DEINDUSTRIALIZATION AND CRIMINALIZATION

BY L.M.

Deindustrialization and criminalization are very closely linked with segregation. The main difference between white neighborhoods and some segregated Hispanic/black neighborhoods are deindustrialization and criminalization. As a community is deindustrialized its property value goes down. As the businesses leave they take away the jobs with them making most people in this communities jobless. According to the recent reports poverty and unemployment are the 3^rd most causes for crimes and criminal activities in united states. This leaves us with the question why is these Hispanic/black neighborhoods getting deindustrialized and criminalized? The only difference between these communities is color of the people.

The answer to this question is neglect from police departments which is a form of institutionalized racism and the way media portray these communities. Long island a very segregated area of New York. Most of the Hispanics, Latinos and blacks like in segregated communities. For example, West Hempstead and New castle. These two towns are predominantly occupied by Hispanics and blacks. These towns are part of Nassau county. But till this day Nassau police refuse to patrol and be responsible for this towns. Therefore, these towns have their own police departments which is very expensive and dysfunctional. This causes the crime rate to sky rocket in these towns.

The other main reason is the way media portray these communities. The main stream media portray these communities as very crime prone places and not suitable to life safely. News and entertainment media have reinforced these anxieties by seemingly adhering to an unwritten rule that the only Latino stories worth telling are about troubled youths or the people to strive to steer them straight. (Hayes,1) This causes the property value to drop significantly. For example, the property values in Levittown and Hicksville are 3 times as of what is it in New castle and West Hempstead. This also prevents the working class Hispanics and blacks from moving to these high class, mostly white communities. Institutionalized racism and discrimination makes it very hard to change these situations around. In a very segregated area such as long island it will take a very long time for this to happen

SOURCE: “The criminalization of Latino identity makes fighting gangs that much harder”, Los Angeles times, David Hayes, 9/15/1996.

DEINDUSTRIALIZATION AND CRIMINALIZATION

CRIMINALIZATION OF AFRICAN AMERICANS AND LATINOS
BY A.F.

As a New Yorker you know that every borough has its own identity. Within those boroughs are neighborhoods with rich culture and their own personal identity. I am from Brooklyn and I am usually surprised by people’s perception of my hometown. People would ask me where I’m from. I would say Brooklyn and the conversation would continue along the lines of, “Oh nah, Brooklyn is ratchet”. I ask myself, where are they getting all this information? What constitutes a neighborhood to be dangerous? Why are areas populated by African American and Latinos recognized and sometimes embraced as the “hood”? Why do people have a negative stigma about certain parts of the city without actually experiencing it for themselves? In this blog post I will argue that African American and Latinos are marginalized and taught that they should settle for mediocrities.

Before you are born, a large majority of your future can already be decided. Based on where you live, you will go to a school around your neighborhood. You will make friends that live by you. The people in your community can play an important role in out lives. African Americans and Latinos have constantly been pushed out of their communities by factors that are out of their control. They have been targeted by a society that does not see them as equal. James Baldwin stated in a letter to his nephew that, “they (referring to Americans but more specifically White Americans) are in effect still trapped in a history which they do not understand and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it (Baldwin 2014). They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men.” It is amazing how this was written over fifty years ago and his message still holds true.

Discrimination towards African Americans and Latinos that occurred in the past and still occurs today is a large factor to the ghettoization of these certain neighborhoods in New York City. They were not able to get the best education, jobs or pay just based on their skin color. These factors led to bad living condition and a vicious cycle of poverty, which results in an increase in crime. This is one of the biggest flaws in our society, “our inability to separate black man from criminal”. Studies done by the Department of Education show that “teachers and police officers monitor, profile and police youth and neighborhoods” more often than white ones (Ray 2012). These neighborhoods are therefore be constructed by the oppressor and it all starts with the youth. They believe that that oppression is part of life and that you just have to cope with it.

References

Baldwin, James. "A Letter to My Nephew." The Progressive. December 4, 2014. Accessed September 27, 2016. http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/12/5047/letter-my-nephew.

Ray, Rashawn. "Our Inability to Separate Black Man From Criminal." New York Times. March 13, 2012. Accessed September 27, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/12/young-black-and-male-in-america/our-inability-to-separate-black-man-from-criminal.

DEINDUSTRIALIZATION AND CRIMINALIZATION

CRIMINALIZATION AND DIRTYING THE NAME OF LATINOS 

BY STUDENT

In recent years, Latinos have been said to be the group with the fastest rate of imprisonment in America and suggesting that they have the largest amount of people in prison or jail. This has created the perception that this group of either new or older immigrants and natives are toxic to our country. If you dig deeper, you may find that Latinos are being imprisoned for the littlest situations. The media has played a role in “dirtying” the name of Latinos. Are authority figures and non-Latino individuals extending the truth and portraying Latinos in a certain way in order to make them worse off in today’s society and also trying to bring awareness to a “Puerto Rican problem” or a “Latino problem” again? In this blog post I will discuss the Latino crime rate in America and how it compares to the Latino crime rate specifically in Miami, Florida. Also, I will argue that the truth about the Latino crime rates are being altered in order to portray a negative view on these people.

According to NYCriminal Defense, 8,079,819 Latinos total have been incarcerated in the United States. It isn’t specified exactly why they have been imprisoned so it doesn’t necessarily mean that serious rule-breaking crimes were committed. Since there are many hate crimes thrown on Latinos, similarly to blacks, it is a good possibility that some of the individuals who made up the large number above, had been incarcerated for tomfoolery reasons. In addition, when looking at violence records, Latinos/Hispanics had the least total violence at 14.8% and whites had the top total violence of 42.9% in the U.S. Specifically in Miami-Dade County, there are 1,443 Hispanic/Latino inmates as compared to an almost 2,000 others who are non-Hispanic/Latino. To clarify, the ratio is 33.6% Hispanic/Latino versus 66.4% other groups which include whites and African Americans. These statistics show that Latino/Hispanic percentages are significantly lower than other groups and that also, their violence records are actually estimated as the lowest.

Within the last decade, false information about immigrants had been released by CNN’s Lou Dobbs who claimed that one third of inmates serving time in federal prisons came from another country. He emphasized the “one-third” part. Butcher and Piehl pointed out that actually, immigrants to the U.S have lower incarceration rates than any other group. Because less education opportunities and lower wages is corresponded with criminal conduct, it is assumed that most immigrants would partake in this behavior. However, on a Latino study regarding the population of Mexican immigrants, it revealed that immigration and assumed criminal behaviors have been distorted by public perceptions. In fact, it was found by Hagan and Palloni that noncitizen Latin American immigrants come to the U.S. with such strong cultural and family traditions that they have no desire to be compatible with criminal behaviors. These studies show that some people of non-Latino and authority figure identities deem Latino immigrants in an altered perspective when in fact, most of the Latino immigrants have been raised otherwise. They are trying to say that a person’s upbringing is linked to criminal behavior. In Lou Dobbs’ comment he was trying to build the impression that in America we still have some sort of a Puerto Rican problem or at least a Latino problem going on. In other words, he was trying to portray that Latinos are dangerous and that this is a problem. Mr. Dobbs is an example of “dirtying” the name and existence of Latinos. Unfortunately, the downplaying of Latinos and their positive aspects is a problem in America that might never disappear.

Citations

Junior, Daniel. "Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation Department Daily Jail Population Statistics." Miami-Dade County. N.p., 24 Sept. 2016. Web. 25 Sept. 2016.

"Latino Crime Evolvement in U.S." NY Criminal Defense. Bukh Law Firm, 2015. Web. 25 Sept. 2016.

Morin, Jose Luis. "Latinas/os and US Prisons: Trends and Challenges." Latino Studies 6 (2008): 11-34. Web. 25 Sept. 2016.

DEINDUSTRIALIZATION AND CRIMINALIZATION

BY STUDENT

In American history there has been many instances that the minority have been treated less than equal. After everything the truth is that even after fighting for equality there is still a clear division between whites and those of color. People of color are often categorized within their stereotypes, they are categorized into these ideas that are viewed mostly negative than positive than whites, and most of all they harm the chances they can get in the future. The fact is that the color of your skin matters. Why does the color of one’s skin matter so much when judging a person? Why is it that when it comes to a person of color they are deemed more prone to failure and incarceration than a white person who is let off easily or not prone to crime as easy? In this blog post I argue that Hispanics and African Americans share the same experiences of criminalization of unfairness which can be seen in the New York City area. 

Crime in the New York City area is something that is heard of constantly, in the news or actually seen when walking through the streets. When we hear of crimes we hear of them mostly being Latinos or African Americans that are the ones being accused or jailed. We rarely hear of whites being accused of a crime or convicted in the news, we hear about them when it is something big. When it comes down to it when you are colored it matters, it matters because once they see that the person is either Hispanic or African American immediately the person is stereotyped and labeled. It is a horrible thing but even after fighting for equality throughout the years in America it is still a judgment that people have in which they/we are born into. The ethnicity, gender and socio-economic status are things taken into consideration when people judge and treat us. Police are not an exception to this, just because they have to power to enforce the law on us civilians, it is not a hundred percent without racially profiling the person. Even in the 20’s and 30’s African Americans have focused on the discrimination within the districts where people of colored have lived from the police, they have seen “mounting evidence of police corruption, misconduct, and violence against African Americans supported a powerful counterargument to the longstanding linkage of black crime rates and moral, cultural, or racial inferiority” (Muhammad 2010). This is even occurring now, more predominantly with Hispanics and African Americans because we as a society have been primed to think that these ethnicities are the ones to cause more crime than whites.

When looking at the 2015 year end enforcement report of NYC, one can see that the African Americans and Hispanics are accounted for the majority of the crimes. The majority of the NYC area are the minority, they are the most dominant along with their culture. When we think of the city, we think of crime especially within some neighborhoods. New York City used to enforce a stop-and-frisk program that the police department used which would racially profile people to crimes that their race would be labeled to do. This program has since 2013 stopped being considered unconstitutional, but the racial profiling is a very real thing that the correctional system imposes. “Many observers noted that city officials had become more tolerant of crime in African Americans communities than in white ones” (Muhammad 2010). It is very obvious that nothing from the 20’s and 30’s has changed, today police base their judgement on color and on the area the person is from to inforce the law on them. For the most part whites live in the suburbs, an area where crime rarely occurs, and people of color live in the city where often they do not live in the “rich” areas. Hispanics and African Americans are more likely to be arrested than whites even for minor offenses and are charged. People of color have an unfair impact based on their skin color which stereotypes and affects the justice they receive in the correctional system. It is important that the country notices that a person’s race labels them and is detrimental because of the negative impact it has on how they are judged within the correctional system. If a person is treated as a criminal because of their race and its stereotype, they will always live in that shadow and never break out of it. No one should solely judge a person based on their skin tone, everyone should be treated with equality within the justice system and not based on stereotypes or labels.

Work Cited:

Muhammad, Khalil Gibran. The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010.

STRUGGLING FOR SPACE, CREATING LATINA/O URBAN CULTURES

BY Z.M.

How did the environment of living and working conditions of NYC in the early to mid-1900’s effect incoming Puerto Ricans health?  Was it their fault or NYC’s for the outcomes?  In this blogpost I will argue that the poor living and working conditions that were supplied for Puerto Rican immigrants, did in fact contribute greatly to their overall health and well-being.  I will also argue about how they were perceived when immigrating into the country and how that led to this type of treatment and low standard of living. 

To start off, why did Puerto Ricans want to immigrate to the U.S. in the first place?  They saw job opportunities, congressional legislature, efficient transportation routes, a new way of life, a healthier and more prosperous life. (pg. 28) Little did they know that they would be looked down upon as this problem for NYC, and later deemed as “The Puerto Rican Problem.”  Puerto Ricans seen as a problem to NYC because they were bringing in disease, living in densely populated areas, and incorporated a dirty life style that was meant to ruin the “NYC way of life.”  Not many people stopped to think that it was possibly NYC’s problem, and that it was the reason there was a Puerto Rican problem.  Puerto Ricans were put up in the ghetto of public housing.  I don’t know about you but that doesn’t seem to clean to start off with!  The U.S. was looked at as the land of opportunity, not the land of stay cramped and get by.  Living in the conditions that they had was what created this problem.  Close living quarters is a disease playground and combine that with high volumes of people and then you have an unsanitary/dirty living environment.  I believe that the Puerto Ricans were not the reason for this, but the city itself and how they went about handling the immigrants was.

Also looking into just the Puerto Ricans personal health, it was not improved when they moved to the U.S.  Many of the jobs that were given to Puerto Ricans were blue collar.  In 1930-36, the highest numbers of job hiring’s were in laborers and construction, laundry and factories. (pg. 33) I know from my experience with the topic of job safety and health, that these are among the top when it comes to injury and disease.  Puerto Ricans left in hopes of a better life and to be settled down in a new job in a factory was not it.   There are immediate health risks such as personal injury due to equipment, exposure to factory chemicals, sickness due to long hours of work, high prevalence of asthma forming, etc.  There were also long term effects like respiratory problems and cancer later on in life.  So I could ask the real question, did NYC really turn out to be the sanctuary that most Puerto Ricans believed it to be?

Source: Sanchez Korrol, Virginia E. 1994. From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City. Ch. 2 [31]