“Jim Crow of the North” is a documentary directed by Daniel Pierce Bergin to show the roots of the worst racial disparities in Minnesota. The film describes the progression of racist practices and policies after restrictive covenants began in the late 1960s. These restrictive covenants became the foundation of discriminatory policies that resulted in the inequalities Minnesota faces today. Housing segregation significantly impacts the lives of individuals and communities. First, high residential segregation instances restrict opportunities for Black people compared to other races. With discriminatory barriers, individual Blacks will have fewer chances to capitalize on their hard-earned income and obtain desirable living locations. Black families will have to reside in disadvantaged neighborhoods compared to white counterparts of equal social status. Additionally, the communities of color will lack access to quality jobs, health care, schools, and other social amenities.
Origin of Current Racial Disparities
Racial segregation has allowed resource withholding and geographical targeting of minority communities through undesirable practices and policies, such as devaluation, underinvestment, and over-policing. The aforementioned forces impede the accumulation of wealth and the prevention of social mobility. Current racial disparities can be traced back to the beginning of restrictive covenants. The high racial wealth gap and the low Black homeownership are results of systemic racism, which includes the Jim Crow segregation rule and other policies against Black people. Housing segregation leads to the extraction of critical resources and wealth that propel social and economic mobility from Black communities, fastening a downward socioeconomic movement. For example, schools that are dominated by minority communities receive less funding than white institutions by $23 billion. The reason for this is that these schools mostly depend on local property taxes for funding rather than the broader government pool.
The solution to closing the racial wealth gap through equalizing education is flawed. Graduates from white colleges have more wealth than those from Black institutions. Therefore, this means that a singularly focused strategy to increase the attainment of a university degree cannot reduce the racial wealth disparity. In addition, resources from disadvantaged neighborhoods have fewer financial literacy opportunities, more payday lenders, and few options for banking. With this, the development of Black businesses is throttled by the people’s lack of overall wealth and homeownership, which are trickle-down effects of Jim Crow’s segregation and other restrictive covenants.
The history of African Americans in higher education directly relates to the manner minorities were historically treated in the US society.
Prior to the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s, the concept of “separate but equal“ which was upheld by the Court’s decision on Plessy v. Ferguson case in 1896 and which dominated in multiple spheres – the major population did not believe in social integration but allowed minorities to live their lives without interfering with “white business” including education (Masters, n.d., p. 163).
In 1954, the US Supreme Court first recognized that the doctrine of “separate but equal” should not be present in the system of public education and expressed the idea of racially integrated society and provision of equal opportunities in its opinion on the case of Brown v. Board of Education (Washburn, 1994).
In its conclusion on the case, the Supreme Court stated that integrated schools are potentially more effective in providing a better education for diverse students.
Although the constitutional mandate of Brown and some other legal cases substantially supported the positive changes in the educational system and provoked the increase in representation of black students in education, at the end of the 20th century, there were many disparities in wealth distribution between blacks and whites which maintained from one generation to another (Oliver & Shapiro, 1995).
The controversies between the positive perspective on integrated education associated with multiple benefits and the persistent hostility between different racial populations correlated with socially unequal practices continue to challenge the treatment of racial problems in colleges even today.
The Civil Rights Movement
Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, the Civil Rights Movement was gaining momentum, and such well-educated leaders like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and others fought for equal opportunities for African Americans and demolition of Jim Crow regime (Masters, n.d.).
According to Morris (1999), the major prerequisites of the Civil Rights Movement and the consequent changes in the education system are related to the internal development of the Black community and the spread of African American citizens across the southern and northern cities.
As the struggle for equality provoked some advances in the US education system and policies, the first African American students – James Meredith, Vivian Malone, and James Hood, – enrolled in historically white colleges (Masters, n.d.). Nevertheless, they faced a lot of verbal and physical harassment indicating that the hostility ingrained in the social mindset cannot be erased overnight.
Partially due to the hardships the black students faced in the desegregated colleges at the initial stages of racial integration in education, some educators and researchers suggested that the southern racially identifiable schools which provided a supportive environment for African American students were better for them (Washburn, 1994).
Since in this way, some predominantly black colleges, e.g., in Mississippi Valley State, continued the unconstitutional practice of segregation, the state authorities proposed a plan to attract more white students to campuses and balance diverse student populations by developing new programs (Washburn, 1994).
At the same time, the analysis of statistics collected throughout the period between 1976 and 2004 reveals that the number of African American students enrolling in various predominantly white colleges across the country has increased by 103 percent, and the number of Hispanic students’ admissions has grown by 461 percent (Masters, n.d.).
The statistical data makes it clear that opportunities for an excellent college education are on the rise for diverse student populations. However, there is still a significant imbalance in the representation of African Americans in higher education (Masters, n.d.).
It means that although theoretically education was desegregated during the 1960’s, the racial tensions in the system of higher education continue to exist making it clear that the country is “living in the shadow of history” (Masters, n.d., p. 168).
Representation of African Americans in Higher Education
According to Masters (n.d.), underrepresentation of blacks in higher education may be positively correlated with their positioning and capacity of decision making in the field of education because “if there is no representation with regards to decision making power, blacks are again subservient to commonly white ideals” (p. 163).
The presence of African Americans in the US Congress was limited even when the constitutional orientation towards racial equality was adopted in the second half of the 20th century. It is observed that there were only five African American senators in the United States since 1990 while the total number of members is 435 (Masters, n.d.).
It is also observed that, over a significant time period, African Americans became heads of universities primarily in historically black universities including Jackson State University, Alabama A&M University, and some others, while the majority of prestigious US universities are mostly run by white males (Masters, n.d.).
The number of black professors remains low as well. Even in the 21st century, the nation-wide rate of African American full-time faculty representation is 5.2 percent (Masters, n.d.).
Statistics on Minority Representation in the US colleges, (%).
Summary
The literature review makes it clear that historically the minor racial groups are more disadvantaged in comparison to the major white population in terms of wealth holdings and opportunities in multiple spheres of life (Oliver & Shapiro, 1995).
However, the collective actions of the African American community members have triggered some favorable shifts in social structures and institutions including education.
Although some racial prejudices continue to exist after enacting the initiatives aimed to desegregate education and the echoes of Jim Crow era still influence the representation rates in the higher education system, the increased number of black students in the historically white universities and colleges indicate that the situation has improved.
Nevertheless, it is important to increase the number of African American leaders and academics who can influence policy formation and development of education plans in order to balance the African American representation and minimize the disparities that still exist.
References
Masters, B. (n.d.). The underrepresentation of blacks in higher education. Web.
Morris, A. D. (1999). A retrospective on the civil rights movement: Political and intellectual landmarks. Annual Review of Sociology,25(1), 517-539. Web.
Oliver, M. L., & Shapiro, T. M. (1995). Black wealth/white wealth: A new perspective on racial inequality. New York: Routledge.
Washburn, J. A. (1994). Beyond Brown: Evaluating equality in higher education. Duke Law Journal,43(5), 1115. Web.
When speaking of the urban landscapes of Brazil, one can hardly escape the image of favelas. The tern “favela” itself is a rather complex one, as it describes different neighborhoods with varying population compositions (Costas 2011, 116). Still, in its most general meaning that is used in this paper, favela designates a neighborhood in a peripheral space of a Brazilian metropolis, often populated by Afro-Brazilians and associated with drug trafficking. Since favelas are perceived as a distinctive landmark of Brazilian cities – especially Rio de Janeiro – it is no wonder that they play a prominent role in the works of art and cinematography in general.
One example of depicting favelas on the screen is City of God (original Portuguese Cidade de Deus), a 2002 movie directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund. Set in Rio de Janeiro, the film explores various cityscapes of the largest Brazilian metropolis but primarily focuses on the eponymous favela. The city of God represents Rio as a place of strict spatial segregation, where favelas are isolated from the better parts of the city but continue to measure themselves against them.
The city of God aims to be a true-to-life depiction of criminalized favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and, as such, would best qualify as a criminal drama genre-wise. The story, narrated by the main character nicknamed Buscapé (“Firecracker” of “Rocket”), follows the lives of different inhabitants of the City of God across several decades from the 1960s to the early 1980s. The vast majority of the characters, with the exclusion of Buscapé himself, are involved in some kind of criminal activity, which, more often than not, happens to be drug trafficking.
This portrayal reflects the dominant trend for depicting favelas in popular culture: while drugs lord do not control all of them, “drug trafficking and insecurity” are the first associations with this type of neighborhood (Costas 2011, 116). Aside from Buscapé, arguably, the two most notable characters are rival drug dealers Zé Pequeno (Li’l Zé) and Cenoura (Carrot), who struggle for power over their favela and eventually start a gang war. The conflict between these two remains a driving force of the plot for the final part of the film and contributes in a significant way to the depiction of Rio’s urban landscape.
A particular scene closer to the final act of the film highlights the segregation inherent in the cityscape of a Brazilian metropolis. In the middle of the gang war mentioned above, Li’l Zé founds a newspaper issue with a picture of Knockout Ned, one of Carrot’s associates. Jealous of the media attention received by his foe’s underling, the drug lord asks whether there is his picture in the paper, only to find out there is not. Perceiving himself as the de-facto ruler of his favela, Li’l Zé is sure that at least his name should make it into the article and orders his subordinates to read it carefully, but to no avail.
Angered and frustrated, the gang leader makes his men read the entire paper, ads included, but finds no mention of himself whatsoever. This scene hints at dichotomy central for depicting favelas in popular culture: the binary opposition between “favelas” as peripheral spaces of evil and “asphalt” as well-ordered middle-class neighborhoods (Costas 2011, 116). To understand why Li’l Zé is insulted by an article mentioning his rival’s subordinate, it is necessary to take a closer look at this dichotomy.
For the population of favelas as portrayed in the City of God, the isolation from the rest of the city is a default condition normal in the context of their daily lives. Among other things, this separation manifests in visible racial traits – the film depicts favela as populated exclusively by Afro-Brazilians, while the inhabitants of better parts of Rio are mostly fair-skinned. As a result, the City of God describes an urban landscape “hermetically separated” from Rio proper (Costas 2011, 123).
Moreover, at the time of the afore-mentioned scene, the City of God is mostly isolated from the larger Rio due to the gang war going on. It means that the usual spatial segregation into neat and orderly middle-class neighborhoods, that lie closer to the city’s center, and spaces of crime and chaos, that occupy its periphery, is stronger than ever. By appearing in a newspaper, Knockout Ned symbolically overcomes this separation, which designates him as more powerful than Li’l Zé, who does not even get a mention. This accidental demonstration of power to transcend borders separating asphalt from favelas is what angers the drug lord of the City of God.
The scene also hints at another characteristic feature of the asphalt-favela dichotomy: while spatially separated from the middle-class neighborhoods, the inhabitants of favelas continue measuring themselves against the more respectable parts of the city. While some of the better-off favelas in Brazilian cities have “schools, medical services, their own newspaper, radio, etc.,” The city of God is not one of these (Costas 2011, 116).
The newspaper is, therefore, an artifact of asphalt, and the window into how the outer Rio perceives favelas and their inhabitants. In this light, Li’l Zé’s indignation upon learning that the article mentions his rival’s subordinate, but not himself, is a double insult. Not only it depicts the Carrot’s associate as capable of overcoming the near-absolute spatial segregation, but it also designates him as more interesting to the outer world. The anger and frustration shown by Li’l Zé demonstrate evidently that, despite its isolation in Rio’s cityscape, the population of favelas still measures itself against the asphalt and wants to appear significant to its inhabitants. This lack of perceived significance for the better neighborhoods adds insult to injury and infuriates the gang leader.
As one can see, the City of God portrays the urban landscape of Rio de Janeiro as a place of strict spatial segregation, that separates favelas from better parts of the city. This segregation manifests vividly in the scene where a drug lord nicknamed Li’l Zé discovers that an article about his favela mentions his rival’s subordinate, but not himself. His anger at this fact hints at strict segregation of a Brazilian cityscape into “asphalt” as the orderly middle-class neighborhoods and “favelas” as the peripheral spaces of evil.
Appearing in a newspaper printed in larger Rio means symbolically overcoming these spatial borders, which is a feat to envy for any inhabitant of a favela. Moreover, the paper is an artifact of the asphalt as opposed to favelas, and appearing in it means appearing significant to the outer world. Thus, favelas, as they appear in the City of God, are separated from the better neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro but still measure themselves against them and aspire for recognition beyond the city’s isolated periphery.
Reference
Costas, Gundo Rial y. 2011. “Spaces of insecurity? The “favelas” of Rio de Janeiro between stigmatization and glorification.” Iberoamericana (2001-), Nueva época 11, no. 41 (Marzo): 115-128.
