For my showcase of systemic injustices I will be expanding on the injustices faced by black families in predominantly white neighborhoods. Systemic injustice is deeply ingrained racist thinking and actions embedded in the core foundations of American society that have persisted and continue today. My hometown is majority white families with a single black family. No one in the neighborhood looks down upon this family but it is strange to see how people from neighboring towns “act” around them when they come to visit for sports games or other events. This really shows how people’s idea of wealthy neighborhoods have a picture of white families and a black family does not fall into their schema of how these neighborhoods should look. This relates to the topic of De Beauvoir’s theory of the self and the other because the black family in my neighborhood is viewed as the other to the people that come visit for sports games and other events.
Classifying people into different wealth groups and assuming the neighborhood they live in based on the color of their skin is an example of systemic injustice that needs to be stopped. This is also prominent in the media today in shows such as ‘All American’. “In telling stories of the Black youth experience in America, All American balances the good and the bad. ‘It’s the Black boy joy and then the slap back to reality when they have a run-in with a police officer'” ( https://ew.com/tv/all-american-black-youth-in-america/ ). In a scene the main characters Jordan and Spencer, two black young men, get stopped by the police when eating ice cream for being in a white neighborhood. In reality they both live in this neighborhood which emphasizes the issues being faced by young black people in the world. The movement Black Lives Matter is also emphasized in this show to get more much deserved support for this movement.
The categories of identity that are in play in this example are race, and socioeconomic status. To change this issue, first people would need to start educating themselves and those around them on statistics about the present day that black families and white families can be equally as wealthy. People’s deep rooted views of the past need to be altered. When I did more research on why wealthy areas are thought to be white areas a surprising article came up. In a study by Elizabeth Delmelle she looked into nine distinct types of neighborhoods that form the modern metropolis. These nine types included: “1. Wealthy, white, educated, 2. Newer single-family homes, largely white, high socioeconomic status, 3. White and Asian, multiunit housing, educated, recent in-movers, high-home values, 4. Older homes, white, some Hispanic, blue-collar workers, 5. Hispanic and black, higher poverty, deteriorating, older, single-family homes, 6. Black, high poverty, vacant homes, 7. Hispanic and foreign born, high poverty, single-family homes, 8. Mixed race, average socioeconomic status, renters, 9. Asian, foreign born, multi unit homes, high poverty, recent in-movers” (Florida, 2019). All the white neighborhoods are considered educated and wealthy, while the black neighborhoods all revolve around poverty. It is because of this that many people have a hard time picturing black families in wealthy neighborhoods.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-class-white-and-black-men.html