4 ms·

The absence of other people outside your community was not an accident. Members of the government, of financial institutions and urban planning departments made

The absence of other people outside your community was not an accident. Members of the government, of financial institutions and urban planning departments made deliberate choices to exclude certain types of people: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-cas... https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history...

colechristensen 9y ago
Once again, you just don't have the context to be making that argument. One article is about the south and the other one is about racist policies in the 30's. In the 30's there were essentially no people to be racist against in my community. You're talking about urban planning departments, the concept is ludicrous in my home town which you could walk across in an hour surrounded by towns which you could walk across before finishing a sandwich.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  It can be an interesting exercise to look at the census demographics for a county between 1900 and now. My home county had more black residents in 1920 than in 1990. It wasn't accidental in many smaller towns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town I do expect that the Great Depression also contributed with small minority communities moving to cities.
  - colechristensen 9y ago
    Which I am sure is true for some places, but not all. The census count for "black" in my county in 1920 and 1900 was 5. Not 5%, 5. It was 99.97% white. It's a fact that people seem to have quite some trouble with. Much of the midwest is nearly entirely white (and at that a pretty narrow subset of northern europeans) because only a small set of people had any interest in settling there.
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      What about 1990?
      - colechristensen 9y ago
        10. The white population was "down" to 98.9%
      - maxerickson 9y ago
        What is objectionable about the above comment?
    - mturmon 9y ago
      But, thought experiment: Suppose that 5 to 10 black families decided to relocate to Gedanken, Kan. (pop. 2000) in 1920? I think the threat of race-based violence would have made this very difficult. One family, perhaps, but a little neighborhood? Not OK -- I'm thinking specifically about the Tulsa riots of 1921 and other racial violence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States#1910.E2.80.931919 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unr...). (Grew up in suburban Kansas and spent plenty of time hanging around towns like the fictional Gedanken.)
      - colechristensen 9y ago
        This exact situation happened around 1850 in Iowa, a small group of free black families settled in Fayette County. I wish I could find more than a passing reference to pass on what I've read. Iowa has a history of progressivism. For example in 1851 it was the second state to legalize interracial marriage. In 2009 it was the forth state to legalize same-sex marriage (and not through any change of the laws, the Iowa supreme court decided it was legal) I know the culture I experienced was not pervasive in the whole midwest. I'm also not saying that there weren't bigots, but it was certainly very much different than a lot of other places in this country.

colechristensen 9y ago

Once again, you just don't have the context to be making that argument. One article is about the south and the other one is about racist policies in the 30's. In the 30's there were essentially no people to be racist against in my community. You're talking about urban planning departments, the concept is ludicrous in my home town which you could walk across in an hour surrounded by towns which you could walk across before finishing a sandwich.

maxerickson 9y ago
It can be an interesting exercise to look at the census demographics for a county between 1900 and now. My home county had more black residents in 1920 than in 1990. It wasn't accidental in many smaller towns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town I do expect that the Great Depression also contributed with small minority communities moving to cities.
- colechristensen 9y ago
  Which I am sure is true for some places, but not all. The census count for "black" in my county in 1920 and 1900 was 5. Not 5%, 5. It was 99.97% white. It's a fact that people seem to have quite some trouble with. Much of the midwest is nearly entirely white (and at that a pretty narrow subset of northern europeans) because only a small set of people had any interest in settling there.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    What about 1990?
    - colechristensen 9y ago
      10. The white population was "down" to 98.9%
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      What is objectionable about the above comment?
  - mturmon 9y ago
    But, thought experiment: Suppose that 5 to 10 black families decided to relocate to Gedanken, Kan. (pop. 2000) in 1920? I think the threat of race-based violence would have made this very difficult. One family, perhaps, but a little neighborhood? Not OK -- I'm thinking specifically about the Tulsa riots of 1921 and other racial violence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States#1910.E2.80.931919 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unr...). (Grew up in suburban Kansas and spent plenty of time hanging around towns like the fictional Gedanken.)
    - colechristensen 9y ago
      This exact situation happened around 1850 in Iowa, a small group of free black families settled in Fayette County. I wish I could find more than a passing reference to pass on what I've read. Iowa has a history of progressivism. For example in 1851 it was the second state to legalize interracial marriage. In 2009 it was the forth state to legalize same-sex marriage (and not through any change of the laws, the Iowa supreme court decided it was legal) I know the culture I experienced was not pervasive in the whole midwest. I'm also not saying that there weren't bigots, but it was certainly very much different than a lot of other places in this country.