Thursday, February 12, 2015

Way to help, guys!

Redlining is an honored practice in the US. The University of Orange, as part of the 2015 Jan term, led a trip to the National Archives in College Park to collect maps and survey forms as part of a national project to get all the redlining maps online. This will enable all of us to understand what happened in 1937, when the federal government sent surveyors out to 200 American cities, looking for "undesirable racial elements" so that banks could be warned about neighborhoods deemed unworthy of their money. This damnable process has long since been outlawed as such, but racism is a clever germ, and constantly mutates. One scientist compared it to HIV, which is the fastest mutating organism we know. What's the latest mutation? Instead of warning about "undesirable racial elements," Movoto Insider warns against crime, with an article, "These are the 10 most dangerous places in New Jersey." Hint: you don't want to buy a house there and if you live there, LEAVE. We, at Movoto, can help you get a home in one of those safe cities for which New Jersey is famed. Of the top 20 cities for Black population in NJ, 10 are listed in Movoto's top 50 for crime. This is another way of redlining, calling out these cities for their troubles, unbalanced by their history, strengths or hopes. This is the old wine of redlining in a new bottle of "danger."

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