Red Lining - Personal Experience

It's so disheartening how we have created a system where BIPOC families are unable to get the appropriate means to own a home. I am fortunate enough to have had assistance with purchasing my home in a predominantly white area. When I was searching for my home, I remember avoiding areas which looked "rough" or "run down". This was my own biases and the actions of my white culture pressing on me these areas are "unsafe". They aren't unsafe, they just have not been given the same equal opportunities other areas are given because of the history of red lining.

2 comments

galen

Aug 13, 2020

Thanks for sharing your experience and insights.

Sarah Paradoski

Aug 29, 2020Edited: Aug 29, 2020

I live in Saint Louis, MO and redlining certainly has a deep history here. There is a famous "border" here called "The Delmar Divide" but it is widespread throughout the city. We have a county/city formal division here, in which race is a huge factor; segregation is deep and very much alive in STL. In fact, I can see it looking out my front window right now; my street is a boulevard that is predominantly white, and the next street over separates Carondelet from Dutchtown, which is predominantly black. Between the two sits a St. Louis Public School that is also predominantly black, in a school district long addled with segregation, lack of funding and resources, etc.

Of course STL has been famous for our racial divides and violence in the past decade. Our latest unfortunate outgrowth of these issues are the McCloskeys coming to national prominence (and speaking at the RNC 😣)

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