RACIALIZING CRIME AND THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE

RACIAL SEGREGATION, THEN AND NOW: HOW IDEAS FORMED CENTURIES AGO IMPACT THE PRESENT DAY

BY R.D.

African Americans have a long history in the United States. Yet, for so many centuries of that time, they were viciously persecuted, and seen as inferior. They were taken from their homes in Africa, slapped on a boat and shipped across the Atlantic. If they were lucky enough to survive the months crammed onboard, they would be sold in the United States, where the worst was yet to come. Then came the civil war and the thirteenth amendment in 1865 and, just like that, all those years of unspeakable hardships were finally over… right? Not even close. Jim Crow laws prevented African Americans from becoming fully integrated into the country. Then came the civil rights movement in the 1960’s, that helped end segregation and propel the U.S. into a new world of liberal thinking. With all these movements, changes, progress, why does our society today still feel the effects of discrimination against a race considered to be one of the most disadvantaged in all of the U.S. (Mohammed 90)? When did this prejudice start, and why, and what were the effects? This is what I hope to answer. I will be assessing why we continue to fight against discrimination to this day. I will discuss how this racist sentiment stemmed from the South in the late 1800’s, and early 1900s, and continued in the supposedly liberal North. I will be focusing on Chicago in particular, and will uncover the criminalization of an entire racial group, and where it has led us to today.

By the late 1800’s, African Americans had gained the rights every civilian should; however, there was still a great deal of discrimination towards them, particularly, in the South. Many people believed that blacks were the inferior race, and refused to accept them as equal citizens. This idea of inferiority was only propelled further in 1896, when statistician Frederick L. Hoffman published Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro (Muhammad 35). A German immigrant, Hoffman traveled throughout the South, to places such as Georgia, New Orleans, and Tennessee. It is there that he became immersed in what was then known as “the Negro Problem.” His research maintained the idea that blacks were lesser than their white counterparts. While the numbers he used were true, the conclusion he drew from the data was completely incorrect. What Hoffman discovered was that, African Americans lived a shorter life, were far more likely to go to prison, and carried more diseases than any white native (Muhammed 37). The grounds for his absurd assertions were met with both acceptance in the South and protest in the North by fellow race relations writers. And yet, try as racial liberals might to debunk Hoffman’s false claims, the seeds had been planted.  Racial Darwinists had, “inscribed criminality onto nearly every aspect of black people’s existence” (Muhammad, 93). What is more, these ideologies were generally accepted by the whole of America. This resulted in several changes in mindsets, the main being that African Americans were viewed as lesser. Another outcome, however, was the creation of a white identity that encompassed various ethnic backgrounds. Nowhere was this more prevalent than in Chicago. What stemmed from the exclusion of blacks also led to the inclusion and acceptance of European immigrants as white Americans. An example of this unification came with Jane Addams and the Hull House. These settlement houses aided countless immigrant groups, predominantly women, as their open door policy called for the acceptance of everyone: everyone but African Americans that is. The Hull house came to accept all other races, though they still complied with Jim Crow laws, and practiced segregation or complete exclusion of blacks (Roediger). It was no different in the workplace, as the fear of being associated with the African American community prevented them from acquiring jobs and homes, further solidifying discrimination and racist sentiments.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/3879.html

So, what now? African Americans seemed to be excluded from all areas in the country. Shunned in every factory, every neighborhood, every city, so where does this leave them? Well, according to recent studies, not in a very good spot at all. Based on census figures, about one-third of blacks (33.6%) in Chicago live in poverty, compared to the 14.7% of whites. Many of these impoverished people live in the same struggling neighborhoods, further maintaining separation of different people and backgrounds.  Additionally, the Bureau Labor of Statistics determined that, in 2014, the white unemployment rate in Chicago was 5.7%, while black unemployment rate was 14.7%. This figure was higher, and the disparity greater in Chicago than the national average (Luhby). All of these statistics answer my question of what the criminalization and segregation of a race has done. Centuries after slavery was abolished, decades after the civil rights movements in the 60’s, we still experience racism in our lives. Hoffman’s assertions of African Americans being inferior have taken their toll; for these beliefs, an entire race has paid the price.

Works Cited

Luhby, Tami. "Chicago: America's Most Segregated City." CNN Money. Cable News Network, 05 Jan.      2016. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

Muhammad, Khalil Gibran. The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern      Urban America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2010. Print.

Roediger, David R. "Racism, Ethnicity, and White Identity." Racism, Ethnicity, and White Identity.           Encyclopedia of Chicago, 2005. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.