Please read through the “Mapping Inequalities: Introduction.” and then explore the “Mapping Inequality” website and this “Contemporary Racial Segregation” mapping website in order to answer the questions for the assignment. The following are a short PPT and a video that walk you through how to use the “Mapping Inequalities” and Contemporary Racial Segregation mapping websites respectively. I have also provided a link to the film – Race the power of an illusion (episodes 2 and 3) that also gives some useful insights to answer the questions.
Mapping Inequalities Guide.pptx (Download to access the recording)
Contemporary Racial Segregation/Technical guideLinks to an external site. (Watch)
Film: Race: The Power of IllusionLinks to an external site. (Make sure to watch Episodes 2 and 3 – Feel free to watch episode one for your own knowledge as well! It shows how race is not measured genetically through the use of DNA testing.)
Assignment Guidelines
For questions 1-3, take a screenshot from the map(s) and/or scan(s) from the “Mapping Inequalities” and the contemporary maps to illustrate your points. Also, include a discussion of your findings or reflection for each question. Please use the materials–especially the film and the textbook–to help develop your arguments.
1. Take a screenshot of a place where a “Grade A: BEST” area is adjacent to a “GRADE D: HAZARDOUS” area. What explanation is given for why they put these two areas side by side? If you can’t find one, what did you notice about what grades tend to be adjacent to each other? Discuss how your research illustrates the films’ and textbook’s argument that government policies have created unfair advantages for whites and resulted in a substantial wealth gap between whites and nonwhites.
2. Can you find a single “Grade A: BEST” area where there is a single “Black” person living? How about “Grade B: Still Desirable?” Grade C? Take a screenshot of the highest-rated neighbor you can find that includes even a single Black resident. How does your research illustrate how federal housing policies institutionalize segregation and wealth disparities?
3. These maps were drawn up in the 1920s and 1930s, before WWII. Thus, they reflect a pre-WWII understanding of whiteness. Take a screenshot of a particular place to illustrate the relationship between the historic “mapping inequalities” compared to the “contemporary maps” of racial segregation. How does this comparison demonstrate this point from the film: “Perhaps the best example of how European ethnics would finally gain the full benefits of whiteness, to the exclusion of others, would come with an innovation in housing at the end of World War II”? (HINT: this is about how racial identity for white people changed around WWII–the categories had been stratified as “white” (think upper class, Protestants); “immigrant” (think: Polish, Irish, Jewish); and “negro” (think: Black))
America’s formerly redlined neighborhoods have changed, and so must solutions to rectify them
https://www.wired.com/2013/08/how-segregated-is-your-city-this-eye-opening-map-shows-you/
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redlining/#explore-top
https://belonging.berkeley.edu/technical-appendix#footnote34_cnxakh3
