This is an on-going problem that persists throughout my town. While my township and borough are considered to be a part of the vast New York Metro, the area I call home is not as diverse as the many other communities closer to NYC or Philadelphia. Due to the lack of diversity, the issue of white superiority and the discrimination of housing and space around town is clearly visible. The North side of my town is home to most of the diverse communities, along with a few other pockets. These apartment complexes are downtrodden and usually filled over capacity, which has brought on anger from the proprietors of the real estate, who are the ones that claim that the Borough and surrounding Township of Raritan are "anti-latino." This article is intriguing because it deals with an arrogant white community who suspects anyone "of different means or backgrounds" to be of danger; stemming back to a 2009 article in our local paper, "The Hunterdon County Democrat," of blatant discrimination and bashing of our latino community and their citizenship. Under The Fair Housing Act, the proprietors must lease an apartment without any discrimination of the person or persons. Yet the Mayor, who is actually not well-liked throughout the borough for various reasons, is demanding to deem the area "in need of redevelopment." In her mind, she believes redevelopment is to rid of what she feels is undesirable. However, with the newly implemented COAH or the New Jersey Council Of Affordable Housing, affordable housing is coming into different areas of my community, bringing on more obvious misunderstanding and discrimination. People believe that affordable housing will increase an already rising minority community. What they do not understand is that just because someone applies for affordable housing, does not mean they are dangerous, nor minority. The constant discrimination is a growing trend that persist as it is a growing trend across the nation, primarily in the largest metropolis of the United States
Very interesting. I think the part of the article where the mayor justifies the redevelopment as a response to "crime" rather than race is particularly compelling. It makes me think of the general "Get Tough on Crime" policies that originated during the Reagan-Bush doctrines and still, more less, prevail today. In a lot of ways, I think we rhetorically construct crime as a sort of implicit catch-all for talking about race, thus attacking crime may actually be a form of institutional racism/segregation. Also, I agree with your comment that merely being poor or residing in affordable housing does not equate criminality. The irony is that the more we structurally marginalize certain populations to the fringes of society (in cases like this), the more we suppress their capacities to succeed and thus facilitate their having to turn to potentially illicit means of acquiring money. In general, I feel like this IS, in fact, a really good of example of the "class warfare" that the mayor of the town won't acknowledge.
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