“A Lighter Shade of Brown?” by Alfredo Huante examines gentrification in Boyle Heights, a community that has received attention due to activists against gentrification, and how gentrification works to empower and protect the white dominance and establishes new racial hierarchies and perpetuates racial inequalities. How to Kill a City: San Francisco by Peter Moskowitz is a case study examining the ways in which San Francisco, a city that was known for its diverse populations, has become gentrified and left its original communities to the edges. Last Black Man in San Francisco is a film about the lived experience of gentrification and the people and communities it directly impacts. How to Kill a City: San Francisco mentions this film and how it was created by residents in San Francisco and the intentionality of using old school film techniques to encapsulate the original San Francisco. Both papers examine cities in California, a state that has become increasingly expensive to live in, which is why my own family moved to Georgia. Additionally, this quote, “ This is what a gentrified city looks like: nothing like a city at all” (Moskowitz 159), connects all three pieces together because gentrification takes away the natural beauty that is created through diverse communities and replaces it with capitalist ideologies and businesses that continue to protect white dominance. The worst part of all of this is that when gentrification happens and white people move into these communities, the government begins to invest and make roots that they never did when people of color resided there. Additionally, “A Lighter Shade of Brown?” highlighted the idea of “educated vs uneducated” became established but it is not really about who knows more or less but rather who has learned more about white supremacy ideologies and has internalized them into their practices. Gentrification is a process of taking what people of color have created within their communities and kicking them out to use their cultural contributions, labor, and communities for profit and aesthetic appeal. It displaces Black and Brown residents, erasing histories and replacing them with commercialized versions that cater to the white and wealthy and creates racial inequalities and hierarchies to protect this new version. My family lived in California for their whole lives but they had to leave, and my aunt who lives there now has to rent rooms in her home to stay afloat.
Author: Sophie Vasquez
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Sophia Vasquez- Week 5
“The Dysfunctional and the Disappearing: Democracy, Race and Imprisonment” highlights the industrial prison complex and how the prison system perpetuates a new form of modern slavery. The article delves into how the policing system purposely profiles and unfairly arrests and harshly imprisons black citizens to place them into the prison system at higher rates than white counterparts to use them as free labor. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano describes the experience of being enslaved in the narrator’s home country and traded to then being forced into the triangular slave trade. With that in mind, both texts compliment each other because the narrative establishes the abuses experienced by black people that have now morphed into the inequalities and abuses of the prison system. While the article and narrative do not exactly establish this the slave trade and prison system were strategic in limiting the power of black people while using there strength.The narrative was quite haunting because when Olaudah did not want to eat out of depression he was abused into submission and the living conditions he was placed in were so bad people were getting sick and dying. Similarly, the article mentioned how many prisoners were abused if they refused to work out of protest and were often tied up and left in inhumane weather conditions as a form of torture. I understood that the prison systems were unjust, however, I had no idea that the majority of people in prison are people of color and they are punished harsher for crimes than their white counterparts. Reading both pieces together really connects how slavery was never truly abolished but was just legalized and institutionalized into the governmental system. Furthermore, I did some research and found that almost half a billion is invested into prison systems but they can’t pay them more than a dollar and instead of investing into rehabilitation they are deteriorating the mental health of these people and killing them off with the death penalty. Lastly, I wanted to touch on the last part of the narrative, where he began to convict those who enforce slavery yet say they are “Christian” because the abuse they are enforcing is opposite of the theology within the Bible. He really knew his readers and I think pointed out their hypocrisy and how it ruined his life. -
Sophia Vasquez
Still Falling Through the Cracks was a meta-analysis paper about the educational pipeline for latinx students focusing on California school and higher education systems and providing recommendations to schools on how to improve the pipeline for Latinx students. Precious Knowledge was a film focused on the importance of ethnic studies courses for Latinx students and how that improves the students outlook on education. The paper we read was more of an overarching paper about the problems with the education system for Latinx students and Precious Knowledge, from the small snippet we watched, is focused more on a specific school system, Arizona, and how in a way the teachers at this school are somewhat portraying the recommendations in the paper in a real education system. Both articles have an overarching idea, that we have been discussing in class, that the system is the issue and is not uplifting our communities. For example, students like in Precious Knowledge are retaliating against it by making sure their history, American history, is protected and not allowing the system to define what their history is similar to how many Indigenous communities will not allow themselves to be identified as Native American. Both pieces do a great job at not just stating what the problem is, the system, but promoting solutions that can be applied nationwide. One thing I found disheartening within the paper was the fact that promotion and tenure were not defined strictly and were harder to attain for Latinx professors. I had assumed that they were standardized but again ambiguity allows for white supremacy to persevere. One thing I found beautiful was the way the teacher taught about the different deities from MesoAmerica, he was able to create life-lessons from what each deity represents to help students practice those life-lessons and learn about what each deity is. I am a person of faith and this way of teaching about different cultures is very beautiful and shows the humanity that has been so often stripped from these cultures. The film and paper highlighted the importance of changing the narrative and creating empathy for Latinx students because before it was projected that these students did not care but rather that they were given up on and internalized those perceptions. Latinx students have been set up to fail and it is the communities responsibility to uplift and provide resources that the system will not provide. -
Sophia Vasquez
In Whiteness as Property, Professor Cheryl I. Harris examines how “whiteness” functions as an exclusive property right in the United States, one that has been legally protected and upheld for a select few. She discusses two landmark cases, Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, to demonstrate how legal systems have shaped and maintained the concept of whiteness.
In Plessy, the ruling reinforced the idea that whiteness was a privileged status, making it clear that whiteness was not just a matter of physical appearance, but something more intangible and powerful. This case created a legal protection that effectively upheld racial inequality, even if it did not explicitly define whiteness. Later, Brown v. Board of Education overturned Plessy by declaring segregation in public schools unconstitutional. However, Harris argues that Brown still left ambiguity about what equity really meant in relation to the concept of “whiteness.” By avoiding a clear definition of whiteness, the ruling prevented a broader, more inclusive understanding that might have challenged the racial status quo. This lack of definition allowed systemic inequalities to persist, including in education, where disparities remained even after Brown. Through both these cases, we are able to see the importance and power of ambiguity in law because it creates space to delegitimize people of color and preserve and empower “whiteness”.
Harris also offers a specific definition of Affirmative Action: “a principle, internationally recognized based on a theory of rights and equality…[it] calls for equalizing treatment by redistributing power and resources in order to rectify inequities and to achieve real equality” (1788). This definition expanded my understanding of Affirmative Action. I had often been told it was simply about diversifying spaces, but I had never fully grasped its role in dismantling the systemic exclusion of people of color. Affirmative Action was not just about representation, it was about redistributing power and challenging the foundations of “whiteness.” Although the article was written some time ago, the recent removal of Affirmative Action in higher education highlights how the US continues to protect the exclusivity of “whiteness.” The dismantling of these policies further demonstrates that Affirmative Action was effective in challenging the legitimacy of racial hierarchies and pushing for real equity but the US system did not want that, they wanted a fake bandage. -
Sophia Vasquez WK 2 Response
Race, Space and the Law was focused on explaining how land is not innocent but rather a very intentional tool of settlers to give themselves more power and to erase the history of indigenous people on the land. Land as Life explains the importance of land to indigenous identity, culture, and way of life but historically US systems of government have tried to minimize the important relationship indigenous people have with the land so that they can take it from them. Decolonization is not a Metaphor tries to emphasize that decolonization is an active process, not just a word or something done with social justice, it is focused on giving land back to indigenous communities and focusing on their futures and not the settlers. All the articles connect with each other well and kind of move from the broad topic of land, to then why land is important to indigenous communities, and how we can reverse what has happened historically to indigenous lands in an active way. One idea all the articles focused on heavily was that settlers have often tried to erase indigenous people’s roots to land to make themselves and those they govern feel like they have a “right” to the land since they were the “first”. The articles also did a great job at focusing on indigenous realities and not settlers’ experience or action. Oftentimes articles about indigenous lands focus on the settlers instead of the lived experience of those who were there first. The first article we read really challenged my idea of land as not innocent because in the same way borders and boundaries are active and a political tool, so is the land we stand on. Land as Life expanded more understanding of the importance of land to indigenous people. I understood that it was significant but I hadn’t made the connection on how the US government has tried to erase that significance to make the removal of indigenous land less violent, when in reality it was violent to indigenous people in every essence. Lastly, Decolonization challenged my idea of decolonization as a word simply thrown around in class but an action or a movement that needs to be done with intention and care. I am taking a class on “La Frontera” and the idea of how land and the way we move on these lands is a very personal and sometimes violent experience.