Segregation
Integration
Mortgage Assistance
Beginning with the New Deal, the federal government helped white families afford quality housing. Similar federal intervention is necessary to dismantle segregation. One starting point is mortgage assistance for people of color. Providing a pathway to homeownership for all people of color is a huge step toward leveling the economic playing field.
Equitable Community Development
Integration cannot only consist of programs that assist people of color in moving out of their neighborhoods. Work must be done to raise the standard of living in every American city and town. Community members and politicians must partner to develop and execute effective, inclusive community development projects.
Voting Reimagined
First and foremost, every single person living in America is allowed to vote. No matter the circumstances of their life they have the right to cast a vote in the democratic process. Secondly, voting must be streamlined in order to eliminate confusing rules and ballots as well as the long lines. Voting Day must be a national holiday so that no American has to miss a paycheck in order to vote. Lastly, Ranked Choice Voting must be implemented in order to give as many options as possible to the American people. Voting must be shifted from a tedious task to an enjoyable activity.
Reparations
Reparations give many pause because they consider it too radical a policy. It might be helpful to think of it more as back pay for slavery, Jim Crow, housing segregation and all other forms of exploitation exacted on Black Americans. The first step in providing reparations is to study the matter. Congress must undertake a historical review and calculate just how much the United States owes its Black citizens. This works doubly as a calculation of reparations and a reckoning with our past that is so desperately needed.
Segregation
Segregationist History
Following the abolition of slavery, northern politicians forced African Americans migrating north into segregated neighborhoods. Decades later, the New Deal created a federally sponsored system of segregation. New Deal policies made funding available to housing developers on the condition that units be sold only to whites. The New Deal also made federal mortgage assistance available only to white families. These policies created all-white suburbs across America.
Misinformation
Many believe segregation to be a relic of the past. There are stark differences in curriculum across the country but almost no students are educated on modern day segregation. Segregation is an issue that touches every community in America and so must be taught in every classroom in America. Students must fully understand the world they will graduate into.
Modern Segregation
Redlining (the systemic refusal to give mortgages and loans to people of color) began under the New Deal but still significantly impacts segregation today. The neighborhoods created through New Deal funding have led to school segregation as well as disparate health and economic outcomes. Segregation oppresses entire communities of color, limiting the potential of the entire country.
Voter Suppression
Any facet of voting that complicates it (like long lines or confusing ballots) is voter suppression. Suppression can also go much further, sometimes stripping entire groups of people of their choice in who represents them in government. We cannot sit back and accept these checks on the people's power. We must reject the notion that voting is innately tedious and restrictive and understand that every displeasure of voting serves to keep you out of the democratic process.
Economic Inequality
The majority of middle-income families built their wealth through their home equity. This allowed the white families who received federal loan assistance to move into suburbs, and then send their children to college and leave them money when they died. This cycle built the economic strength of white people, but, because loan assistance was not accessible to Black families, they did not have any of the same opportunities to build sustainable, generational wealth.