Please Click Here to read the article that inspired this post:“Westchester Agrees to Add Housing in a Desegregation Pact.”
What?!?! Is this 2009 or 1959? After reading this headline on the front page of today's (August 10th) NYTimes website, I had to check my calendar just to be sure. Desegregation + 2009 = That does not compute…Or does it?
As human beings, we have a natural tendency to settle into living in a bubble – whether externally or self-imposed. This bubble includes our neighborhood, our workplace, our friends/family and the places we go to shop & unwind. It’s a discrete little world that is for the most part, familiar, predictable, and above all, comfortable.
Due to their nature, bubbles (real and social): can float; are transparent; permeable; elastic; reflective; they also at once, include and exclude. I argue, however, that they are most fun when they POP! And that’s what needs to happen, socially speaking, FOR ALL OF US…
The thing about dialogue, especially on race, is that it takes at least two to play the game, but if your bubble and my bubble never bump into each other how can that conversation ever start?
“Residential segregation underlies virtually every racial disparity in America, from education to jobs to the delivery of health care” ~Craig Gurian (Exec. Director, Anti-Discrimination Center)
Keeping it true, race, class, and to some extent, gender, directly impact a person’s ability to create and shape their bubble. To be blunt, the more money and education you have, the better your ability to customize your bubble and the antithesis also holds true. This article reflects Westchester as an exclusive, impermeable, and inelastic bubble, created by the individuals that live there (both actively and passively), and their local government (please do not interpret this as an indictment on Westchester):
“…between 2000 and 2006 the county had misrepresented its efforts to desegregate overwhelmingly white communities when it applied for federal housing funds.” ~Referenced NYTimes Article
As mentioned above, by their very nature, bubbles can include or exclude because they have a membrane (sometimes selectively permeable). When that social bubble is reinforced by active will and/or passive circumstance, it not only keeps foreign bodies out, it also restricts the bubble from expanding beyond its artificial and self-imposed borders. To be fair, similar arguments could be directed at predominantly minority areas like Harlem. However, the critical difference between communities like Harlem and Westchester is that the former, is arguably an externally imposed bubble dictated by socio-economics, politics, etc, while the latter is largely self-imposed.
How do we move forward? Simply put, our bubbles need to come together. The beauty and mystery of bubbles is that when they come close enough to one another, there is a force of attraction that causes them to snap together. I guess they recognize each other as being one of their own. If enough time and/or pressure are exerted, two bubbles eventually become one or they POP! Either result can be beautiful to watch…
Ultimately, our utopian vision should be a world without bubbles – which means there are no barriers to cross or walls to merge and/or break down. I have been blessed in the short 26 years I’ve been on this planet to have lived in London; NYC; Accra, Ghana during high school; Clinton, NY for college, Paris studying abroad; and Boston. The greatest byproduct of all my travels is that my bubble burst, and the rest of the world came rushing in…
Let’s think about NYC briefly from a Manhattan-centric P.O.V.: Some people eat sleep, and breathe below 14th street; for others, all you need is mid-town; still others won’t venture past 96th in either direction, and to most, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens might as well be in another country! Let’s also not forget the cross-town beef between the Upper East and Upper West sides…need I say more?
I know there are still a few miles to go on this issue and a lot of hard work and conversations need to be had, but in the mean time, I hope this post can serve as a polite finger that will rudely burst our collective bubble…
Adults-in-Training, what was your reaction to even reading the word “desegregation” in 2009? What is our role as the next generation stepping up in bursting the bubbles that have prevented progress? Am I making too big a deal out of this? Are bubbles sometimes necessary?
Peace,
A-i-T
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2 comments:
I think we tend to live in homogeneous neighborhoods because if we venture out of those neighborhoods we may forget who we are. I personally do not like the idea of the governement forcing bubbles to converge, mainly because the minorities who live in those neighborhoods will be labeled. Even if you are a minority from a place like Bronxville, you will be grouped with the minorities who are part of this "government intervention". Over time I think our bubbles will converge, but it shouldn't be forced. I am originally from Queens, NY then I attended prep school and CT, then Hamilton. Both Prep School in CT and Hamilton are obviously drastically different than Queens, NY (the best borough in NYC) in terms of the racial dynamic, but overall I think that I've learned people are people. There are people in the majority that are wealthy and those that are not so wealthy. The same thing can be said for people in the minority. Thisis something I did not know prior to this experience because where I am from everyone comes from the same middle class background. I am probably saying more than I should here, but overall my point is that no one should be forced to interact. If you want to live in Bronxville and you can afford it then live there. The government, however, should not create affordable housing so that minorities can live there because in my opinion this perpetuates racism and discrimination, in addition to leading to resentment. In my opinion things will naturally progress if our generation teaches our children a different way. The government needs to relax with all the regulation.
@Ledbelly: You definitely bring up some interesting points but some still fall into why bubbles can be bad. 1) Homogenous = comfortable. It also means that you have no exposure to anything other than what you already know. With the changing demographics in the US, I think it's dangerous for groups to continue to be so isolated...cos Ignorance breeds intolerance...
2) How will everyone learn that "people are just people" if they never come into contact with those different from themselves? 3) The fact of forced integration, well if that's a bad idea, then what was the civil rights movement for? That whole era was about desegregation by law, like this case, and 50 years later, don't the results speak for themselves? 4) Allowing places like Westchester keep themselves homogenous goes against progress. I understand the labeling issue, but that happens regardless. 5) The article mentions that a family earning up to $90K household income can qualify for this affordable housing...there is no minimum income requirement...so they are not saying that "low income" people should move into some corner of Westchester. What they are saying is that Westchester needs to stop actively locking minorities out of it's community -- they weren't doing it voluntarily, so they have to do it by legislative force...
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