Author: aheather

My paper topic for this class is the link between capitalist systems and racism and how each can be used to fuel the other. While writing my paper, I saw a connection between this topic and a book that I read for my Poverty Studies class. The book Evicted by Matthew Desmond follows the lives of several people in poverty who particularly struggle with finding housing and being evicted. Desmond points out in the book that these struggles disproportionately affect African-American women and children. One of the reasons so many people in America today struggle with getting affordable housing and are being evicted is because of how the housing system and market function in America. A report from 2021 calculates that Americans making approximately 54,336 dollars per year paid 41% of their salary in rent (“One Year After Eviction Moratorium Ends, Renters Face Affordability Crisis” – Natalie Campisi). Paying over 30% of your income in rent labels you as cost-burdened, which means a large majority of Americans, particularly African-American women, are cost-burdened. This is a flawed system because it is much more difficult to escape poverty when rent is so high, and the evictions that are common because of this make it even more challenging. As well, the jobs that people in poverty have, particularly the jobs of African-American women in poverty, do not supply them with enough income to pay for their rent on top of other expenses. These jobs also have a higher turnover rate and a greater risk of becoming automated, so the people who need reliable income the most are actually the ones most likely to lose their job. Another reason women struggle more than men with eviction is that more women than men have children to take care of. Landlords often associate children with disturbances such as noise complaints, raising the risk of them being evicted. As well, taking care of children means there is less income to spend on rent, increasing the likelihood of eviction. There are also particular laws in place that negatively affect people in poverty when it comes to housing and evictions. Nuisance Ordinances are laws that make it so that police will stop coming to houses if they call too many times. This makes it so that these people do not want to call the police, even though they face increased levels of domestic violence. Making their situation even worse, these laws make it so that the police being called too many times to a particular house can be grounds for eviction. This is an unfair law since these people are being incentivized to not use public resources to stop violence in their homes because they fear eviction. This means African-American women will end up getting less help with domestic violence simply because of certain laws. These laws together, in more areas than just housing, keep people of color in poverty. It’s important that more people are made aware of these laws and how they negatively affect certain groups of people. 

Works Cited

Campisi, Natalie. “One Year after Eviction Moratorium Ends, Renters Face Affordability Crisis.” 

Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 26 Aug. 2022, https://www.forbes.com/advisor/personal-finance/rental-housing-costs-rise/#:~:text=While%20wrongful%20evictions%20certainly%20contribute%20to%20housing%20insecurity,price%20growth%20and%20inflation%20cleave%20at%20already-low%20wages. 

Desmond, Matthew. Evicted. Crown/Archetype, 2016. 

Baldassari, Molly SolomonErin, et al. “Why Black Women Are More Likely to Face Eviction.” 

KQED, 21 Feb. 2022, https://www.kqed.org/news/11905386/why-black-women-are-more-likely-to-face-eviction.

The Development of African American Culture

Characteristics of Negro Expression by Zora Neale Hurston is a commentary on African American culture in which Hurston speaks with authority. She discusses the various ways in which African American culture differs from “white” culture in America and the reasons behind this. I particularly find interesting her discussion of the African American vernacular. It’s evident that America’s culture as a whole is an assortment of different cultures from throughout history since so many different groups of people emigrated or were brought against their will to America. Just as America’s current culture has so many different influences, African American culture seemed to be made up of many different cultures itself. An example of this is from the African American practice of Hoodoo, which Hurston studied in New Orleans. It’s a mix of Christianity and traditional African religions, combining together to form something entirely new. Another example of this is the rise of Jazz music in America, which originated in African American communities and was a blend of many different musical styles. What is interesting though is how African American culture developed in contrast to other ethnic groups in America. Africans were brought to America against their will and remained enslaved for centuries, so they could not pass as much of their culture on to future generations as other cultures could. This did not keep African Americans from developing their own culture though, as Huston points out. Many English words were modified over time to create an African American vernacular that is still used by African Americans today. What was able to be passed on though were stories, particularly folk tales. Hurston’s Mules and Men is a collection of these stories, and it’s interesting to see the common elements throughout. For one, there seems to be a recurring device where a weaker character overcomes a more powerful character using their wits. I wonder if this plot element has to do with the enslaved state of African Americans at the time, with the dominating white class being the seemingly unbeatable antagonist like in the stories.

This week we read two parts from the book Gulliver’s Travels: A Voyage to Lilliput and A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms. Both of these parts have to do with the main character Gulliver coming into contact with different, strange cultures and civilizations. In a Voyage to Lilliput, Gulliver comes into contact with a civilization of humans who are tiny and in A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms he discovers a race of intelligent horses who look down upon a deformed humanoid race that also lives there. Pinning down the exact themes of these parts was somewhat difficult. At the time, the European mode of thought was that Europe and Europeans were superior to the rest of the world and this theory were often used to justify racism and slavery. Ironically, Gulliver comes to hate humanity after coming into contact with the Houyhnhnms, believing them to have a perfect society. He sees more of himself and humanity as a whole in the Yahoos, the deformed humanoid creatures. In contrast to this, Gulliver is critical of the Lilliputians and their obsessions with politicking and trivial matters. Whether or not this was intended by Swift, it seems to shed light on the stupidity of racial superiority by commenting on it with humor and absurdism. Another interesting point that is connected to the other reading for the week, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is the idea of innate evil vs corruptibility. While Gulliver Would not be considered evil, he goes from cheerful and optimistic in the beginning of the book to hating humanity and being a cynic toward the end. This would suggest that negative traits like these are Learned rather than innate. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass explains how when he was sold to a new master, his new mistress became Sophia Auld. He explains how she started off as kind but slowly turns cruel the longer he was her slave. This point sheds light on the corrupting nature of slavery And how racism isn’t innate but rather hatred and prejudice that is learned. Another interesting point which I think is related to African American culture today is how Douglass explains at the beginning of the book how he, and all the slaves he met, did now know their birthdays. Along with this fact, slaves were often separated from their families, particularly their mothers, at a young age. This shows how slaveholders essentially erased any sense of identity that slaves could have, since family heritage and their previous African culture could not be passed down when families were separated. I believe this was one of the causes of the developing of African American vernacular and African American culture as a distinct culture from that of Africa. 

At the beginning of the semester, we discussed the concept of the Irish “becoming white” in America. The concept is that Irish people were able to reap the benefits of white Americans by assimilating to American culture. This was made possible by their white skin and ability to blend in, something that African Americans couldn’t do. After reading “Black Irish, Irish Whiteness, and Atlantic State Formation” by David Lloyd, I understood other factors that influence this phenomenon. In the 19th century, Irish people faced discrimination from the British Empire. This had a lot to do with the industrial revolution and the emerging capitalist system in the British Empire. Most of the Irish population at the time were subsistence farmers, which contrasted with the growing urban, industrial system the British Empire needed to grow their empire and economy. Because of this, the Irish were viewed as “peasantry” and were said to have “wildness”, akin to savagery. Irish immigrants in England were said to be “infecting” the working class and were unfit for urban. With Irish immigrants in America, it was a story than in England. The growing industrial economy in America needed people who had no desire to expand westward and would work cheap and relatively low-skill jobs. The Irish fit this bill, which is one of the reasons they were more accepted into society: they supported the capitalist system at the time. In the reading, The Performative Commons and the Aesthetic Atlantic by Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, Dillon also comments on how capitalism shaped many of the relationships and attitudes towards ethnic groups at the time and how the transatlantic system was built on colonization and capitalism. She notes that your identity in the transatlantic system was often decided by how you fit into the capitalist-colonial system. An example of this is that the Irish were viewed as lesser by the British since they did not support the growing industrial system of the time. Another interesting point is the similarities in how the Irish and African Americans were viewed by their respective oppressors. They were both seen as “unfit” to entire the emerging industrial society as free workers. They were both viewed as a “savage” race of people who would be dangerous if they fully entered society. Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish philosopher, comments that if black people in the Caribbean were set free, it would become a “Black Ireland”.

Today in class we discussed multiple historical perspectives on racial identity and the concept of “becoming white”. “Becoming white” is the concept that when people immigrate to America, they lose their old cultural identity and align themselves with the “white standard”. Historically, this was advantageous for immigrants so they could attempt to avoid discrimination from the white ruling class in America. However, it was easier for certain ethnicities to “become white” than others. For example, an Irish immigrant would have a much easier time than a freed slave when trying to blend in with the majority white, American population. This trend of becoming white has led many people to lose their old cultural and ethnic identity, although in modern times there is a resurgence of ancestral cultural identity. For example, many white Americans claim to “be Irish” because they have or believe they have Irish ancestry. A surge in the popularity of Irish culture has also become prevalent in modern America as many people claim Irish ancestry. This leads to a more extensive discussion of racial identity and the concept of race itself. Historically, racial identity has differed across the world. For example, in some parts of the world, you were considered black if you had any African blood even if you were majority white. In other parts of the world, even a small amount of European blood in a majority black person would make them European according to societal standards of the time. In modern times, there are those who believe racial identity is completely subjective and up to the individual, while others believe racial identity is more concrete. The concept of gender identity has some similar points. The common consensus today is that gender identity is not necessarily aligned with sex and is up to the individual person. It is interesting to compare the Western response to gender identity and transgenderism to the concept of “becoming white”. We discussed in class how some European immigrants to America were able to blend into the ruling white class because of their skin tone, even though their original ethnic identity was not “American”. The ability to “whitewash” or remove a cultural or ethnic identity in order to transition to a white American identity was seen as a way to avoid discrimination and gain power, as being a white nonimmigrant meant you would face less discrimination. What is interesting is how this differs from gender and sex changes. Many would argue that we still live in a patriarchal society, and historically society has been patriarchal. Men historically have had more rights and power than women. Despite this, transgender men have not inherited the power or benefits of the patriarchy. In fact, they have received more discrimination and harassment when becoming transgender. It seems that transitioning from identifying as one gender to the other does not come with the same benefits as changing one’s ethnic identity has historically had.