On Seeing Race in My Neighborhood
Jun. 16th, 2020 09:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forestofgloryI’ve been thinking about race and the landscape, and how one can and can’t see race in my neighborhood. I live in the hills, in a neighborhood of big houses on big lots. If you stand between two houses can see the Golden Gate Bridge. In the way of expensive neighborhoods in the US not many Black people live here. Still when I take a walk there’s not much that I see that makes me think about race. The most notable things are the Black Lives Matter yard signs.
It seems quiet and calm. But of course this is a landscape that hides a lot of racial conflict.
You have to teach yourself to see the history of the neighborhood. Some things are easier to learn than others. You can learn to look at a building and guess when it was built. You can learn something similar with street plans, to see a grid of streets or cul-du-sacs and know when the town was planned. It’s trickier to put that together with the history of racial conflict and see who might have been excluded.
Here, maps can help. For most major US cities you can find a Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) map from the New Deal era. These “Red lining maps'' show where the government and banks would make loans, and where they wouldn’t. Looked at today, these maps show society’s systemic disinvestment in non-white neighborhoods. On the HOLC map my calm, green neighborhood was rated A1, the best possible rating, colored green on the map. Meanwhile my city's downtown was rated D, the worst rating, and colored red. You can’t see this as easily when you’re walking through my neighborhood, but it matters. It shapes the city.
What you can see on the ground is a history of investment in my neighborhood. We have nice sidewalks, well maintained streets, good street lights. This is the kind of investment nice white neighborhoods get.
You can also see race in the lack of police presence; there’s a combined police and fire station that I sometimes walk by, but unless I’m right in front of the station, I never see cops on my walks.
Going back further and further into the past, racism is still here. This land is the home of the Ohlone people. The Ohlone are still here, but the way they relate to the land and the land itself have changed. Before settlers came, there was vastly different landscape. It’s hard to see that landscape in the neighborhood I walk through. There is a glimpse -- in the shape of the hills. In the live oaks and redwoods that grow among all the introduced tree species. But not in the hard sidewalks and paved roads. Not in the clear property lines and title deeds. When I walk, I often stop to admire the oaks, but I don’t often think about the people who once depended on their acorns for food.
It's easy to walk around my neighborhood and forget racism that destroyed the Olhone's land and redlined this neighborhood for investment and others for decay all this history. But these days I’m trying to see, and to remember.
It seems quiet and calm. But of course this is a landscape that hides a lot of racial conflict.
You have to teach yourself to see the history of the neighborhood. Some things are easier to learn than others. You can learn to look at a building and guess when it was built. You can learn something similar with street plans, to see a grid of streets or cul-du-sacs and know when the town was planned. It’s trickier to put that together with the history of racial conflict and see who might have been excluded.
Here, maps can help. For most major US cities you can find a Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) map from the New Deal era. These “Red lining maps'' show where the government and banks would make loans, and where they wouldn’t. Looked at today, these maps show society’s systemic disinvestment in non-white neighborhoods. On the HOLC map my calm, green neighborhood was rated A1, the best possible rating, colored green on the map. Meanwhile my city's downtown was rated D, the worst rating, and colored red. You can’t see this as easily when you’re walking through my neighborhood, but it matters. It shapes the city.
What you can see on the ground is a history of investment in my neighborhood. We have nice sidewalks, well maintained streets, good street lights. This is the kind of investment nice white neighborhoods get.
You can also see race in the lack of police presence; there’s a combined police and fire station that I sometimes walk by, but unless I’m right in front of the station, I never see cops on my walks.
Going back further and further into the past, racism is still here. This land is the home of the Ohlone people. The Ohlone are still here, but the way they relate to the land and the land itself have changed. Before settlers came, there was vastly different landscape. It’s hard to see that landscape in the neighborhood I walk through. There is a glimpse -- in the shape of the hills. In the live oaks and redwoods that grow among all the introduced tree species. But not in the hard sidewalks and paved roads. Not in the clear property lines and title deeds. When I walk, I often stop to admire the oaks, but I don’t often think about the people who once depended on their acorns for food.
It's easy to walk around my neighborhood and forget racism that destroyed the Olhone's land and redlined this neighborhood for investment and others for decay all this history. But these days I’m trying to see, and to remember.
Thanks for teaching me about the redlining maps
Date: 2020-06-16 07:15 pm (UTC)https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/sitemap.html
In Before Times I ride the city bus, where white people only board and alight in particular locations, making the divisions very concrete.
Re: Thanks for teaching me about the redlining maps
Date: 2020-06-17 05:15 pm (UTC)Re: Thanks for teaching me about the redlining maps
Date: 2020-07-01 10:02 pm (UTC)