Response to Another Student’s Post
**For all Discussions this semester, you will also need to respond to at least one other student’s post. (You can relate your own experience, with a specific example, or provide other outside examples, in your student response.) This part should be several sentences in length (approximately 80-100 words; more is fine) and should include something specific from your own experience (or from your own research, or from a film or TV show, etc.) that relates to the student’s response, in order to extend the discussion.
This is a discussion u have to comment on it:
The article “The Black Lives Next Door” by Richard Rothstein talks about how the black community in the Bay Area have been pushed away from the better neighborhoods and are being placed in places that aren’t as suitable for comfortable living. The author uses Claim of Policy to show how it is possible to move black communities in to better housing with some minor fixes and companies taking the initiative to allow them to move in.
One way the author shows this is through the quote, “Shouldn’t Bohannon, Coldwell Banker and Wells Fargo find the funds to enable African-Americans who qualify for a mortgage on a $100,000 property to purchase Hillsdale houses worth $1.5 million?” (Rothstein 4). This is a good example of Appeal to Values because if someone can afford the house, why shut them off from buying it? It wouldn’t be hurting anyone if they were able to buy and maintain the house, they have just the same amount of right to own that house. Another quote that can help support the main idea is, “Ms. Heath observes that there are no Black families in her Hillsdale neighborhood. San Mateo’s few remaining African-Americans mostly live in another neighborhood, where they have long been concentrated.” (Rothstein 1). I think this quote attacks both Appeal to Emotion, as well as Value. Seeing how there’s no black Americans in her neighborhood, not only that, but having them pushed aside into a different neighborhood all together and keeping them segregated just isn’t right. Sometimes getting out of somewhere like that may be tough in itself and confining people to that way isn’t really opening them up to better situations that they could be in. Adding on to that, it’s also pretty shocking that they haven’t really branched out of that confined area, but seem to flock towards it seeing as they mostly live in that area. Lastly, the quote “Although the whites-only clauses are no longer enforceable, they remain in the deeds of Hillsdale homeowners” (Rothstein 2). Once again, this is a good example of Appeal to Values. This quote goes to show you that things have been cemented in the homeowners’ heads that this area should be strictly whites only even though it doesn’t have to be. They can be the ones to break the mold.
In response to the article, I think it’s a good thing that Sophia saw that something wasn’t right with her community and is actively trying to change things about it. Not a lot of people would do something like her. People tend to think that going against the grain is bad, but in fact, it can lead to dramatic changes that can lead for a better place for people to coincide with each other. I think it’s completely outrageous that it says in the deed to the houses in the neighborhood say that only whites can own the houses. It irks me even more knowing that people still enforce the deed subconsciously, not only for black Americans, but other ethnicities too. Times have moved passed the “Blacks Only” and the “Whites Only” so why do houses have to follow that? The only people enforcing that are the people who live there already. The experience isn’t quite mine, but when my dad was growing up, things were very much like what is happening in the neighborhood. People with colored skin would be segregated from people who were white. Different bathrooms, different sitting areas, even down to different water fountains. The segregation was so bad that you could possibly even be beat if you even just touched something that was whites only if you weren’t white. Thankfully we’ve mostly moved on from these times and hopefully in the future, move further away than how it was back then.
