Tag Archives: Race

“We cannot dismantle the Master’s house with the Master’s tools”

This quote of Audre Lorde’s is timeless, has been interpreted and re-interpreted countless times, and still pertains to the way we rebuild communities today. It may be a good time to revisit this penetrating truth, in light of the heightened awareness of the need to “dismantle the Master’s house”.

The Master’s tools, The Master’s house

We have been using the Master’s tools to build and rebuild communities of the United States and beyond, in the image of the Master’s needs. This fundamental truth and its legacy continues to unfold in ways most of us do not fully comprehend. The tools of a belief system of race and class oppression, gender and sexual oppression, and all the other power-generated means of separation, control, exploitation, and oppression have been used to build and rebuild communities over the centuries. Focusing in on racism, white supremacy and classism, these tools imprinted and evolved the genetics of this nation. These tools justified wiping out the Native American population, slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, urban renewal, mass incarceration, and segregation as “normal” ways to build and rebuild communities of Black, Brown, and low-income peoples. Indeed even the current president of the United States acknowledged: “It is incontrovertible that race relations have improved significantly during my lifetime and yours, and that opportunities have opened up, and that attitudes have changed. That is a fact. What is also true is that the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination, in almost every institution of our lives, that casts a long shadow. And that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on. We’re not cured of it. Racism, we are not cured of it”. The nation’s slow and long-awaited acknowledgement of this truth is prodded by the recent heightened awareness of killing of Black lives: killing of 9 Black lives in Charleston, SC by a white teenager, police killing of Black lives in South Carolina, Maryland, Missouri,New York, Ohio, Chicago…the list goes on. The uprisings against such acts of violence, highlighted the intricate ways community disinvestment and abandonment, community fragmentation, police violence, and wealth and health inequities, interact as causes and effects and continue to create conditions prone to violence of all forms. Listening to residents in East and West Baltimore before and after the uprising confirmed the way the Master’s tools, driving the machine of structural racism, continue to perpetuate these conditions:

“When I worked on Monument a police was stopping a woman walking down the sidewalk with her dog. Back then, you couldn’t walk you dog on the side walk. He was yelling at her, calling her black B. Sheila Dixon was walking by, was on the City Council at that time. She said to the officer something about not talking to the woman like that; the officer said she should shut up and keep walking. Next thing you know, he called Sheila Dixon a black B and started calling her name, grabbed her, cuffed her, and had her sitting on the side walk. [Sheila Dixon went on to be Mayor of Baltimore]. Another time, I was on Jefferson street in the afternoon. This police got out the car and told everyone standing on the sidewalk, sitting on their stoops, to get into their houses because this was his street and nobody was allowed outside. I don’t know what to think about that…felt like this could be a german gestapo, know what I mean?”

“Yes [been harassed by police]. We’re just standing in front of the Chinese carry out…just waiting for our food…and the police come and tell us to move along. Move along?…we’re waiting for our food…thought the side walk was public property…we can’t stand on the corner in our own community? they want to pat us down…ask us if we have guns…we call it “SWB”…you know what that means? means “standing while black”…if you black you can’t stand on the corner…did you know that? Not the first time I been harassed or seen other people. Too many times to count… yes it breaks up our community…you know why? because we can’t just stand around and talk…they think we’re selling…we can’t even talk to each other…more than two of us and they scared…you know where this comes from? from slavery…when they saw two or more of us talking they thought we were trying to do something…since then they been scared…”

“Yes, of course [been harassed]. First time was 16. Since then I get harassed/ stopped at least once every year. This is all a system problem. What happen with Freddie Gray is not a one-time occurrence. Last time got harassed, was driving and pulled over, profiled. Some guys walked past and distracted the police. They just left me there, told me to go. Didn’t pull me over for anything. They have to meet that quota.

“police all about themselves. take money for themselves when they raid drug houses, take the drugs too. Then people get killed because drugs missing, money missing”

Our belief systems embed and nourish systems of structural racism and white supremacy, built institutions that maintain racial oppression in place and continues to perpetuate violence against our communities of color, more physical and brutally severe in our low income communities. These are the “houses of the Master” eerily reminiscent of the past times, times we like to think are gone. When we compare the neighborhoods that were redlined in Baltimore (Black neighborhoods characterized as not worthy of investment by banks, supported by the Federal Housing Administration) from the 1930’s and the neighborhood maps of current day Baltimore we see a consistent pattern of disinvestment, almost 100 years later. Many of these neighborhoods disinvested in the 1930‘s remain the neighborhoods with the highest amount of poverty, low educational attainment, highest rates of parole, lowest rates of employment, lowest life expectancy, high rates of infant death, highest amount of abandoned and vacant houses, lowest rates of homeownership (maps courtesy of Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance).

baltimore redlining map
Figure 1.PopAA

Figure2.PovertyUnemploy

Figure3.HSVacant

Figure4.Ownviolat

Figure5.InfMLifEx

Figure6.GunhomPapro

Many of the neighborhoods disinvested in the 1930‘s remain the “houses’ created by the Master’s tools. Those currently with moderate or majority White populations are also the result of the separation and resultant community investment using the tools of the Master: creating communities of inequity, in all aspects of life. Why? because we continue to use the Master’s tools to build and rebuild communities: communities of separation by race and class. Listening to the voices of residents:

“Get the people some jobs…people can’t find jobs…and jobs that pay good money.”

“gentrification cause police brutality…the brothers don’t have anywhere to go now, they hang out on the street corner and get harassed and arrested for that”

“Ain’t none [referring to changes in the neighborhood]. govt gonna do what they want to do not mater what. if they did, they would be done help people. Look at Johns Hopkins, buy up houses and kick them people all out. “

“Less police, more schools, better housing. we need jobs. how can you support your family without a job. No job, you get into trouble. Been clean for a long time now…the job keeps me clean. Got something to do everyday. Things for the kids to do. They get in trouble because they got nothing to do after school”

“t’s not the money, it’s who the money is going to. If the money goes to the same three benefactors, who do the same thing every year, nothing is gonna change. I call it a “pipeline”. They the ones in the pipeline for all the funds for all these things [policing, education, housing, workforce training, recreation, street repair] get allocated to the same ones. We have to allocate our funding more broadly. We need more community oversight. More than that, we need community based organizations in the community doing the work, not outside the community. The money need to come to the community and stay in the community.”

“They giving the police so much money but they not doing their job.Need money to clean up the streets. I love Baltimore, don’t want to go anywhere else. start with this house, they need to fix it. I rent, he’s a slumlord. but I have to try and fix it myself.”

“Took away the rec centers, day care so people ended up having to work two jobs for $8/hr. mothers have to work, so they become prostitutes, then they lock them up. get some jobs so we can live. then we won’t get locked up for living. Now want to stop foodstamps; keep the foodstamps going. are you being fair to people, or just trying to get over?…How come you won’t hire an ex-convict? why can’t give them a break? Ex-convicts have a lot of skills, some of them really smart. Can’t find a job…How bout those ones they falsely accuse, then 20 years later they say “oh sorry” you’re not guilty, and want to give them money. They lost 20 years, can’t make up for lost time, money can’t heal yourself.”

“Need jobs here…That Hopkins project, 2 people working over there on that new project. They talk a lot about giving people a chance, helping people in the hood. but what I see is they don’t hire people from here. EBDI doesn’t hire the local people. But they talk big…tell you you got a record…don’t help you cause you got a record? thought they suppose to help you even if you have a record, don’t call you back”

“Need housing, places for the kids to play…so they don’t keep doing the same things. see those kids over there? they bored on a Saturday afternoon.
when I was a kid we use to play over there, now there’s Johns Hopkins…now the kids they make up their own games, like “steal the smart phone game”…So they get creative, make up games like that, and other ones”

“Nothing changed in this community all the years I been here. Only thing change is the rent, it keeps going up and the management don’t tell you why just that the rent will go up in a month. If you can make it you stay, not you out. Need affordable housing and better landlords. People need to make sure landlords do right by us. Nobody watching them. but they watching us. Who gonna help us?
Need safe places for the kids to play so they don’t go join them gangs and run from school to house because parents don’t want them on the street corner. hard for kids these days. Lucky with mine, she just went to college, so proud of her.

Why change our tools, change our houses?

So what tools are we to use, to dismantle this “house” of oppression and separation, and build communities of equity? How do we as individuals and societies, use the tools at our disposal to rebuild communities in line with peace and justice? Perhaps what Ms. Lorde was leading us toward, was the need for us to re-interpret the use of the tools used by the Master to build communities of fear and hate. Perhaps her guidance was to reconsider not only the use of different tools, but the transformation of ourselves so we could re-interpret the use of the tools at our disposal-previously used to build “houses’ of separation, fear, and anger. Take the knife for example, it can be used to peel a ripe and delicious mango, to offer joy and satiate the taste buds. Or it can be used to cause harm. And so it is with any tool at our disposal. The use of construction labor, justly compensated can benefit those rebuilding communities-developers, corporations/universities/hospitals, other private and non-profit interests- and those doing the actual building if they receive a living wage. Just compensation for any type of work, can benefit those with the means to pay for the work being done and those doing the work. Building homes which are affordable to those with low incomes or subsidized incomes along with homes for the middle and market rate earners benefits everyone, not just those with the means to live where they choose. Health care access and benefit for everyone, regardless of race and class, not limited access for some and excessive access for the rich and majority white population moves us toward equitable health. The tools of community building and existence is at our disposal; unfortunately, based on our belief systems of separation of race and class, we have been using them to benefit one race and class of people resulting in accumulation of good health and wealth aggregated into communities of majority White and professional classes. The children and grandchildren of these groups-the supposed “creative class”- continue to benefit today, while the children of Black and Brown peoples, working class and low-income continue to be disenfranchised, individually and as communities, physically and mentally displaced. Changing our belief systems will be necessary to change the ways we use the tools of community building at our disposal.

Individual transformation, of the ways we perceive those different from us, is necessary. Why? Because we don’t only separate based on differences, we compare and judge, demonize, exploit and oppress using notions of inferiority and superiority. These are the tools of the oppressor, the Master. The stories we hold in our mind, the perceptions and thoughts passed on from our ancestors and kin folk, neighbors and friends, places of worship and education, employment and recreation, these are the fundamental tools, the building blocks of words and actions which justify our use of the physical and mental tools of economic violence, social violence, political violence, and health violence against the other. And these are the tools that lead to justifying the continued neglect and abandonment of communities of color and low income. This justification to demonize results in actions that build communities abandoned not only of physical resources, but abandoned of love, compassion, patience, understanding. This fear of the “other”, often unspoken, spins stories in our mind of the inferiority of Black people. As the White teenager in Charleston admits, even when the Black congregants of the church were kind in words and actions toward him, he had to do what he had been mentally trained to do: remove those who he was fearful of, the other, the “demons”. Such a mind was cultivated to believe these tapes and fear Black people; such a mind justified actions of violence. And it is such a mind, aggregated en mass as White Supremacy which built this country and continues to enact implicit and explicit bias against Black and Brown people, continuing the gap between the majority of White and higher income communities and majority of of-color and lower income communities. Returning to the the insights on the streets of East and West Baltimore:

“The big people know this has been going on. All the time. They don’t care and they turn their backs on it. Turn their backs on this community. If they decide that it has to change, from the top, it will change. Finally someone at the top did the right thing [referring to the indictment of 6 Baltimore police officers involved in the killing of Freddie Gray]. See what happened. The police stop working. [referring to the non-responsiveness of police officers during the month of May after the indictment of the 6 Baltimore police officers] We need them. Just need them to stop harassing black people.”

“The media, don’t get me started…they orchestrate all this. they gonna get me on the news for a night, then something else important come up… but we still here. got to get City paper to see what’s really going on.”

“They took away a lot of stuff, left us here with nothing. Nothing but a little part everyday. so everybody get equal opportunity to leave…they say. But some of us can’t leave…now, we black people, don’t like to see any of us get ahead. If i buy a new car and park it there, someone gonna come along and scratch it up. Just cause they don’t have one. We don’t let each other get ahead because we jealous of them. If we see someone get ahead, we try to bring them down…been left too long”

The gentle steps of change

So what will it take for this shift in our minds, the ultimate tool of oppression, the ultimate tool that fuels the building and rebuilding of the Master’s house. The Master’s house is a house of separation, oppression, and exploitation, in all aspects of life. Therefore in any aspect of our daily life we have the ability and opportunity to change these tapes of the Master. In every step we place on the earth, whether we are walking from the bed to the toilet, the car to the store, the apartment to the restaurant, the bus stop to the barber shop, each step can be a transformative act when we are conscious and aware. And what does this awareness do? Simply being aware of the thoughts passing through our minds, is already a step toward transformation. We can begin to notice the thought that comes to mind when we see a person different from ourselves, or whom we perceive as being different from ourselves, based on some physical appearance. We note what goes through our mind. Maybe we start noting a pattern of thoughts that come to mind when we see a Black person, a White person, a person dressed in older clothing, a person dressed in clothing just off the rack, a woman, a man. Then we notice how these patterns shape the words we use with these perceived others, the actions we engage in with the other. Just this mere awareness, when connected to the understanding of love, of compassion will make us question ourselves: “how am I perpetuating division and discrimination when I have thoughts like this; is it in line with the love and equality, peace I speak about, of the patience I say I want to offer to everyone”. Noticing in ourselves first, how we participate in acts of separation and violence, is a big step toward changing the way we interact with others. When we become more aware of ourselves we become more aware of the interactions we engage in and how others act similarly or different. The individual gentle steps of transformation is a major path of change toward dismantling the Master’s house of exploitation, separation, violence, and injustice. A transformed self transforms all the interactions and spaces we engage in and with: after all houses, communities, societies are made up of individuals. A house of aware and non-violent individuals builds communities and societies of awareness and non-violence. Such collective communities are powerful forces for change, to recreate and rebuild communities of justice and peace, equity and sufficiency.

When we listen to residents of East and West Baltimore, we have an imperative to change:

“Hope things change, want better for this place. I’m a part of it. I just live here, want better cause I live here. Got people growing up, tell me you wanna raise the next generation in something like this? I wouldn’t want to be a child right now, too hard. that’s why I dont have not right now”

“People have to come together, coming together, changing each other.”

“Community is already fragmented-the mentality-The generations before us didn’t inform everyone how the system works, they didn’t tell the kids. Life is a game, change the whole game. lots of people don’t care anymore. know the cause but don’t care about the effect. they say don’t get involved.”

“I learn to stay by myself. If you talk to the ones on the corner drinking, even if you not drinking, they’ll harass you, arrest you, make you sit on the curve. That’s why I stay by myself, stay out of trouble, sit here and drink my beer. Safer that way.”

“Can’t fragment what’s already fragmented; already broken. can’t get any worst. 38 bodies died already in May-more bodies than the days in a month. The police took the month off. Police not making it any better, not worst. It’s a cop out to say they cause the community to fragment. [referring to the number of deaths occurring in Baltimore City in the month of May 201]”

“yes, they [referring to police violence] break up the community. anybody loose someone they love, of course they grieve. They harass people and don’t think they have families.”

“Don’t get involved, keep to self and keep block clean. Don’t socialize. Up and down this block I clean up. I play with my grandkids, raised all 5 of them. My grandaughter graduate from college tomorrow. So proud of her. I teach them to get a job and hold a job. As long as you clean and smelling good, you’re okay.
These my boys [referring to several young men 3 stoops down who come over to ask for a light]. They respect me, I tell them to get jobs”

“Yes, community fragmented b/c they don’t know which way they should go. don’t know which way to go, don’t know if they for us or against us. Fragment, when they should get involved…when police are wrong. don’t know if should get involved. don’t know if it will hurt them. should get involved… we come together as one people. if I say or do something it can be wrong. got everything so enclosed like…one guy thought I was snitching, cop at my door. my [family member] is an officer.”

“Feel like not wanted in the hood. feel like I don’t fit in that area.
Feel like they don’t want no criminals involved, make me feel like I can’t get no job either. Cause once you arrested, you can’t get a job. I got into the Jericho program for ex offenders just come home. They do some training, like cooking. Does it work? see where I’m sitting now? you get a certification in cooking but you got to find you your own job.”

“Get excluded cause have to be on guard. you know. don’t want to talk to the police and don’t want to talk to the gang either, then police think you doing something with them too. Keep to myself, just go and come, say hello, smile, that’s it.”

“The parents don’t teach the kids respect. They allow them to go buckwild.
Never believe in whipping, you can sit down and talk to your child. Don’t have to holler at them. I don’t care how bad they are, even autistic kids you can sit and talk to them. Kids act like this because they weren’t bring up right.
When I was brought up, if I didn’t go to church I couldn’t go outside. 8pm be on the step, 9pm inside the house. playing was fun, that’s it. But now parents they got so much on their mind. The kids running around and throwing stones at cars for fun, little kids..not nice. I just tell them God don’t like ugly.”

If ever there was a time in our society, for change, it is now. Unfortunately, our history has offered us many periods, when change was the only solution. And this is one of them. The tools of oppression must be dismantled, must be transformed; this tool of the mind must be transformed toward understanding, peace, non-violence, justice, and equity, in a breath, in a moment, in a movement. The process of change will recreate and rebuild our house in order and truth. Peace is the way.

Full report of resident voices on policing, community fragmentation and change, by Social Health Concepts and Practices, Inc. will be available soon.

RACISM IN THE UNITED STATES: A MULTICULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

Stan Markowitz
Paso Training and Consulting

White History

History has been a powerful tool in shaping our values and our behavior. Yet, quite often what many of us consider to be history is a significant distortion of our complex past–a biased amalgam of truth, half-truth, and outright distortion. In his book, First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History, Professor Colin Calloway argues that American history has been “written and taught as a single story, a narrative of nation building and unending progress that united diverse participants. . . .in a single American experience”. Calloway continues that our history, if we accept the perspective of the great majority of historians, has been the “triumph” of a society “based on the principles of liberty and equality”. In recent years in particular Calloway and others have oncluded that this “narrative has generally ignored or dismissed people whose experiences and perspectives did not conform to this perceived epic of nation building”.

Nowhere has this been truer than in the way our society has dealt with race and racism. For those of us who are white, our perceptions about all people of color, their cultures, and their homelands, were indelibly and negatively impacted by racist “history”. “History” was often used to justify violence against people of color, vicious stereotypes, and the withholding of basic political, economic, social and intellectual rights and opportunities. Just as often it was used to deny that violence, stereotypes,
and inequities occurred or existed. The great majority of people of color, despite efforts by their families and institutions to provide an alternative perspective, were exposed to the same distorted “history”. While for whites history justified white supremacy and white privilege, people of color had to struggle to maintain a sense of identity and
worth in the face of a racist onslaught. Racist “history” was one of the factors that caused people of color in the United States to wrestle with the powerful impact of internalized oppression–the pressure to identify, in subtle and overt ways, with the judgments that the dominant society made about them. Clyde Warrior, a Ponca activist in the 1960’s spoke to this point in noting that American society makes Indian children feel unworthy. He went on to say “as you know, people who feel themselves to be unworthy and feel they cannot escape this unworthiness, often turn to drink, crime and self-destructive acts”. Warrior added that the great majority of Indians were poor, but perhaps ” our lack of reasonable choices, our lack of freedoms, our poverty of spirit, are connected to our material poverty”.

African, Hispanic, Asian, and Indian children had to wonder to what extent the continuous barrage of propaganda called history was true?* If not true, where was the evidence to refute it? When people of color and some whites provided evidence–both historical and from there own lives–to refute the established “history”, the dominant culture refused to acknowledge any revisions that challenged prevalent stereotypes and paradigms and threatened white supremacy and white privilege. A recent study noted that in the past fifteen years increased knowledge about DNA has convinced over 90% of
all scientists that “race” is a social construct and there are no significant differences among people with different skin color. Yet, the study also noted that most white Americans did not accept that.

History, as a Tool to Divide and Conquer

The history of the United States is full of examples of how white society has utilized simplistic and distorted historical interpretations to denigrate one or more populations of color , and to intentionally foster hostility and misunderstanding among people of color. A fairly current example is the myth of the “model minority.” According to the “model minority” thesis Asian Americans are gaining educational and financial success at a far more rapid rate than Indian, Hispanic, and African Americans. Why? According to the “model minority” mythology Asian Americans are working harder, saving their money, maintaining stable families, etc. The clear implication is that similar results could be obtained by other non-white populations if they emulated the “all-American” behavior of Asians. When the “model minority” idea emerged in the mid-1980’s politicians and the media alike, jumped on the bandwagon. In 1986 alone, Fortune, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, and the McNeill/Lehrer Report, among others, applauded Asians as “America’s Super Minority.” The term “model minority” quickly became ammunition for those who blamed African, Indian, and Hispanic Americans for their “failure” to take advantage of the opportunities supposedly available to everyone in the United States.

Ronald Takaki, a Japanese American historian at the University of California, has been one of several scholars who have challenged the “model minority” mythology. Takaki argues that Asian American success has been exaggerated and distorted. He notes that while some Asian Americans have been successful, many more are mired in poverty and are the victims of racist institutions and attitudes. Takaki, further states that the proponents of the “model minority” thesis have distorted the history of Asian Americans. He argues that the “model minority” argument incorrectly assumes that all people of color in the United States have had the same history. It ignores differences in experiences and
culture. Even if it can be successfully argued that a larger percentage of Asian Americans have had more success economically than Latino/a, Indian, and African Americans, it is unreasonable to attribute that success simply to harder work and more ambition. Complex historical factors, if taken into account, provide a very different analysis. That point is extremely important because European Americans have systematically ignored the significance of differences in culture, experience, and
history when making judgments about “others”. The results are distorted and simplistic
generalizations like the “model minority”. An additional, and in some cases intended result, is the development or continuation of conflict between and among people of color

Another dramatic example of how distorted history contributes to internalized oppression and conflict among peoples of color can be found in the powerful documentary the Color of Fear. In the documentary about race and racism in America, several men of color discuss negative stereotypes that their communities hold towards one another. The men also acknowledge that skin color is still (in the 1990’s) an issue in their communities–often lighter skin color is still highly valued. By the end of their discussion the men are unanimous in the belief that their communities (African, Hispanic, Indian, and Asian American) have been manipulated by attitudes that to a substantial degree come from the
dominant white society. They conclude that “when we are hostile to one another we bring all of us down and we strengthen white people and white supremacy”. The articipants in Color of Fear also express their concern about having their discussion about conflicts with one another and attitudes about skin color, in front of white people. They are very clear that historically whites have used conflicts among people of color, conflicts that whites have created, to rationalize white racism. The idea being that if it can be shown that people of color have ‘racist’ attitudes towards one another why blame white people for their beliefs?”

In recent years yet another way in which “history” as written and taught in the United States, has created problems for and among people of color has been the competition for the “margins” of American history–that small space allotted to address the lives and experiences of those that do not fit the “master narrative”. Since the 1950’s the history of African Americans slowly began to be included in history books and classes to a greater degree than before. Black history and the black experience filled up a good part of the “margin”. Still more recently, Indian history has begun to emerge from invisibility. That has been less true for Asian and Hispanic populations in the United States. This has become another divisive issue among people of color and among anti-racist whites as well.

American Racism: Does Acknowledging the Centrality of the Black Experience Diminish the Impact of Racism on Other People of Color?

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I saw this issue emerge during a project with which I was associated several years ago. One aspect of the project involved study circles to discuss race and racism. The content of the study circle discussions focused on the African American experience. A number of participants supported that focus, arguing that while all people of color have been victimized by racism in the United States, black people have been the most visible victims of racist oppression and stereotyping. They expressed their strong belief that in order to understand racism in America the centrality of the black experience had to be acknowledged and understood. Others just as emphatically argued that if the discussion centered on the oppression of black people it would detract from the experiences of Indian, Asian, and Hispanic Americans and the ways in which racism has devastated those communities. They feared that any efforts to understand racism that makes the black experience central cannot accurately reflect the reality of American racism. For them, any discussion of racism had to be inclusive. How do those of us who want to understand race and racism in the United States deal with this issue? It’s that question
that I want to focus on in the remainder of this essay.

Balancing the Centrality of the Black Experience and the Importance of Inclusiveness When Examining Racism in the United States

Racism in the United States has never been only a black-white issue. Racism helped to determine government policies and individual behavior toward Indians early in this nation’s history–policies and behavior that were catastrophic in its impact on Indian land and culture. People from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America, the Middle East, China, Japan and Southeast Asia have all experienced the destructive impact of racist values, behaviors, institutions and policies in more than a century and a half of this nation’s history. Even some white Europeans were affected by attitudes and behaviors that were, for a time, racist in nature. Any serious effort to understand racism in the United States must include all of these stories and how they intersect.

However, it is also true that, for a variety of reasons, white Americans made black Americans the central minority in the United States and that has had important consequences. When the Europeans first encountered Indians and Africans they had similar reactions. Europeans and American colonizers were very aware of the differences in culture between themselves and these “others.” Whites, particularly the English, were also affected by differences in color. Slowly, between the mid-sixteenth and the mid- nineteenth centuries, differences in culture and skin color would justify a doctrine of white supremacy as Europeans, and later Americans, increasingly sought to rationalize conquest, control, and enslavement of people of color. During this period both Indians and Africans were considered inferior races and both were exploited to satisfy European and American objectives.

Yet, with regard to racial attitudes and perceptions, Africans and African Americans began to have a central place. There are a number of reasons for suggesting that this occurred but I want to emphasize two of them. First, beliefs about skin color had a dramatic impact on the English, the European culture that would come to dominate in colonial America and the United States. In Shakespeare’s time the dictionary defined the color black as : “deeply stained with dirt….foul…dark or deadly…sinister…malignant ….wicked”–twenty-six negative connotations in all. Much later a descendant of Scotch-Irish immigrants wrote “….the first difference that strikes us is that of color….and is this difference of no importance?….Are not the fine mixtures of red and white preferable….to that immovable veil of black that covers the emotions of the other race?” In that statement, Thomas Jefferson, reflected the 18th century perspective of the great majority of white Americans, North and South. In Notes on My Native Virginia he described blacks as inherently less beautiful than whites. (It is no less significant that Jefferson also stated his belief that black people were less intelligent than whites or Indians). By Jefferson’s time color had become a major determiner of status in the United States. Dark skin was considered a sign of inferiority and the darker the complexion the more critical the judgment. Indians were not white, but they were not black either. Also many white people, like Thomas Jefferson, came to believe that Indians could be Assimilated-that with “proper training” they could become “white”. The sons and daughters of Africa
could not.

Second, while anyone reading an honest version of our history between 1600 and 1890 cannot doubt that many white Americans believed Indians were “savages” and felt intense hatred towards them, interactions between Indians and European Americans occurred in a very different context from black-white interactions. Indian peoples were separate nations in the Western hemisphere and for a long time many of them were strong enough to hold off the Europeans, American colonists, and after the American Revolution, the United States. At times debates took place over whether the Indians
were actually nations with the right to self-determination and the right to the land they occupied. Despite the debates, colonial and US policy were consistent and Indian nations were exterminated, dispersed, or removed from their lands and forced onto reservations. Racist rationales to justify this country’s “Indian policy” continued to exist, but by the 1830’s, for most Americans East of the Mississippi, Indians became a small, nonthreatening, population. By the end of the 1880’s a similar conclusion can be drawn about much of the area West of the Mississippi. Unquestionably, Indians in the United States would continue to be faced with a powerful and systematic effort to destroy their
culture and their identity and to exploit and occupy their resources and land. Policies by federal and state governments, almost always in collaboration with private business interests, would exploit Indian land and resources in violation of treaty and human rights. Those efforts continue to the present. I think it is fair to say that no population within the United States has been treated more appallingly than the first inhabitants of this continent. Yet, as each successive wave of settlers and the American government moved westward, the Indian presence and the Indian as an adversary diminished in more and more of the United States. Indians did not exist for most Americans or they were not perceived as a threat or an obstacle to others. In time they were even romanticized and idealized by many whites.

The African American experience has been dramatically different. While Indians diminished in number and were increasingly isolated, African Americans increased in number and lived among whites. As early as the 1640’s slavery was evolving in colonial America. By the early 19th century enslaved people had become “property” in the eyes of the white South and most white Northerners agreed or at least acquiesced in that judgement. At a time, the mid-19th century, when the remaining Indian populations comprised several hundred thousand people, the African American population was
approaching five million. Increasingly, white society and white Americans felt the need to dehumanize black Americans in order to “prove” that the growing enslaved population was in fact no better than property “that black people had no souls and were meant by God to be a “mudsill” population whose menial labor was essential to support the efforts of the superior white culture. White America also had to justify a totalitarian system of physical and psychological control and abuse by arguing that enslaved African Americans were a recalcitrant and potentially rebellious population. That took a great
deal of effort since slavery was in every conceivable way the antithesis of the values expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the values of a “democratic” system that supposedly characterized the nation’s belief system.

A profound result of this effort was the creation of a vicious combination of stereotypes. One was “Sambo”– a childlike, lazy, shuffling, irresponsible, dishonest, untruthful, and hedonistic male. A second was “mammy”–the overweight, jovial, good-natured, and appreciative nanny and female servant for white folks. Third, another female image–promiscuous, passionate, exotic, seductive and dangerous-the reason so many white men raped black women. Fourth was the lustful, hard-drinking, and criminally inclined black male–a sexual threat to white women and to civilized society- a stereotype that would be a large part of the justification for the lynching of black men in America. Finally, there was the loyal and loving black person (glorified by Hollywood in movies like Gone With the Wind and countless others) who accepted, and even appreciated his/her situation and
would lay down his or her life for the master or mistress or boss–the white fantasy which helped to deny the vicious nature of slavery and Jim Crow. The documentary Ethnic Notions and Director Spike Lee’s recent film Bamboozled, provide detailed evidence of how common and universal the racial stereotypes defining black Americans were and how indelibly they were woven into the fabric of American thinking about race.

Consequently, by the middle and end of the nineteenth century when new immigrant populations entered the United States, black Americans had become the standard for determining ” inferior” races of people. American political leaders in the North and the South, the Supreme Court of the United States, and every important institution in the society participated in the creation of that standard and they would continue to do so for decades. Black Americans became the standard against which the racial inferiority or superiority of all would be measured.

The White “Others”

Other populations labeled “undesirable” by the dominant white culture began to enter the United States in significant numbers around the middle of the nineteenth century. The first of these groups, the Irish, had filtered in during the 17th and 18th centuries. However, between 1815 and 1920 about five and one-half million Irish entered the United States. A people who had been brutally conquered by England, many Irish saw parallels between themselves and enslaved African Americans and the earliest Irish immigrants often supported the abolition of slavery. In 1842 thousands of Irish immigrants signed a petition calling for the Irish to “treat the colored people as your equals”. Once in the United States, however, Irish immigrants found themselves described as “apelike” and “a race of savages” whose intelligence was at the level of blacks. They were often referred to as “Irish niggers”. Irish men and women provided labor for roads, canals, and railroads and worked in factories and domestic service. They found themselves at the bottom of the economic ladder competing for jobs against
enslaved and “free” blacks, and by the 1850’s, Chinese immigrants as well. As they competed with blacks and bristled at the stereotypes linking them with African Americans, the Irish began to emphasize their whiteness. Faced with nativist hatred towards them as foreigners they attempted to become Americans, in part, by claiming membership in the white race. Historian, Ronald Takaki, notes that “the victims of English repression and prejudice in Ireland redirected their rage against the people who were most victimized in the United States”. The once anti-slavery Irish became one of the most pro-slavery populations in America. Over time the Irish worked hard, became citizens, gained the right to vote and the opportunity for education. Slowly, they became integrated into the mainstream American culture. They could do so not because they worked harder than others but because they were white and they were European.

Other white, ethnic, Catholic, immigrant populations mainly from Eastern, Central, and Southern Europe would also face intense hostility in the United States. They too found themselves in competition with enslaved and “free” blacks, as well as Chinese, Japanese and Mexican workers. Jewish immigrants, many from Germany, Poland, and Russia, faced the same hardships and had to deal with a long history of anti-Jewish bigotry as well. Like the Irish, all of these populations were confronted with the fact that the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were times of intense racial identification. Pseudo-scientists were declaring racial distinctions not only between whites and
people of color but among whites. For a time Italians, Poles, Greeks, Jews, and other European populations were perceived as racially inferior and efforts were made to limit their access to the United States for fear that they would “mongrelize” the Anglo-Saxon race. Yet, despite the racist and ethnocentric hysteria that existed in the United States during this period, and despite the major hardships they faced, these white Europeans populations, they too worked hard, made gains, and moved forward. In time, the dominant society would distinguish between them and people of color–particularly African Americans. The negative stereotypes of these white immigrants disappeared
slowly and some did not always disappear but opportunities for political, economic and social advancement increased. They had the same powerful advantages that the Irish claimed–they were European and they were white. If you were white and European you could assimilate. If you were white you immediately had a degree of white privilege and you could aspire to more.

Non-White “Others”

birds

The experience for non-European immigrants was always different from that of the “undesirable” Europeans. Mexican people, the first Latino population in what had become the United States, were profoundly affected when the boundaries of Mexico and the United States were altered following the United States and Mexican war which ended in 1848. (While in this country we refer to the war as the Mexican-American War, the country that is considered the aggressor should be identified first.) Thousands of Mexicans had land in what became Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California and
chose to stay amid promises that their land would be safe and they would have opportunities to become citizens. Those promises were broken. White Americans already had a low opinion of Mexico and Mexicans prior to the war. Once Mexicans became part of this country the stereotypes hardened into racism. The first of many Hispanic populations that would emigrate to the U.S., Mexicans were characterized as “an idle thriftless people, who. . . lacked the enterprise and calculating mentality” of Anglo Saxons. The fact that Mexicans were a mixture of Indian and Spanish culture and blood (and African as well) was used to justify racist policies, attitudes and actions
directed against them. In 1849 the Anglo legislature in California passed an anti-vagrancy act called the “Greaser Act.” The act defined vagrants as “all persons commonly known as ‘Greasers’ or the issue of Spanish or Indian blood.” In the 1890’s Texas laws deprived Mexican Americans and African Americans of the right to vote by creating poll taxes and white primaries. Other efforts in California and the Southwest denied Mexican Americans their lands. Like white immigrants Mexicans worked hard
on farms, in mines, as domestics, and more. Entry into jobs that required more education and particular training would come far more slowly due to the impact of racism. They organized unions, on occasion with Japanese workers. As did the European immigrants and their children, they contributed in very important ways to the growth of this nation. But unlike white immigrants, Mexicans were linked to blacks and Indians. The negative stereotypes did not diminish. The “Jim Crow” laws that were created to exploit and control black Americans were often used against Mexican Americans. As hard as they worked, as much as they tried to “fit in”, they could not. They were, according to one white grower, “natural farm laborers” just as blacks were “natural slaves.” Other people of color—whether from Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Salvador, or elsewhere in the Caribbean, Central or South America—faced similar degrees of racism and the resulting violence, exploitation, and denial of opportunity. Their Spanish or Portuguese heritage, while European, was viewed negatively in Anglo-Saxon America. The opportunities eventually made available to white, non-Latin Europeans came far more slowly to Latino peoples. Only in recent decades has the prejudice against Latino Americans begun to diminish in
some ways. Yet, by no means have the great majority of Hispanic Americans gained the opportunities and privileges of the great majority of whites.

Asian entry into the United States began in 1849 when Chinese immigrants began to come in fairly large numbers. In part, they came because they were recruited to build the railroads. They also came to escape the harsh military, economic, and political conditions in China which resulted to some degree from Western imperialism. Early on the Chinese found themselves compared to African Americans. They were viewed as a threat to “racial purity.” A common depiction can be found in a cartoon published in a California magazine which depicted the Chinese as having “slanted eyes. . . .a dark skin and thick lips”. They were often described as “morally inferior, savage, childlike and lustful.” The editor of the California Marin Journal claimed that white America had won the West from the “red man”, why should it now be surrendered to a “horde of Chinese”. In 1879 President Rutherford B. Hayes warned Americans about the “Chinese Problem” noting that the American experience with “weaker races–the Negroes and Indians–is not encouraging.” The President favored discouraging the Chinese from coming to the U.S. Despite the fact that the Chinese made up just .002% of the population, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882, and in 1902 it was extended indefinitely.
The Chinese were followed by the Japanese who began to enter the United States in growing numbers in the 1890’s. Japanese immigrants would meet the same level of racial hostility as their Asian predecessors. Like other ethnic or racial minorities Asian Americans made major contributions to this nation through farming, railroad and factory work and later in professions and business. In part, it was the very success of Japanese farmers that helped precipitate the placing of Japanese Americans in detention camps during World War II. In recent decades other Asian peoples have migrated to this
country. All of them to a greater or lesser degree have faced racist attitudes and institutions that would inhibit their success in a way that never impeded white ethnics. For Asians skin color and “alien” culture has made a difference.

Any discussion of racism that doesn’t include the experiences of all people of color cannot fully assess the true nature of American racism–of white supremacy and white privilege. At the same time the discussion must recognize that the hostility towards black Americans in the United States has been unique. While African Americans have worked as hard as any other population in America and have contributed in myriad ways to this nation, when most white Americans hear terms like affirmative action, low test scores, busing, welfare, homelessness, crime, drugs, and more, the first image that comes to mind is still an African American. As the men who participated in the documentary Color of Fear suggest even many people of color from other cultures have come to share some of the stereotypes about African Americans that were created by the dominant white culture.

The history of the United States indicates that as people of color move towards becoming a non-white majority (in a nation that has always equated “white” and “American) it’s inevitable that efforts to confuse, distort, and to “divide and conquer” will continue. Without collective action by all communities of color and white people who are seriously trying to understand and oppose white supremacy, racism in the United States will not be defeated. That collective action requires the use of a history that limits distortion to the greatest degree possible and that rejects the assumption of a “single white narrative”.

*This essay was written in the late 1990’s and reflect terms describing racial/ethnic groups during that period.

(Note: An important source used in this essay was: A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, by Ronald Takaki)

Redevelopment policies and implications for health

Excerpt from Introduction of ‘Race, Class, Power, and Organizing in East Baltimore’:

Health Outcomes
Socioeconomic and political oppression of African American people throughout the history of America has directly resulted in the creation of neighborhoods of urban decay and poverty in the 21st century, which in turn affects the health of individuals living in these neighborhoods. The unequal and discriminatory laws and policies resulted in disinvestment and marginalization of communities in which majority African American lived leading to unhealthy physical environments of unsanitary, abandoned, and run-down streets, schools, parks, health clinics, recreation centers, stores, and houses, and high crime. The consequences or effects of living in such disinvested neighborhood, help to determine exposure to different levels of stress faced daily by individuals living, playing, working and learning in these communities as well the internal and external resources available to address these stressors in a healthy way.
The effect of having a low-paying job or no job, being African American or part of a racial minority, and education below high school level independently and together affects the health of an individual. These socioeconomic factors or social determinants increase the likelihood of an individual having a variety of physical and mental illnesses and a shorter lifespan.
The neighborhood effects and social and economic characteristics of individuals living in East Baltimore, together and individually, resulted in East Baltimore being characterized as one of the least healthy communities in America.
Community rebuilding efforts must therefore assess the communities’ health history and assure that the processes of rebuilding are participatory and not hierarchical as has been the intention and practice of EBDI and its partners. Rebuilding with input and direction from those living in the community can begin to change the historic oppressions that have directly and indirectly contributed to creating unhealthy communities. Assessment of the health impact, as well as the economic, social, educational, environmental, and political impact, on the people affected by community rebuilding processes must be included in an analysis of “benefit for whom.”
For those who organize and challenge the powerful stakeholders for more equitable rebuilding processes, the consequent health impact of increased stress must be assessed in light of the already existent stress resulting from living in abandoned and disempowered communities. These types of analyses must be incorporated into the strategies for rebuilding communities like Middle East Baltimore in order to address the historic damage and narrow the gap of unequal benefit to the stakeholders involved today. Such comprehensive analyses will begin to address the power imbalances which serve to widen the growing disparity in health between communities with differing degree of resources and which are separated by race and class.

For more specific discussion of the effects of unfair development as a social determinant of health and potential mechanisms for poor health outcome see chapter 9, ‘Poverty of health’.

This link ( Development and health) provides a PDF of a presentation at Morgan State University on October 22, 2013 highlighting the health effects from the racist and classist development policies and practices that have shaped our cities in America.

Enjoy and organize!!

Organizing Against the Academic Industrial Complex

Join us at 2640 St. Paul Street in Baltimore for an exciting and revealing discussion about the Academic Industrial Complex: highlighting the activities of Syracuse and Johns Hopkins and organizing efforts to to challenge these powerful land grabbers…presented by John Burdick and Marisela Gomez
Hosted by 2640 and Red Emma’s

link to flyer

Book presentations and discussion!

Join me for two upcoming events:

Baltimore Book Festival
September 29, 2013 3:00 – 4:00 PM at Red Emma’s Radical Book Fair Pavilion
Charles and Monument, Mt. Vernon Baltimore
Baltimore Book Festival>

Recording of talk

Baltimore Dialogue book talk
September 30, 2013 9:30am – 11:00 am
Amazing Grace Lutheran Church ~ 2424 McElderry Street Baltimore, MD 21205
Baltimore Book Club>

Study Circle Pamphlet: Race and class determine ‘who gets the land’

Dear friends,

The link below will allow access to a web version of a pamphlet developed for study circles addressing community organizing and community rebuilding in Middle East and East Baltimore. The ‘points of reflections’ on the last pages uses the book as a resource.
There is also a print version of this pamphlet which will print into a 2-sided pamphlet, front to back, and can be stapled for convenience. Please be in touch with me if you would like access to the print version.

Please use as a tool on this path of changing the status quo of rebuilding disinvested and abandoned communities for the white and middle and upper classes while neglecting low income and historic communities of color-and the acute and long-term trauma caused by these oppressive and discriminatory practices.

In spirit!

RebuildingMEBaltimore_PamphletWEB_FINAL2.pdf>

Rebuilding Middle East Baltimore:
Race and class determine ‘who gets the land’
Marisela B Gomez
www.mariselabgomez.com

Images: Groundbreaking for Hopkins student housing during 2 rebuilding projects in East Baltimore (1956 Broadway Redevelopment Project, black and white photo; 2001-current Johns Hopkins and EBDI Development Project, color photo). In both, more than 800 households, of low income and African American people, were displaced to make room for Johns Hopkins expansion. The legacy of this history of power imbalance continues today, in the people and the spaces of East Baltimore.

Harbor Point development points to powerful corruption and inequity again: let’s change the tide!

The project

The data we have on this current development is this: Harbor Point developers are proposing a 1 billion dollar price tag and expecting 107 million dollars in public assistance (in the form of tax increment financing, TIFs) to build an office tower for Exelon, housing, and a park subsidized by the city (another 21 million). Payment of property taxes back to the city would not begin until 2025. The promise from the developer is that the Harbor Point project would benefit the pockets of poverty nearby. Nearby is the Middle-East/Perkins Home Community with some of the worst social and economic indicators across Baltimore city. Demogra.Perk.Balt At the first public hearing on this proposed public subsidy, residents from nearby Perkins Home testified that the past developments in the Harbor-Inner Harbor and Harbor East- are not accessible to them because “we can’t afford the $6.00 ice cream cones sold there?”. They wanted to know how this proposed development would be one that was accessible to them and from which they could benefit.

Harbor Point subsidy hearing, Baltimore City Hall, July 10, 2013

Would these majority African American people be able to walk the sidewalks of this new development without scrutiny by police on segways or tourists. Or will it be another addition to the growing gentrification of Baltimore city with walls of police and manicured parks separating the rich and the poor? Would there be jobs with living wages which offer apprenticeship training and a career ladder out of poverty? Would there be affordable housing for low-income people? Would there be amenities priced for people of all incomes or would the pricing select out those who are welcomed to the new development? And would there be appropriate vocational and job readiness and treatment programs addressing all the social and health determinants of unemployment, homelessness and risk of homelessness, and poverty?

The promises

Will the new mixed-income housing which the developer promises will have teachers as neighbors of the wealthy be the extent of affordable housing? In the past years low-income housing has been conveniently replaced by work-force housing-targeting teachers, firewomen and others- affordable to a different income level than that of a family of 3 living on $19,000/year-considered poverty-level income by the US Federal Register. Will Harbor Point include housing to accommodate a family of 3 living on $19,000 per year? To this end will there be amendments to the Harbor Point tax incentive legislation requiring a percentage of housing accommodate this low-income population? The need for low-income housing is urgent as Baltimore continues to demolish existing very low-income and public housing in East Baltimore for gentrification projects (Johns Hopkins/East Baltimore Development Inc; Jefferson Luxury Apartments at Wolfe and Fayette; Brentwood Village). A report by Joan Jacobson in 2007 showed a 15-year period of decrease (42%) in occupied public housing in Baltimore city with little concrete plans for replacement. Housing Report Meanwhile the percent of female single headed households have increased over this same period.

The developer also promised 6000 new jobs from the Harbor Point development. Sounds familiar? Remember that 8000-job promise from the Johns Hopkins/EBDI project which delivered approximately 1000 in 12 years? Again, what will the city council legislate to hold this private developer accountable to the public subsidies that could otherwise be spent on recreation centers and parks in neighborhoods affected by closed recreation centers and firehouses and unkept parks? Instead this project is proposing subsidy for a park; similar to the public subsidy for the 7 acre park in the Hopkins/EBDI development.

Harbor Point developer promising jobs at hearing, Baltimore City Hall, July 17, 2013

Strategies for change

The promise to benefit the surrounding community by the developer for Harbor Point must be legally binding and specify strategies to address readying a workforce to access employment offered by the development. If the plan is to benefit the unemployed then the social and health determinants that lead to unemployment must be identified and remedied. Those unprepared to enter the workforce must be prepared; those addicted to drugs and alcohol or affected by mental illness must be offered opportunity for treatment and retraining. A comprehensive community development project must include programs and processes identified through Health and Environmental Impact Assessments implemented during the planning phase to prepare the local community to benefit from employment opportunity and determine the effect of building on a buried and capped chromium hazardous waste site. “Chromium testimony at July 16 Harbor Point public hearing”>

The patterns are stark as we continue to watch our public dollars subsidize the wealth of the powerful 10% while the gap between the rich and the poor grow. This continued trend of growing income inequality, racial and spatial segregation and its correlation with unstable economies continue to be documented both nationally and internationally. (Residential Segregation, Spatial Mismatch and Economic Growth across US Metropolitan Areas. Urban Studies. March 1, 2013 Urban Stud-2013) A growing body of evidence proposes improving these social inequities to improve rapid economic growth. It is time for Baltimore elected representatives and appointed government officials to stop corrupt and uninformed practices that continue to marginalize people of low-income and color by giving the ‘right of the city’ to a majority white and middle and wealthy class. A community reinvestment contract or community benefits agreement could target funds to the surrounding community to assess and address its needs. Unlike the failed promises of the Hopkins/EBDI project of ‘channeling 3 percent of any city bonds and other eligible public funds and up to 2 percent of income from commercial leases in the [biotech] park, along with a percentage of the money from the sale of any land to developers, into community reinvestment projects’ to benefit the surrounding community, a legally binding contract must be enacted to assure fulfillment. (Baltimore Sun, 16 April 2002)

Inequality leads to social tension and political instability, thus lowering certainty, investment, and economic growth. (Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press. Been Down So Long: Weak Market Cities and Regional Equity. (2008) Been_Down_So_Long. Therefore social and economic subsidies which address the causes of social tension, income inequality and its causes, should be as primary as tax subsidies to the wealthy to incentivize economic growth in cities with high rates of health and wealth gaps. Instead of large tax incentives and government-private bonds to the developer, social impact bonds (SIB) can be investigated as credible ways to invest public and private trust in remedying social indicators which in turn lead to a competent workforce and communities ready to learn and become self sufficient. http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/07/social-impact-bonds And the return on this investment is no longer than the return on current tax subsidies to developers. More stable and equitable communities in housing, income, education, and race/ethnicity leads to an economy which can maintain resilience from changing market forces, regionally, nationally, internationally and stem the tide of growing inequality.Resilience in changing times The Harbor Point project, if used in a way to target much needed funds to the city’s most needy communities, could be the beginning of Baltimore moving away from its past and current history of race and class corruption and exploitation to one of shared economic benefit and good health for a broader population.

Changing the tide

History shows us that private interests take public subsidies and grow their wealth with little benefit to the surrounding communities of poor and low income. Or maybe we should call it by the more acceptable term of ‘neoliberal take-over of the city’: the continued takeover of community rebuilding processes where government gives up its responsibility to assure that public dollars in a community and economic development project assures that ALL the public benefits. Instead our government ‘leaders’ have been turning over subsidies to private developers who ‘say’ they will rebuild an area to benefit the city with no analysis or evaluation of whether they deliver on promised outcomes. Case in point is the debacle of continued inequitable growth in the Johns Hopkins/EBDI development in East Baltimore made transparent through the Daily Record’s investigative series. The inequity was evident by the lack of construction, jobs for local residents, affordable housing, and non-transparent financial accounting and embarrassed the city council to hold the private:public development board accountable for more than 500 million dollars in public subsidies.

If the city is willing to continue to subsidize private interests with public funds then it must be ready to mandate that the private interests subsidize government’s role to the public in addressing its responsibilities to the public. It’s the only just and economically sensible solution in a neoliberal state! Let’s make our voices heard and NOT let the Baltimore City Council off the hook on this public subsidy legislation by demanding legislation that assures equity to the communities most affected by wealth and health disparities. This type of political action is not only just, it is good for the economy and the health of the community. Let us point the way to equitable and sustainable development in Baltimore. The third public hearing on the Harbor Point development will be held August 7, 2013 at 5pm at City Hall.

Waiting in the heat outside Baltimore City Hall’s closed doors for the Harbor Point subsidy hearing, July 17, 2013

Bus and Book Tour: Impact of Racism on Development in East Baltimore

Baltimore Racial Justice Action presents:

Upcoming Bus Tour: Impact of Racism on Development in East Baltimore
Saturday, August 10, 2013, Meet at 12:30; Bus leaves at 1:00; Return at 3:00 for Q&A and snacks
United Evangelical Church of Christ in Canton, 3200 Dillon St., Baltimore, Md. 21224
Call 410-645-0878 for more information

Tour with Dr. Marisela Gomez, author of Race, Class, Power and Organizing: Rebuilding Abandoned Communities in America. The tour will cover the story of how racist and classist policies and practices created a disinvested, low-income and working-poor African American community in Baltimore Maryland and what happened to the community as a result of “development”. Participants will see the peripheral areas still experiencing similar characteristics of poverty and abandonment of the Middle East area before rebuilding began, with the same pattern of power and disempowerment previously existing between the Johns Hopkins Medical Institution and Middle East Baltimore. Net proceeds from the tour will be used to purchase books for displaced residents.

http://bmoreantiracist.org/

Chapter 10, Epilogue added

Go to ‘Book’ page, ‘Book Content’ on drop-down menu