men, one African-American and the other white, went to an apartment complex looking for a one-bedroom apartment, the superintendent directly told the black man that he had no openings available. When asked the price, the super stated the rent was $1,250. However, when the white man visited the same complex on the same day, an empty apartment was waiting for him with the rent only $1,150. A similar test was conducted with females and once again the black woman was told that no room was vacant; the landlord had two rooms to show the white woman on the same day.
According to a study by sociologists at Brown and Florida State universities, based on the 2010 census, the average white person lives in a neighborhood that's 75 percent white, and their neighbors who aren't white are not likely to be African-American. Housing discrimination based on race is a lot less pervasive than it used to be, but it still happens to this day.
Nancy Updike, a renowned radio producer and broadcaster explains that the most segregated parts of the country are the Northeast and the Midwest. Milwaukee is consistently one of the most segregated cities in the United States. This structural segregation in housing started after the Great Depression in the late '30s. The Roosevelt administration realized that home ownership was going to be a major way to build and fortify the American middle class, so the federal government started to back loans. It was then that the practice of redlining truly began.
Government officials institutionalized a national appraisal system, where race was as much a factor in real estate assessment as the condition of the property. Federal government drew red lines on maps around certain neighborhoods and refused to back home loans there as they were considered financial liabilities. The communities that were majorly composed of minority groups or in the process of changing got the lowest rating and they were "redlined." Between 1934 and 1962, the federal government underwrote $120 billion in new housing. Less than 2 percent of that went to non-whites. Banks would often lend to lower-income whites but not to middle- or upper-income blacks.
Chicago residents protest against exploitative housing contracts.
Consequently, a white middle class was built, leaving Black Americans out of this process. Therefore, even though the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968, by that time housing segregation was deeply ingrained into society, creating a wide social and economic gap between the white majority and colored minority. A law was passed in the Supreme Court to eradicate inequity in the housing market, but a policy like redlining effortlessly overturned its effect.