Housing Hullabaloo?!!!

The first unit of Equality was all about race. We started by looking into some writings by Booker T. Washington, W.E.B Dubois, Peggy McIntosh. They all had interesting concepts and ideas on race and how black people should act according to the current state of racism. The invisible knapsack, appealing to white people, and aiming for the top, were just a few of the various intricacies of their claims. After closely analyzing their perspectives, we switched to using them to influence our own. By doing so, we developed interests in racial problems we saw in our communities that we wanted to change and spread awareness about, through the power of Zines. Zines are short information pamphlets that contain little bits of knowledge to educate and inform people about events, issues, or products. I created one that showcases the issues of housing discrimination here in Chicago.

 

Talking about housing discrimination for this project was difficult, yet intriguing for a number of reasons. The first is that I have been blessed to not have to grow up in an area where housing discrimination is prominent. Me being this fortunate is something I am grateful for, but another thing I realized is because I am an African American Man, I may be a victim of housing discrimination very soon into the future. Because of this, I did extensive research and developed this project, but there is one bit of research I wished I was able to do that would have better educated me on this topic. Talking to a current or past victim of housing discrimination. This would have provided the proper insight into how this issue impacts the individual rather than being looked at as another black issue.