Perhaps we, as people of European decent (and maybe even people of color), may never truly realize how the exploitation of millions of people in the history of the United States has become an investment in white people. George Lipsitz, the author of Possessive Investment in Whiteness, argues that since the beginning of U.S. history, there has been an intense investment in the white folks at the cost of people of color; therefore creating a noticeable gap between race and wealth: “Desire for slave labor Encouraged European settlers in North America to view, first, Native Americans and, later, African Americans as racially inferior people suited “by nature” for the humiliating subordination of involuntary servitude” (Lipsitz, 68). In addition
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Lipsitz explains: “Durning the New Deal Era of the 1930s and 1940s, both the Wagner Act and the Social Security Act excluded farm workers and domestics from coverage, effectively denying those disproportionately minority sectors of the workforce protections and benefits routinely afforded whites” (Lipsitz, 70). Nonwhite people have historically been rejected the privileges that whites seemingly receive without even acknowledging it — freedom from slavery, benefits of the SSA in the 1940s, and even receiving housing loans from the Federal Housing Agency (FHA). The article details that in the 1930s, the loans distributed from the FHA was mostly given to white people rather than those of color (Lipsitz, 70) — meaning that more white people had the opportunity to own a home than blacks. This action was just one more factor to widen the gap of wealth and …show more content…
government. The funding of these highways, joined by efforts of urban renewal projects in the 60s, would split minority neighborhoods — ultimately causing segregation in these neighborhoods. “… federal highway building projects subsidized the growth of segregated suburbs, urban renewal programs in cities throughout the country devastated minority neighborhoods” (Lipsitz, 71). This crisis doesn 't stop at segregation — it continues at prisons, dump sites, sewage treatment plants, and other problematic development being built near minority neighborhoods (Lipsitz, 73). There was very little done to stop this issue: Lipsitz explains that penalties for companies that pollute air and water in white neighborhoods was about $335,566, compared to minority neighborhoods which were only $55,318. And profits from these companies did not correlate with the penalties in which they received (Lipsitz, 73). But it doesn’t seem to many whites that we have an issue. It apparently can be easy to blame the black community for being in
Lipsitz explains: “Durning the New Deal Era of the 1930s and 1940s, both the Wagner Act and the Social Security Act excluded farm workers and domestics from coverage, effectively denying those disproportionately minority sectors of the workforce protections and benefits routinely afforded whites” (Lipsitz, 70). Nonwhite people have historically been rejected the privileges that whites seemingly receive without even acknowledging it — freedom from slavery, benefits of the SSA in the 1940s, and even receiving housing loans from the Federal Housing Agency (FHA). The article details that in the 1930s, the loans distributed from the FHA was mostly given to white people rather than those of color (Lipsitz, 70) — meaning that more white people had the opportunity to own a home than blacks. This action was just one more factor to widen the gap of wealth and …show more content…
government. The funding of these highways, joined by efforts of urban renewal projects in the 60s, would split minority neighborhoods — ultimately causing segregation in these neighborhoods. “… federal highway building projects subsidized the growth of segregated suburbs, urban renewal programs in cities throughout the country devastated minority neighborhoods” (Lipsitz, 71). This crisis doesn 't stop at segregation — it continues at prisons, dump sites, sewage treatment plants, and other problematic development being built near minority neighborhoods (Lipsitz, 73). There was very little done to stop this issue: Lipsitz explains that penalties for companies that pollute air and water in white neighborhoods was about $335,566, compared to minority neighborhoods which were only $55,318. And profits from these companies did not correlate with the penalties in which they received (Lipsitz, 73). But it doesn’t seem to many whites that we have an issue. It apparently can be easy to blame the black community for being in