(05-20-2021, 03:51 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: What makes no sense at all is a home being worth 100k in 2017 being worth 249k now. She would have to be in an incredible market, to the point it is a complete anomaly for that to happen. I'm not aware of any neighborhoods in the area that have seen a 149% increase in this timeframe.
Yes, and the point of the article is that this wonderful "anomaly" repeatedly occurs once the owner of a home is perceived to be white. Nothing do do with "neighborhoods" seeing a 149% increase. Just the same house when the owner is perceived to be white.
The New York times article in my post includes three separate examples of such shifting appraisals, in addition to the other two articles about separate cases.
(05-20-2021, 03:51 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: PS If we're wondering why similar homes in black neighborhoods are worth less than their counterparts in other neighborhoods then I'm not sure we're having an a productive conversation. Your answer is crime, and the quality of the schools (not generally as simple as a funding issue, at least not around here and a number of other major cities)
The question is why similar homes in black neighborhoods are worth less than their counterparts in other neighborhoods after controlling for crime and quality of schools, etc. That's the issue the Brookings study tackles.
Speaking of research, there are a few very interesting studies in systemic discrimination in homebuying as well as selling. If I understand Mick, what I would call "systemic racism" he would call "cautiousness to one race" that causes significant crime. However labeled, aren't he and I both describing something that would produce a pattern of measurable discrimination on basis of race?
(05-20-2021, 05:22 PM)Dill Wrote: 1. The primary, lead issue in the news articles above was not simply "black neighborhoods are undervalued." They address how the value of home appraisals vary with realtor perception of ownership, regardless of neighborhood. That means the home of a black person living in a "white community" will be undervalued, regardless of crime stats.
Is this an American article? The reason I ask is because I question the role of realtors in appraisals.
Fwiw, I'm somewhat educated on realtors just by association. My mother worked for a real estate company for over 20 years (she was a secretary that handled listings and things of the sort). Most of her friends were real estate agents. I've also been through two home purchases, one sale, and one refinance.)
Realtors have nothing to do with the appraisal process. Like at all. The only thing they're hoping for in regards to appraisals is that they come in high enough to complete the sale.
Appraisals are done by banks. They happen during the sale (buyer's bank needs to appraise the home to make sure they're covered on the loan), or they happen if you want to refinance or take out equity (the bank needs to appraise the home for the same reasons as before, to cover the loan.)
The only possible connection I can make between realtors and the market is them discouraging people from buying in certain neighborhoods. But believe me when I tell you, most realtors are out for one single thing (Like pretty much everyone) to make money. In fact, I find many of them to be wholly unnecessary and quite phony.
What's even more strange is you say this is regardless of neighborhood but perception of ownership. This doesn't make any sense. Am to believe that a realtor is walking their clients around a home and just casually mentions "This looks to be black owned, let's go check another listing". That doesn't compute. The agent wants their 3% (really 1.5% once they split it with their employer), and the less work they can do to get the better.
On the bank side of appraisals, which is the only side I really know of, they're in the business of making money (just like realtors). If they can sell you a mortgage and make money off it, why would they deliberately lower an appraisal? That's going to kill most deals. What motivation do they have to do this? Am to believe that banks, greedy banks, are going to forfeit profits just to spite black people?
Maybe there's something I missing in all of this, maybe it's outdated and based on practices that havebeen long, long gone. But I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how any of this makes sense.
(05-20-2021, 06:09 PM)Dill Wrote: Yes, and the point of the article is that this wonderful "anomaly" repeatedly occurs once the owner of a home is perceived to be white. Nothing do do with "neighborhoods" seeing a 149% increase. Just the same house when the owner is perceived to be white.
The New York times article in my post includes three separate examples of such shifting appraisals, in addition to the other two articles about separate cases.
I know plenty of white people. None of their homes have appreciated 149% in the last 4 years. Mine certainly hasn't. And I guarantee if I had an appraiser come out to my house for a refi that's he's not going to up my appraisal when he sees my white pasty ass open the door.
My very white (ex) neighbor, and his very white wife just completed the sale of their house about a month and a half ago. From I what I remember, they purchased the home in 2017 for around 175k, and they just sold it for 218k. My UC math tells me that's just under 25%.
I'm not aware of any area of the entire city that's seen anywhere close to this amount of appreciation (149%) in these last 4 years. And no bank is going to be stupid enough to inflate someone's appraisal beyond it's actual worth just because the owner is white. That's just terrible business. White people default on loans too, and the last thing they'd want is to be stuck holding a 200k property after appraising it for 350k.
The real estate market isn't unlike any other market. Homes are worth what people are willing to pay for them. Banks, real estate agents and the sort don't drive the market price, they react to it. And everyone is in the business of making money. They'll take it wherever they can get it.
Artificially lowering home prices via appraisals means a lot of sales falling through, a lot of loans falling through, and lower commissions and profits all around.
(05-20-2021, 06:09 PM)Dill Wrote: The question is why similar homes in black neighborhoods are worth less than their counterparts in other neighborhoods after controlling for crime and quality of schools, etc. That's the issue the Brookings study tackles.
How would you control for this? How do you assign a numerical value to these factors that somehow correlates to market value? (For every 25 violent crimes decrease property value by .4%? ) It just makes no sense.
A home is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. The market sets the price. People will pay more to live in areas with lower crime and a better school system. Period. It's that simple. If you want proof of this, look at that the fact that a lot black families who have the means to leave these areas usually do. just ask George Jefferson.
1.) It is interesting that we're focusing on the selling prices of these homes, and how it relates to "perception" but we're not focusing on the buying side of things.
Saying "I'm not getting my worth for my house when I sell becuse of unfair perceptions" while ignoring "I was able to buy my house for way less because of unfair perceptions."
For every person in a "black neighborhood" that is getting ripped off when they sell, there's another person in a "black neighborhood" getting a helluva deal when they buy. (This, of course, is if we're to believe that only perception lowers these values.)
2.) I can assure you, as can every other homeowner, that there is no bias from the county auditor's side of things. They'll be more than happy to appraise you at a higher level in order to get more in property taxes. Rarely, if ever, are they disproportinately low on their appraisals.
It would be almost impossible for appraisers to undercut the county's estimates by these obsence amounts we're seeing without significant media coverage and hundreds, if not thousands, of lawsuits. All it would take is a quick scan of the county website and recent comp prices and these lenders would be litigated to death.
(05-20-2021, 06:21 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Is this an American article? The reason I ask is because I question the role of realtors in appraisals.
Fwiw, I'm somewhat educated on realtors just by association. My mother worked for a real estate company for over 20 years (she was a secretary that handled listings and things of the sort). Most of her friends were real estate agents. I've also been through two home purchases, one sale, and one refinance.)
Realtors have nothing to do with the appraisal process. Like at all. The only thing they're hoping for in regards to appraisals is that they come in high enough to complete the sale.
Appraisals are done by banks. They happen during the sale (buyer's bank needs to appraise the home to make sure they're covered on the loan), or they happen if you want to refinance or take out equity (the bank needs to appraise the home for the same reasons as before, to cover the loan.)
The only possible connection I can make between realtors and the market is them discouraging people from buying in certain neighborhoods. But believe me when I tell you, most realtors are out for one single thing (Like pretty much everyone) to make money. In fact, I find many of them to be wholly unnecessary and quite phony.
What's even more strange is you say this is regardless of neighborhood but perception of ownership. This doesn't make any sense. Am to believe that a realtor is walking their clients around a home and just casually mentions "This looks to be black owned, let's go check another listing". That doesn't compute. The agent wants their 3% (really 1.5% once they split it with their employer), and the less work they can do to get the better.
On the bank side of appraisals, which is the only side I really know of, they're in the business of making money (just like realtors). If they can sell you a mortgage and make money off it, why would they deliberately lower an appraisal? That's going to kill most deals. What motivation do they have to do this? Am to believe that banks, greedy banks, are going to forfeit profits just to spite black people?
Maybe there's something I missing in all of this, maybe it's outdated and based on practices that havebeen long, long gone. But I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how any of this makes sense.
Just an anecdote, but I recently sold my home (we're closing on Wednesday) and my real estate agent met the appraiser at the home. Brought the offers that we got on the home, brought the comps that she thought were relevant and, in case the appraiser was not familiar with the area (Oakley, for those who live in Cincinnati), was prepared to give the "pitch" on why the house was worth what it was sold at.
You see, our home was pretty small but was really highly priced because of the area and the high end finishes we had, especially in the kitchen. Since we, as the sellers, had no control over what bank the buyer chose, there was a chance that the buyer's bank and appraiser would not be familiar with the area and would see a small house at an a high price and think it isn't worth it, even if they found comps that were close.
This was further exacerbated by the market because there just haven't been a lot of sales in Oakley this year due to the pandemic. So the comps our agent pulled were technically in Hyde Park, which was less than 0.5 miles away (standard distance difference when pulling comps), but is a different neighborhood that is considered a bit more "valuable" than Oakley. So she was concerned the appraiser would restrict his comp search to just Oakley, in which case the only comps in the last 6 months were in a less nice part of Oakley (the neighborhood itself is going through a bit of a transition, with the streets coming off of Wasson Road being extremely nice and the ones coming off of Marburg being lesser in value).
Now, I don't know if this is standard practice for real estate agents, but I don't think it's correct to say they have nothing to do with the appraisal process. At the very least, they can act as hype men to get the price that your buyer already agreed to.
So I think it's fair to say that a realtor's perception of the area could potentially affect how it appraises.
(05-21-2021, 09:37 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Just an anecdote, but I recently sold my home (we're closing on Wednesday) and my real estate agent met the appraiser at the home. Brought the offers that we got on the home, brought the comps that she thought were relevant and, in case the appraiser was not familiar with the area (Oakley, for those who live in Cincinnati), was prepared to give the "pitch" on why the house was worth what it was sold at.
You see, our home was pretty small but was really highly priced because of the area and the high end finishes we had, especially in the kitchen. Since we, as the sellers, had no control over what bank the buyer chose, there was a chance that the buyer's bank and appraiser would not be familiar with the area and would see a small house at an a high price and think it isn't worth it, even if they found comps that were close.
This was further exacerbated by the market because there just haven't been a lot of sales in Oakley this year due to the pandemic. So the comps our agent pulled were technically in Hyde Park, which was less than 0.5 miles away (standard distance difference when pulling comps), but is a different neighborhood that is considered a bit more "valuable" than Oakley. So she was concerned the appraiser would restrict his comp search to just Oakley, in which case the only comps in the last 6 months were in a less nice part of Oakley (the neighborhood itself is going through a bit of a transition, with the streets coming off of Wasson Road being extremely nice and the ones coming off of Marburg being lesser in value).
Now, I don't know if this is standard practice for real estate agents, but I don't think it's correct to say they have nothing to do with the appraisal process. At the very least, they can act as hype men to get the price that your buyer already agreed to.
So I think it's fair to say that a realtor's perception of the area could potentially affect how it appraises.
Interesting. I do think that is somewhat unique but who knows, maybe it's more common now with the market rising so quickly. Or maybe it's for super small lenders (Ex: Do Credit Unions give home loans), or out of out of town companies.
Would you agree that in this case, whether you were white, black, red, green, whatever that it would make absolutely no sense whatsoever for your real estate agent to somehow devalue the price of your home?
Because that's kind of my whole point, why would any agent intentionally lower the price of an appraisal? Why would they ever do anything that lessens the chance of deal closing? Same goes for the banks. If you got the credit they want to loan you money. The more they lend the more they make. And as long as they covered on the home value then I can't see any reason they'd jeopordize closing on these loans.
PS Oakley, huh? I don't know when you bought, but I feel like I need to say "Good for you". Your area has done real well this last decade or so. It's kinda wild, but Norwood is really taking off too. I gotta believe Oakley had a lot to do with that. Fwiw, my grandparents house was on Brotherton and my dad recently saw what it sold for and about fell out of his chair.
PPS I'm in Anderson. We're almost neighbors. East Side!
(05-21-2021, 10:24 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Interesting. I do think that is somewhat unique but who knows, maybe it's more common now with the market rising so quickly. Or maybe it's for super small lenders (Ex: Do Credit Unions give home loans), or out of out of town companies.
Would you agree that in this case, whether you were white, black, red, green, whatever that it would make absolutely no sense whatsoever for your real estate agent to somehow devalue the price of your home?
Because that's kind of my whole point, why would any agent intentionally lower the price of an appraisal? Why would they ever do anything that lessens the chance of deal closing? Same goes for the banks. If you got the credit they want to loan you money. The more they lend the more they make. And as long as they covered on the home value then I can't see any reason they'd jeopordize closing on these loans.
PS Oakley, huh? I don't know when you bought, but I feel like I need to say "Good for you". Your area has done real well this last decade or so. It's kinda wild, but Norwood is really taking off too. I gotta believe Oakley had a lot to do with that. Fwiw, my grandparents house was on Brotherton and my dad recently saw what it sold for and about fell out of his chair.
PPS I'm in Anderson. We're almost neighbors. East Side!
I think my real estate agent would fight for my price regardless of what race I am, yes. I do think it's worth noting that how convincing she is dependent on her own conviction, however. We've all been in a sales pitch or presentation where it's clear the person doesn't actually believe what they're selling and it adds a layer of insincerity to it all. With our house, I knew my real estate agent truly believed the house was worth what we sold it for, so she'd be a more convincing pitch to the appraiser.
I am not of the personal belief that people are intentionally or consciously tanking black owned neighborhoods'/houses' value. I just think there are unconscious biases that affect every person, regardless of race. There are many black people who view certain black neighborhoods as more dangerous than they are for the same reason ("Moving on up" as it were). The bias against black people is baked into the very core of our society. It isn't a conscious decision that makes black owned areas or houses worth less. It's a series of unconscious biases and decisions that lead to it.
That's much harder to fix than people just being racist, unfortunately.
PS. Yea, we bought into Oakley in 2018. We thought we were buying at the top of the market at the time (which we weren't exactly thrilled about)...But then it just kept going haha. I made 50k on my house after 3 years. Honestly, we probably could have made more, but we accepted an offer that the person waived both the inspection AND protected the appraisal by 30k (meaning, if the house appraised 30k below the purchase price, the buyer would put forward 30k just to keep the sale). Given our concern about the size of our home not appraising and the fact that the house is 103 years old and something may come up in the inspection, we chose the lower priced offer that ensured the sale went smoothly. I am not surprised that Norwood is going up in price now. The Oakley/Hyde Park Area is almost entirely blocked in, with Ridge dividing it from Pleasant Ridge and city limits dividing it from Norwood, so the value was bound to spill out eventually.
PPS. My parents live in Mt Washington, so I know Anderson pretty well. We actually looked at owning there off of Clough Pike, but we ultimately decided to stay in Cincinnati because we want our kids to go to Walnut Hills when they're in High School.
(05-20-2021, 06:38 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: I'm not aware of any area of the entire city that's seen anywhere close to this amount of appreciation (149%) in these last 4 years. And no bank is going to be stupid enough to inflate someone's appraisal beyond it's actual worth just because the owner is white. That's just terrible business. White people default on loans too, and the last thing they'd want is to be stuck holding a 200k property after appraising it for 350k.
The real estate market isn't unlike any other market. Homes are worth what people are willing to pay for them. Banks, real estate agents and the sort don't drive the market price, they react to it. And everyone is in the business of making money. They'll take it wherever they can get it.
Artificially lowering home prices via appraisals means a lot of sales falling through, a lot of loans falling through, and lower commissions and profits all around.
Er, the issue as I understood it, was not that appraisals were "inflated" because owners were white. Rather the opposite, in every instance deflated because black, even in predominately White neighborhoods, presumably "safe" and with good schools.
In virtually every case in the articles provided, the black owners are "lowballed" (500k in one case) and the journalists appear to be working with a paper trail. The difference in appraisal value was in every case produced by substituting a white person as the "face" of the home, the owner.
And part of the issue is about how wealth does or does not accumulate in homes. So you say a black homeowner gets a good deal with a cheap home, but then it's value does not rise, even with improvements. Not such a good deal after all. Add to that smaller down payments and higher interest rates.
But against this accumulating record of cases, you assure me here is no bias from county auditors or banks or whatever.
That was true in at least one case. In the Times article, Black Comedian D.L. Hughley's home, in a predominately white San Fernando Valley neighborhood, failed to appreciate in value with the other homes in the neighborhood. But his bank flagged the problem. They ordered a new appraisal which came in 160,000 dollars higher.
You say that that the real estate market is a market like any other, homes worth what people are willing to pay for them. I'm not a realtor or an economist, but I recall that during the 2008 recession, a housing bubble collapsed that had been built in part through predatory and discriminatory lending and the like, and mortgages bundled into other investment instruments. It was precisely the opaqueness and complexity of the market and lending that allowed "people in the business of making money" to "take whatever they could get." That doesn't always result in a balance of supply and demand or fair market prices. Many homes, it turned out, were not worth what people were willing to pay for them.
I mention this because, though I'm not an economist, it just seems to me that the housing market does work as clearly, neatly and simply as other kinds. People profit from sales and appraisals in different ways, not always to each other's mutual benefit. And many homeowners, especially first timers, often know little about the process.
(05-20-2021, 05:22 PM)Dill Wrote: Did you read the articles--especially the Brookings Report? Crime is discussed here--discrimination in the real estate market. Further:
1. The primary, lead issue in the news articles above was not simply "black neighborhoods are undervalued." They address how the value of home appraisals vary with realtor perception of ownership, regardless of neighborhood. That means the home of a black person living in a "white community" will be undervalued, regardless of crime stats.
What does this have to do with "leery" people "not wanting to be around you" if you are selling--i.e., leaving their neighborhood? Wouldn't lowering the appraisal decrease the likelihood of sale, keeping your dangerous ass around?
If "majority-black communities" were the issue here, then why the higher appraisals, regardless of "community," if a home is assumed to be white-owned?
2. In the bolded, it looks like you are saying a) that race-based "cautiousness" makes sense, b) Blacks themselves bear responsibility for negative racial stereotypes and any resulting discrimination, and c) any pattern of housing discrimination resulting from race-based "cautiousness" would be no indicator of racism, "systemic" or otherwise. Have I correctly paraphrased you there?
A. To a point. Depends on location and situation.
B. Some, but not all.
C. Not what I am saying.
It's not the color that matters. It's the actions of the group.
(05-20-2021, 07:56 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: A couple more things:
1.) It is interesting that we're focusing on the selling prices of these homes, and how it relates to "perception" but we're not focusing on the buying side of things.
Saying "I'm not getting my worth for my house when I sell becuse of unfair perceptions" while ignoring "I was able to buy my house for way less because of unfair perceptions."
For every person in a "black neighborhood" that is getting ripped off when they sell, there's another person in a "black neighborhood" getting a helluva deal when they buy. (This, of course, is if we're to believe that only perception lowers these values.)
2.) I can assure you, as can every other homeowner, that there is no bias from the county auditor's side of things. They'll be more than happy to appraise you at a higher level in order to get more in property taxes. Rarely, if ever, are they disproportinately low on their appraisals.
It would be almost impossible for appraisers to undercut the county's estimates by these obsence amounts we're seeing without significant media coverage and hundreds, if not thousands, of lawsuits. All it would take is a quick scan of the county website and recent comp prices and these lenders would be litigated to death.
The village I live in is 97% white. The County or Village had not done an audit on home prices in a long, long time. The new appraisals came out and oh boy was there a whole lot of pissed off people whose taxes just went up, some significantly.
It was probably just the County wanting to help us white folk though.
(05-21-2021, 12:43 PM)Mickeypoo Wrote: 2. In the bolded, it looks like you are saying a) that race-based "cautiousness" makes sense, b) Blacks themselves bear responsibility for negative racial stereotypes and any resulting discrimination, and c) any pattern of housing discrimination resulting from race-based "cautiousness" would be no indicator of racism, "systemic" or otherwise. Have I correctly paraphrased you there?
A. To a point. Depends on location and situation
B. Some, but not all.
C. Not what I am saying.
It's not the color that matters. It's the actions of the group.
Well can you help me understand what you are saying? In the post below, you mention "color" more than once.
(05-20-2021, 03:04 PM)Mickeypoo Wrote: When you are only 13% of the population, but are responsible for a hugely disproportionate amount of crime and violent crime people are going to be leery of you and may not want to be around you.
When almost every major inner city is mostly black and very dangerous, people are just going to be leery of predominately black neighborhoods.
I would also like to know the crime stats of those majority black communities.
I don't see systemic racism, I see cautiousness to a race that is 13% of the population, but causes a significant amount of crime and violent crime compared to all other races and minorities.
How do I know you are "only 13% of the population, but are responsible for a hugely disproportionate amount of crime and violent crime,"
unless I recognize you by some marker, like skin color, as among that 13% of the population.
Are you saying it's not that black people are black, but that they are responsible for "a hugely disproportionate amount of violent crime"?
However, that responsibility has nothing to do with race, but "actions"?
One race, as a group, commits more of these actions?
If race is unconnected to the cause of these actions, do you have an alternative explanation for the cause?
If you don't, people will naturally fall back on color, won't they?
(05-25-2021, 11:39 PM)Dill Wrote: Well can you help me understand what you are saying? In the post below, you mention "color" more than once.
How do I know you are "only 13% of the population, but are responsible for a hugely disproportionate amount of crime and violent crime,"
unless I recognize you by some marker, like skin color, as among that 13% of the population.
Are you saying it's not that black people are black, but that they are responsible for "a hugely disproportionate amount of violent crime"?
However, that responsibility has nothing to do with race, but "actions"?
One race, as a group, commits more of these actions?
If race is unconnected to the cause of these actions, do you have an alternative explanation for the cause?
If you don't, people will naturally fall back on color, won't they?
I think it's more of a cultural thing than a skin color thing. I am curious as to the statistics of all crime backgrounds and what criminals of all races and colors have in common. I would think broken homes and how people are raised are going to be similar amongst a lot of them. I haven't done the research it's just a guess. For whatever reason more minorities seem to fall in those groups. Could this be because of race and few opportunities afforded them idk. So it could be a circular argument. They aren't committing crimes because their skin is black, BUT perhaps they are put into the situations that make them more likely to commit criminal actions because they are black.
I think some of the issues is carry over from a time when minorities were actually treated like complete shit and a bit of that hatred carries over to subsequent generations.
(05-26-2021, 02:01 AM)CarolinaBengalFanGuy Wrote: I think it's more of a cultural thing than a skin color thing. I am curious as to the statistics of all crime backgrounds and what criminals of all races and colors have in common. I would think broken homes and how people are raised are going to be similar amongst a lot of them. I haven't done the research it's just a guess. For whatever reason more minorities seem to fall in those groups. Could this be because of race and few opportunities afforded them idk. So it could be a circular argument. They aren't committing crimes because their skin is black, BUT perhaps they are put into the situations that make them more likely to commit criminal actions because they are black.
I think some of the issues is carry over from a time when minorities were actually treated like complete shit and a bit of that hatred carries over to subsequent generations.
You've raised an interesting question. What kind of "culture" might emerge in places where people are hemmed into ghettos, from which access to decent jobs and other living areas will be limited.
If people arrive there with middle-class aspirations (e.g., college education, good jobs, single family homes), it seems possible those aspirations, after sufficient dashing over generations, might be replaced by others more immediately achievable. If the latter include criminal activity, there is an ideology already widespread to connect that activity to race as the primary cause--especially if formal legal hurdles, like segregation, have been cleared, albeit after generations have learned to shape their horizons to its limits.
(05-26-2021, 10:36 AM)Dill Wrote: You've raised an interesting question. What kind of "culture" might emerge in places where people are hemmed into ghettos, from which access to decent jobs and other living areas will be limited.
If people arrive there with middle-class aspirations (e.g., college education, good jobs, single family homes), it seems possible those aspirations, after sufficient dashing over generations, might be replaced by others more immediately achievable. If the latter include criminal activity, there is an ideology already widespread to connect that activity to race as the primary cause--especially if formal legal hurdles, like segregation, have been cleared, albeit after generations have learned to shape their horizons to its limits.
Here's a chicken or the egg type of question for you...
Is the culture created by the "ghetto", or is the "ghetto" created by the culture?
Fwiw, I'm tempted to really delve into this whole culture debate but I'm not sure it's even a conversation that can be had in today's climate without being immediately branded as racist.
Let me just say this, there are some serious problems that we either try to explain away or rationalize (make excuses), or we downright ignore. It's doing no one any good, and especially not black people. You can't fix problems without being able to properly identify said problem.
The Kings Island story from this past weekend (brawls shut down the park) is a perfect example of a cultural problem. That type of behavior should not exist in a civilized society.
(05-26-2021, 10:55 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Here's a chicken or the egg type of question for you...
Is the culture created by the "ghetto", or is the "ghetto" created by the culture?
Fwiw, I'm tempted to really delve into this whole culture debate but I'm not sure it's even a conversation that can be had in today's climate without being immediately branded as racist.
Let me just say this, there are some serious problems that we either try to explain away or rationalize (make excuses), or we downright ignore. It's doing no one any good, and especially not black people. You can't fix problems without being able to properly identify said problem.
The Kings Island story from this past weekend (brawls shut down the park) is a perfect example of a cultural problem. That type of behavior should not exist in a civilized society.
For your initial question here, I would only answer that since immediately upon the freeing of enslaved people in this country they were immediately targeted by laws to oppress them, the ghetto came first. There is no question about it. African-American culture has been created as a result of the oppression in this country.
Why are fathers missing from the homes? Because we passed laws after the 13th Amendment to lock them up at a high rate to address the labor shortages in the South, because slavery of the incarcerated is still legal. Why are property values so low in their neighborhoods that they can't grow generational wealth? Because redlining created segregation in their areas and kept the property values in their neighborhoods down. Why are their schools underfunded? Again, we turn to the property values issue since education is mostly funded by property taxes.
We could go on, and on. The fact is that immediately upon the emancipation and citizenship of African-Americans in this country there have been systems set in place to prevent them from ever being equal. There are some that are still in place, today, and those that aren't have only been removed a generation or two back, meaning that there has been no opportunity for real change in their communities to develop.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
(05-26-2021, 10:36 AM)Dill Wrote: You've raised an interesting question. What kind of "culture" might emerge in places where people are hemmed into ghettos, from which access to decent jobs and other living areas will be limited.
Just wanted to quickly focus on this part...
Would you care to elaborate a bit on the limted access to decent jobs statement?
I'm not sure how one could argure that a location or it's proximity limits job opportunites on it's own. I can think of plenty of "ghettos" in Cincinnati that are closer in proximity to decent paying jobs than those in the suburbs. Also, if you had a decent job lined up, and your location was an issue that prevented employment most people would move in order to lessen their commute.
I'm not saying this was part of your argument, I'm only pointing this out to eliminate this as an explanation. Actual physical location of residence should not prevent employment.
Now we can move on to the schools. Perhaps the schools aren't good enough to acquire a quality education. Maybe that's what you're getting at. That coming from these areas puts you into poor schools, which in turn affects your ability to secure decent work down the line.
Most major cities public schools systems are spending an incredible amount on their students. Here in Cincinnati the public schools are costing around 19.5k per year per student.
Comparitively, some of top performing parcohial schools (St. X, Moeller, St. Ursala, Mercy, McNicholas, etc.) have tuitions that all hover around 14k. Top public schools which consider to be in the burbs, like Forest Hills and Mason have reported spending of 10 and 12k per student. The state average for ALL public schools is around 13k.
So I think we can surmise that money, or the investments being made to put into the education is not an issue.
We could now move on to higher education, but I feel we already know where this headed. With federal student loans, grants, scholarships and everything that goes along with it, I don't think we can argue access to this is being restricted.
So where does all of this leave us? I think that the answer is what was brought up earlier, there are "cultural" problems that exist in certain communites. The opportunites are there, the accountability or responsbility is not.
I wish I knew the answer on how to fix this. But maybe that answer isn't going to come from anyone outside of these communites. It very well might be a problem that only they can truly fix.
Sorry for the long winded reply. I could have just as easily just have written "Actual location itself doesn't limit job opportunites. Culture does."
(05-26-2021, 11:33 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Why are fathers missing from the homes? Because we passed laws after the 13th Amendment to lock them up at a high rate to address the labor shortages in the South, because slavery of the incarcerated is still legal.
I'm going to have to find the numbers on this, but I don't believe this to be true at all, at least in not how it relates to current issues.
I'll have to some digging to find a reputable source but I'm almost postive two parent households in the African American community started plummeting in the 1960's.
If you're saying since this time we've passed laws to to address labor shortages in this South then I'm really struggling to follow along.
(05-26-2021, 11:48 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: I'm going to have to find the numbers on this, but I don't believe this to be true at all, at least in not how it relates to current issues.
I'll have to some digging to find a reputable source but I'm almost postive two parent households in the African American community started plummeting in the 1960's.
If you're saying since this time we've passed laws to to address labor shortages in this South then I'm really struggling to follow along.
The trend of single-family households graph looks a lot like the graphs showing the growing percentage of incarerated individuals in our country thanks to the prison industrial complex, which was fed by laws targeting the black community disproportionately as well as disproportionate application of enforcement within the black community (i.e. similar numbers of marijuana users in white and black communities, but black individuals disproportionately represented in convictions for those crimes).
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