Maggie Lang, Abbi Dicenso, Akhil Damarla
Abbi:
Hey everyone my name is Abbi and welcome to our podcast, Injustices To Be Heard. Our goal here is really to share different stories on current systemic injustices that are happening in America that we kind of all collectively feel like need to be heard by a bigger audience, and for todays episode we have actually decided that we are going to split it up into 3 different segments. Each of us are going to take on one of the segments and they’re going to individually pertain to 3 different injustices that each of us want to share with you guys.
So, for today I’ve actually decided that I really want to focus on injustices against minority groups. This is something that we all know is most definitely one of the boldest and biggest blemishes on America’s rather strong reputation and systemic racism is unfortunately what stands out to be the most prominent of many issues that are currently happening in america. So many African American individuals are being discriminated against and racially profiled and it’s definitely something that we need to collectively talk about and recently in Newport a landlord by the name of David Merrymen has really hit the spotlight over racially profiling most of his clients and the situation got so bad and out of control that a client decided to sue him for 8 million dollars. This particular lawsuit really caught the eye of many media houses and social activists just for the embodiment that this entire situation has on America’s systemic racism issue. After hearing about this I just feel like everyone has the right to live in a secure and happy environment without the risk of harassment or discrimination from their homeowner.
I think is important to also talk about housing discrimination when we’re on the topic of homeowners and something that I actually found out is that currently the property difference between black and white families is still jsut as big as it was a century ago and when we say that sentence out loud and put it into perspective its actually crazy. Almost 74% of white families currently in america possess their residencies while only 44% of black families do, which is something that we found out from a recent zillow group study. This massively undermines the hurdles that people of color and immigrants are forced to clear to have good residencies in America. Personally, I really feel like America needs to gradually aim to desegregate home and eradicate such racially motivated housing discrimination cases. I hope that this first segment was interesting for you guys, I’m actually going to hand it over to Maggie whos our next host and she’s gonna be talking about some interesting stuff on minority representation in our government systems and that’s going to be super interesting and cool to hear so stay tuned, and i’m actually going to pass the mic over to her now!
Maggie:
Thanks, Abbi! Just to introduce myself, my name is Maggie and Abbi gave a great introduction to systemic injustices against minority groups as a whole, and also really honed in on the housing differences between black and white americans. Buying a house can look completely different between these two groups. However I want to take some time to focus on the lack of representation of minorities in congress and then what impact that can have on various communities.
Historic trends have had non-hispanic white Americans representing an incredibly diverse nation but without the proper representation of other races and ethnicities that also live in the United States. I wanted to start by throwing out some statistics, so 77% of the voting members in congress are white, but white Americans make up only 60% of the whole population of the United States. Over the years these ratios have definitely improved, for example black individuals make up around 13% of the US population and that matches their percentage of representation in congress, close enough. Hispanic and asian Americans, however, they really don’t have the same ratio of congress representation to percent of the population. So, overall, this statistic shows that there is definitely still some work to be done to help these other communities and other minorities have a larger voice in their government systems to then impact the policies that are made.
Currently, our government is proud to have the most diverse congress yet in our nation’s history. And this is great progress from where we started, but I think the celebration should be saved until everyone has adequate representation in the government. It’s important to take a deeper look into those statistics as well. Most of this diversity is coming from our democratic representatives, so this is implying that the large scale representation is becoming more present, but we have to ask ourselves if the minority
groups in republican states are also feeling as heard?
This can definitely be tied into our discussions about Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak”. I think they most definitely can speak, they have been speaking, and should be able to speak even way louder than they already do. But, our government makes it incredibly difficult when people tend to vote for who is “familiar”. Unfortunately, the ones that are familiar are the older white individuals because they have had power in congress for decades. This then creates a cycle that is incredibly difficult to break, where familiar white individuals are being reelected to make decisions for everyone, and can shape what kinds of policies are enacted and can make really long lasting impacts. Many controversial topics in America, such as gun violence or abortion, for example, can negatively impact these minority groups more so than white individuals. Just to touch on this lightly, access to abortion is decreasing drastically and minority women make up the majority of women receiving abortionsas a whole. If access to safe abortions continues to decline like this, the women primarily affected will be the minority women. And I would like to assume that If there were greater representation of these minorities in congress, or in the government as a whole, combined with having more women in congress, the abortion decision could be determined by the women who would be receiving them, in support of all the women across the country. So, I hope you enjoyed that part of the segment, I’m going to pass the mic over to Akhil, who is our next host, and he will continue to talk about systemic injustices that were brought to light during Hurricane Ida. So, I’m going to pass the mic over to him now.
Akhil:
Thanks Maggie! Thinking about Louisiana I think about the rich culture and some of the best food in the country. Or maybe you’re aware of the New Orlean Saints or the Pelicans. Regardless of what you associate Louisiana with it’s one of the best cities to visit. But there’s been something even greater that Louisiana has been in the news for in the last few months. Although Louisiana endures some of the worst weather during hurricane season this year they took another hit with Hurricane Ida. It is sad to see many lives lost and communities completely uprooted. But coinciding with the theme today, in what should be an equal battle for all isn’t the case. Due to years of systemic racism, infrastructure built around the state is uneven in quality and abundance. For example, black communities don’t have the same resources available compared to those of the wealthy, white neighborhoods. This is due to the direct failure of political and corporate leaders not building adequate infrastructure for black communities and people of a minority.
I believe that hurricane Ida was a blessing in disguise in a sense. Due to this incident, it brought out an ongoing problem in our country; years of inconsistent development by our government to minority communities. This is a clear issue risen from systemic racism/injustice. Seeing as the problem is embedded in our government system it can only be changed at a high level. This was also clearly seen in Hurricane Katrina as most white families were able to recover at an alarmingly fast rate and the black community was blatantly neglected. I believe that now the black community has a stronger voice than it had 16 years ago. Even this may not be enough to see an immediate change. The problem is deeply rooted in our government as politicians try to convince us that racism is the result of individual behavior, rather than policies, but in reality, several of these policies are designed to maintain white supremacy and privilege.
Additionally, climate disasters themselves aren’t just the product of misfortune. It is a derivation of poverty and corporate powers abusing the influence they have in politics causing politicians to cut off resources from communities from groups that need them. Corporations that have the means to ensure housing and substantial recovery for survivors of disaster but choose to do nothing are attacking Black communities, no matter what their slick advertisements featuring Black people may say. To understand the impact of climate change and refusing to implement legislative regulations to halt its impact is another form of attack on Black communities.
Last year, corporations of all kinds publicly claimed to care about racial justice. But the fact is, moments like these let us know which corporations are actually willing to put their money where their values are. Energy providers like Entergy and hospitality companies like Hyatt have an opportunity to uphold their commitments to justice and directly help those displaced in Louisiana. If they claim to care about Black lives, they, too, must support Black livelihood and wellbeing.
To this day we haven’t seen enough change in how the black community gets treated. And this isn’t just at a community level but rather at the government level. They allow builders to create low-quality homes for black people in order to return higher profits. This form of systemic racism becomes amplified when these communities are in need of help. To combat this, we need to acknowledge how systemic racism has affected the nation and not be blind to small gestures that show it. Our country has seen the effect of how natural disasters and COVID has affected communities that don’t have proper infrastructure due to exploitation. It shouldn’t take another hurricane or global pandemic to bring out the problems our government is trying to turn a blind eye to.
Thanks for tuning into Injustices to be Heard! And until next week be proactive in your community and let your voice be heard!
Sources:
Schaeffer, K. (2021, January 28). Racial, ethnic diversity increases yet again with the 117th congress. Pew Research Center. Retrieved November 20, 2021, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/28/racial-ethnic-diversity-increases-yet-again-with-the-117th-congress/.