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Block03.ETH123.Week9.FinalAssignment.ThinkingAboutRaceInYourCommunity.doc

Block03.ETH123.Week9.FinalAssignment.ThinkingAboutRaceInYourCommunity.pdf

            Over the last forty years Dallas, Texas has changed significantly in social and ethnic equality.  Unfortunately, there are still a significant amount of problems.  On first glance at the United States census report Dallas appears to be very ethnically diverse, with good representations from all ethnic groups (GCT-PL. Race and Hispanic or Latino, 2000).  What is not seen in these numbers is that a significant portion of the Hispanics and African Americans live within the inner-city in poverty. 

            Even my employer, which has a very active diversity campaign, is predominantly staffed with Caucasian employees; and all senior positions, and top jobs, are completely filled with Caucasian staff.  My neighborhood, while being much more integrated, has a small number of African Americans and only one Hispanic family.  Ultimately, the segregation within Dallas primarily revolves around wealth.  The Asian and Caucasian residents live in the wealthier suburbs where the African American and Hispanics tend the live within the inner-city.  Ultimately the poverty begets an educational problem which begets a crime problem which in turn fosters a repeat of the cycle for the next generation.

Jobs

            A significant problem with the inner-city poverty centers on the accessibility of the jobs.  With the move of so many jobs into the suburbs this has caused a significant accessibility issue for those within the inner-city.  While Dallas does have a mass transit system, DART, the primary emphasis is on mitigating pollution and traffic congestion.  While DART does provide service to the inner-city residents the focus has been on getting the suburban residents to their suburban jobs.  Those coming from the inner-city would face significant delays and many transfers traveling into the suburban areas. 

            A secondary concern for jobs is their availability.  With the increasing advancement in technology there has been a significant reduction in the availability of blue-collar jobs within Dallas.  An example of this was the recent introduction of scanning, and bagging, groceries while shopping at Albertsons.  Numerous other stores, as well as Albertsons, have introduced self-checkout lanes so you do not have to wait for a cashier.  Both of these changes significantly reduced their need for blue-collar labor.  Many other industries have gone through a similar transition with the reliance turning away from blue-collar jobs to a mechanical, or electronic, replacement.  This trend is only bound to increase.  On the flip side it has created many new skilled white-collar jobs within the Dallas area.  These white-collar jobs typically require more than a high school diploma; which, unfortunately, is the typically the maximum degree attained in these areas.

            A tertiary concern is a language barrier for the inner-city residents.  For Dallas this would primary affect the Hispanics with Spanish, but to a lesser extent also the African Americans with Ebonics.  Within the inner-city it is highly likely that the Hispanic parents do not speak any English.  This heavily limits their ability to find a decent job, even within blue-collar work.  It has a secondary effect of causing language problems for their children because they cannot become proficient in English at home.  This becomes even more significant within the Dallas inner-city because the Hispanics congregate together, leaving entire areas as only one ethnic group.  This then further limits the Hispanic people’s exposure to English, and thus limits their ability to become fluent in English.

Education

            Dallas faces a significant funding problem for their educational system.  Due to the way that the Texas educational system is organized local cities bear the brunt of the educational costs.  The money comes from property taxes in their city.  Since the majority of the wealth has moved into the suburbs this has left Dallas with far fewer property tax resources.  This is compounded be the quite large inner-city where property values are extremely low.  This has left Dallas school children with far fewer resources then what would be available within the suburbs.

            As far as financial success, children within the Dallas inner-city lack role models for the value of education and its significance.  This can frequently leave the children without any goals or motivation to try hard in school, and to excel.  Equally significant would be the parental involvement in the education, which is exacerbated in the Dallas inner-city where the parents are poorly educated.  Bill Cosby recently visited Dallas to help motivate inner-city parents to get involved with their children’s education as written about by Tawnell D. Hobbs (2005): “The town hall meeting at Lincoln High School in South Dallas focused on the importance of education. The meeting was punctuated by outbursts of praise as Cosby challenged the mostly black audience of about 1,200 to get involved with their children's schooling and keep them off the streets. (p.1)”  Tawnell Hobbs (2005) went on to quote Mr. Cosby: "Ladies and gentlemen, for goodness' sake, join together. There's nothing at risk about your child, except you. (p. 1)"

            To help revitalize Dallas, and these inner-city neighborhoods, the city has begun an aggressive revitalization campaign.  Part of this campaign has been to lure back some of the residents who would be willing to live in the downtown area.  This has had very positive results with the building of numerous apartment building and condominiums (Williams, 1997, p. 18).  Unfortunately, it will take years to see a significant return of this investment due to favorable tax deals to lure these new businesses.

Crime

            Crime has plagued Dallas, especially within the inner-city.  Furthermore, Dallas has had the highest violent crime rate of large cities for the seven years (Dallas crime, 2005).  This has severely impacted Dallas’ ability to rejuvenate these areas, and end the poverty and racial divide.  The new Dallas chief of police, David Kunkle, has implemented a number of new policies to help turn the tide on the crime.  “The key to controlling crime there and elsewhere, he said, is to put more officers on the streets. He said that one way the department will do that is by moving about 100 officers out of special patrol assignments -- such as deployment and narcotics street squads that work primarily undercover -- and put them back in uniform and into patrol cars. Deployment officers don't answer 911 calls but instead concentrate on specific tasks such as finding fugitives or investigating a string of robberies. (Trahan, 2004, p. 1)” 

            Secondarily, the crime gives the Dallas inner-city a very bad reputation when the crimes are reported through the local media.  This further isolates these communities from the rest of the wealthier residents.  Due to the large minority makeup of these areas, and thus the ones who commit the crimes in this area, it turns into repeated negative reporting about these ethnic groups.  This only further serves to exacerbate existing prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination against these ethnic groups.  In turn this negatively affects these groups from getting jobs, and the use of other resources, that keeps them further tied to the inner-city.

            Furthermore, the drug and gang crime is more indicative of the poverty within the area.  Drugs and gangs are an “easy” way to gain prestige, power, and wealth in an area where conventional means such as education and a successful career are unlikely.  This becomes the end result of being born into poverty with very few educational opportunities, especially post-secondary education.  While the crime has at its root poverty and minimal social mobility it also serves to perpetuate the poverty for further generations.  This perpetuation is caused partially by the negative stereotype of their ethnic group and of their local area.  Furthermore, it perpetuates the idea that they are stuck within the inner-city and that there is no escape.  This attitude in turn gets imparted to the younger children.  

Conclusion

            Even post desegregation Dallas remains a still heavily segregated city.  While the segregation is now primary based on financial metrics there are still significant ethnic undertones.  Within the suburbs everyone tends to look like me.  They are white middle class Protestants.  We tend to live in nice, low crime, and predominantly Caucasian neighborhoods.  While there is a lot of talk of being inclusive and supportive by local residents, and by city leaders, there is a significant effort to stop nearby housing from becoming Section 8 housing.  The fear is that it would introduce a bad element that would not take care of their property, and would ultimately damage the neighborhood property values.

            At work, and in the local neighborhood, people are for the most part receptive to different ethnic groups and lifestyles after they have joined the neighborhood.  Before different groups join the neighborhood they are opposed to these ethnic groups coming, and focuses on the negative stereotypes of that group.  Overall the neighborhood, and my general community, is very receptive of me since I am in the WASP category.

            At work the corporate materials have gone through extensive editing to ensure that they adequately represent all groups sufficiently, even the Caucasian employees.  Furthermore, my employer makes sure that there is nothing in their materials that would be construed as ageist or sexist.  Overall, almost all of their corporate policies are very equitable and progressive; with their one negative being their non- progressive stance on paternity leave.

            The local media, while composed of almost all ethnic groups, has been a contributing factor to inner-city and minority group problems.  Their reporting tends to significantly focus on the negative aspects of the Dallas inner-city and hence the minority groups that live there.  The only “positive” items that are reported about the inner-city are what community leaders are doing to “fix the problem.”  As noted above this exacerbates the prejudice, discrimination, and stereotypes that are already prevalent.  My neighborhood has become the archetype of this attitude; no one is openly hostile towards minorities they would just prefer that they live somewhere else.

            The leadership within our community is not similar to me, nor to the rest of the community.  Overall, we are not a wealthy area, but the leaders are significantly in the upper-class.  There are no minorities on our city council, nor in key positions within the local government.  While there is nothing that is done that is hostile to minority ethnic groups some of the local codes would make it challenging for someone coming from the inner-city. 

            The inner-city divide is probably the greatest social problem facing the Dallas area.  Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to how this can be resolved.  Dallas has taken some good initial steps by trying to revitalize those areas as well as crack down on crime, but ultimately none of that will resolve the issue.  The local media, significantly the newscasters, are doing an exceptional disservice to this area by consistently reporting on the negative.  Probably most damning for the Dallas inner-city is the prevalent objectivist philosophy combined with postmodern relativism.  This has fostered the attitude that it is the inner-city residents’ fault that they are in this position, and that if they would just work hard enough then they could escape the inner-city.  It is that mentality that must be overcome outside of the inner-city before divide can be eliminated.  Unfortunately, culture, and mindset, shifts are complicated and slow.  There will have to be a large shift within the key thinkers of our time to begin making this shift.  Conversely, there is an attitude, and mindset, within the inner-city that must be overcome too.  There is a significant amount of self destructive actions and mindsets within the inner-city that must be resolved.  Ultimately, both of these aspects can probably be hastened through the educational system by educators that understand these difficulties, and ideals, and can begin to plant seeds for the future.

            The Noel Hypothesis is remarkably accurate, and applicable, to the Dallas inner-city.  In regards to ethnocentrism this explains the frustration of the majority group with the inner-city populace.  Without a clear understanding of their culture it is assumed that they should be behaving in a similar fashion, and by not behaving in this fashion indicates inferiority.  In particular it is expected that the inner-city populace should be strongly pursuing resources to gain influence and wealth.  Secondly, the blue-collar jobs are becoming scarcer as more jobs are being replaced by machines and electronics.  While there is no outright effort to remove competition from the inner-city, other then renewed interest in strictly enforcing illegal immigration laws, there is an aspect where it is growing more difficult for these groups to find jobs.  Finally, there is a radical differential in power.  Those within the inner-city have virtually no power, and no say, over how resources are controlled.  This is exacerbated by the lack of unity, with a cohesive and loud voice, within the inner-city.

            While the Blauner Hypothesis isn’t as effective as the Noel Hypothesis at explaining the Dallas inner-city it offers some additional insight.  The African American segment is clearly a colonized minority group.  While slavery has been abolished for quite a while they are continuing to struggle for assimilation.  This is exacerbated with the culture within the African American inner-city being different from the majority group.  For the Hispanic segment of the inner-city they tend to fall more towards the colonized minority group rather than being an immigrant minority group.  Within the confines of Texas they were a colonized group, which better explains this categorization.  Furthermore, to a significant extent there is still a very strong negative stereotype against Hispanics that they are lazy.  This is exacerbated as the dominant group looks at the inner-city residents and the assumption is that if they would work hard then they could get out of the inner-city.

            In conclusion, the Dallas inner-city divide is an extremely complex issue with no easy answer.  The situation is made even more complex with difficulties existing within the inner-city and on the outside.  The key to the resolution probably lies with our children and the laying of the foundation, in their youth, to better understand and resolve the divide.

References

Dallas crime rate tops among largest cities. (2005, March 20) Beaumont Enterprise, p. A20. Retrieved June 2, 2005, from Proquest database

Hobbs, T. D. (2005, May 9). Cosby urges Dallas audience to challenge kids, not label them. Knight Ridder Tribune News Service, p. 1. Retrieved June 2, 2005, from Proquest database

Trahan, J. (2004, August 13). Chief shares renewed effort to fight gangs, drugs. Knight Ridder Tribune News Service, p. 1.  Retrieved June 2, 2005, from Proquest database

United States Census Bureau. (2000) GCT-PL. Race and Hispanic or Latino:  2000.  Retrieved June 2, 2005, from http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=n&_lang=en&mt_name=DEC_2000_PL_U_GCTPL_ST2&format=ST-2&_box_head_nbr=GCT-PL&ds_name=DEC_2000_PL_U&geo_id=04000US48