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My initial research question was “how do signs reinforce institutionalized racism in my community and what alternative signs could be erected to create a more impartial public space?” After looking more into my topic, I feel that this inquiry is a little bit limited in its scope. My new inquiry is “what practices reinforce institutionalized racism in my community and what actions can be taken to create a more impartial public space?” My research topic has changed slightly because I found that there are many more instances of institutionalized racism than in just the semiotic systems and they need to be addressed as well.
After analyzing my primary research, I found some interesting relationships. Those invested in creating a positive image within the city, like the superintendent, police officer, principal, and teacher I interviewed, answered the questions in a way that presented the city or school system in the most positive light. At first, this gave me difficulty because it seemed like no one thought there was anything wrong with the city or schools and that institutionalized racism didn’t exist as I thought it did. However, after looking through the responses I decided to interview a former teacher who no longer has a vested interest in protecting the image of the school or city, and her answers created a vastly different image. Since she no longer needed to provide biased answers her interview allowed for doubt and permitted the idea of institutionalized racism to reenter in my research. For example, when asked “do you think these [drug prevention signs] affect the image of the school?,” the superintendent answered by saying “I don’t perceive it that way. The [9th grade center] is a wonderful school and is very high in academics. I know that many students feel safe and happy there and the local community is very supportive.” When a current teacher was asked the same question she responded similarly, stating “[the signs make] me feel safe because I know if the city of Eustis took the time to put them up then the law is aware of precautionary situations and will be alert if something occurs.” These biased positive statements vary greatly from the former teacher’s response to the same question, “they most definitely affect the image of the school in a negative way… [they make me] very concerned for the safety of my children.” This new knowledge has shaped my understanding of the topic by allowing me to see that many of my primary research subjects have biases because of their affiliation with the institutions I am questioning. Because of this, it will be especially important for me to examine the rhetorical situation for each interviewee in order to fully understand their biases and where these biases come from.
One question I still want answered concerns those who place the school zone lines in my community. When I talked with the superintendent, she explained that when deciding new school zone lines, a committee is formed consisting of candidates selected by the School Board Members themselves. Every School Board Member is allowed to make one selection, including the superintendent. This committee then works with the city’s Growth and Planning Department and creates a zoning recommendations list that is presented to the community and voted upon in a Board Meeting Hearing. My question is this: how does the School Board break down racially and how do their selections and members of the Growth and Planning Department break down racially as well? This is an important question to have answered because there may not be an equal representation of every race in the committees and departments that decide on the school zone lines, which may lead to the implementation of institutionalized racial practices. In order to obtain this information, I am going to talk with the Growth and Planning Department and someone knowledgeable in the School Board to estimate the racial breakdown of all related groups in this process.
One of the major gaps I am finding deals with statistics. For part of my research, I am looking at two elementary schools, as one mostly consists of white students and receives high grades and the other is more evenly divided racially and always receives a lower grade. I talked with the current principal at the more racially divided Eustis Heights Elementary School, who happened to also be the former principal of the more white orientated Eustis Elementary School. When I asked him for a racial breakdown of the two schools, he confidently told me that Eustis Elementary School was 55% White, 25% African American, 19% Hispanic, and 1% Other, while Eustis Heights Elementary School was 40% African American, 38% White, 20% Hispanic, and 2% Other. When giving these statistics, he didn’t need to look them up since he knew this knowledge, being principal at both schools in the last two years. I later went online to “Public School Review” to check a statistic for Eustis Elementary School, and noticed that the ethnic breakdown presented on this website was much different than the principal told me it was. The website stated that there was 61% White, 23% Black, 15% Hispanic, and 1% Other. When I checked the statistics for Eustis Heights Elementary School, the statistics were different too, stating that the school consisted of 45% White, 34% Black, 19% Hispanic, 2% Asian, and 1% American Indian.
My mom happens to be the school nurse at Eustis Heights and as part of her job has to fill out paper work regarding the income of all students’ families. To check the accuracy of the website I asked her what percentage of students were eligible for free/reduced lunch at Eustis Heights and compared it to what the website claimed. She told me that close to 80% were eligible and the principal gave a similar estimate at 78%. The website, on the other hand, stated that only 68% were eligible, with 55% at Eustis Elementary eligible. It seems to me that the website’s statistics may be a few years old, especially when looking at the free/reduced lunch statistics. With the economy not improving, many more parents are working with smaller incomes, and as a result, more qualify for the free/reduced lunch program than in previous years, which helps explain the difference. Important to note, though, is that the website contains other information that is up-to-date. This leaves a gap in the amount and type of information being presented, which is convenient for the school system. Prospective white parents looking on this website will see that both schools contain larger white student bodies, and therefore would feel comfortable enrolling their white child in either school. If the statistics were depicted accurately, however, white parents may choose Eustis Elementary and its greater White population over Eustis Heights, and further support institutionalized practices.
Many of my original ideas are about these two schools. When interviewing school officials, I learned that Eustis Heights was built as more of a community school, where parents were expected to either allow their child to walk or would be dropped off as a car rider, because the school wasn’t equipped for bus traffic. Eustis Heights, on the other hand, has 16 buses that run regularly and pick up a large amount of the school’s population. This, along with the free/reduced lunch statistics, points to a significant economic difference between the two schools. It seems that the smaller, community based and mostly white, Eustis Elementary, excludes ‘poorer’ students who typically take the bus and sends them to the less academically strong Eustis Heights. When I talked with school related employees about these practices, they explained the situation in the most positive light and believed that both schools are fair and academically strong. This leads to another gap, the gap between local school officials and scholars, which can be used to add to the original idea. In failing to realize the institutional racism inherent in the school system, many of my interviewees allow African American students to suffer academically as explained in my last two freewrites. Some Black students internalize the negative images and stereotypes and start to believe them, making them not only hate their race but hate themselves as well. In school, this means poor motivation, misbehavior, and bad grades. Additionally, many black students who want to succeed and disprove stereotypes end up giving up in fear that they will fail and become a living example of the stereotype. School officials need to be aware of these results of institutionalized racism because they are the ones that will have to provide the solution.
Evolving thesis: While many school and city officials in Eustis feel that they are creating and maintaining an equitable public space, the institutions for which they work may actually be perpetuating an environment of exclusion.
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Sibley uses his sources in a very sophisticated way that gives his argument credibility. Since this part of the essay acts as the introduction, Sibley starts off presenting sources like Paul Rainbow to help explain and clarify the purpose of the writing. He then uses his own writing to present other groups with similar objectives, like Marxists and explains why their lack of sensitivity to the subject matter makes them comparable to the dominant groups’ treatment of minorities. Next, he uses Jane Flax to help clarify his previous claims and ground them in broader academic research. Once his credibility is established, he uses Shields to directly support his argument, further lending to his believability. To prove his open mindedness, he presents an opposing viewpoint about the positive aspects of shopping malls as a catalyst to argue against when he brings up the issue of security in shopping centers. To further emphasize his own viewpoint, Sibley stresses that security guards not only evicted teenagers from the mall but also from the whole precinct as well, a statement meant to resonate with readers and make them seriously consider his claims.
Once the audience is willing to accept Sibley’s argument, he presents an opposing viewpoint again and allows another source, Shields, to not only combat the statement, but to also directly support Sibley’s argument, reestablishing his credibility. With the audience still willing to consider Sibley’s argument, he uses a story telling technique to both directly support and deepen the argument. This story is supported by the next source, the Home Office Study, before Sibley continues with an additional story. This story about hippies in a residential park acts to reaffirm and further support the shopping mall example. The story examines a wall and its differing definitions by security guards and hippies. Sibley starts by establishing the definition of the wall from the opposing viewpoint of the security guard before using sources to counteract the viewpoint. Using two sources, Shills and Rokeach, Sibley examines the theoretical implications of the catalyst, and by doing so, supports his argument. He then presents the additional opposing perspectives of the residence to help explain how the cop represents majority wishes in his arbitrary use of power to add emphasis to his argument. This is followed by an additional supportive argument by Walker that is also supported by another source, Davis. The way Sibley constantly mixes up the purposes of his sources creates an interesting and credible argument that I can mimic in my own essay.
Ferguson, Ronald F. “A Diagnostic Analysis of Black–White GPA Disparities in Shaker Heights, Ohio.” College Board Lecture Series. College Board.
Rockville, MD. Public Health Service. National Institute of Mental Health. Institutional Racism and Community Competence. Educational Resources Information Center. Washington: GPO, 1981.
Extensive rhetorical analysis can be found in Freewrite #4.
Ferguson quotes:
“Six key findings and interpretations resulted from analysis of the data. First, the characteristics of black and white youth in Shaker Heights that predict black-white GPA differences implicate skills, much more than effort, as the main reasons for the GPA gap.” From page 6
My reactions to this would be that African Americans often aren’t provided with the tools necessary to have strong study skills. The essay looked at the situation as if each group were runners. The white group is faster because, as a group, it has received training and has had much more practice, where the black group, as a whole, hasn’t. The white group will always stay ahead then unless the black group strives to outrun them, or in the case of school, studies harder. Unfortunately, as this study shows, the effects of institutionalized racism have held back African American students, making any extra effort to succeed worthless. With examples like this, it is clear to see why many African Americans may simply chose to give up in such an unfair situation. This seems to be the case within my own community. Few of the black students in my high school were high achievers, and those that were were often seen as exceptions. These students were given more ‘training’ and ‘practice’ and as a result, achieved more. In this way, it becomes clear how damaging the drug prevention signs and fearful security can be. Instead of encouraging and teaching young African Americans, we remind them of the many shortcomings that being black in today’s society can have. Shortcomings that we have introduced and allowed to be ever present in the semiotic systems and institutions we present. We should be instead encouraging young black children to help them reach their full potential. I may use this quote to address some of the opposing claims by the police station and school system who find these institutionalized measures to be completely necessary and appropriate.
“The black-white GPA gap equals roughly one letter grade. The mean GPA is in the neighborhood of C+ for blacks and B+ for whites.” From page 5
I think this relates to the last quote and how many African American children don’t receive the same amount of investment as far as teaching them good study habits and working with their individual needs. So much of our society has been set up to benefit the dominant white group that we don’t spend the time or effort to understand the differing needs of other groups. Instead, we practice institutionalized racism, marking them as ‘other’ with signs portraying their deviance to ‘keep them in their place’ and otherwise ignore their very pressing needs. I believe this statement is true of many schools, not only Shaker Heights, or my own hometown, and needs to be addressed and seriously considered. With such a glaring difference in grades this makes me wonder why the problem has gone unaddressed for so long. Why haven’t programs like ‘No Child Left Behind’ made a difference, and what other programs could we implement to make a difference? Could eliminating the more glaring examples of institutionalized racism help? I may use this quotation in much the same way as the last one as a way to argue against my interviews.
“Third, attitudes and behaviors are more important for predicting within-race than between-race GPA disparities.” From page 7
I don’t know if I necessarily agree with this statement. While this survey was done in a very scientific manner, I wonder if students were completely honest. To clarify, when asked to explain our overall attitudes on a piece of paper, we often will describe our idealized vision of our behaviors and may choose to overlook our ‘fake’ attitudes that allow us to fit in. This is extremely important in analyzing between race differences because it acknowledges that peer pressure and the need to create a positive self image may cause someone to not act as they ideally would. Put another way, many African Americans are so inundated with negative images and stereotypes of their own race that it may cause them to start believing them, a process called internalized racism. This internalized self image can cause someone to have a low self image and actually believe that they are worthless. In a situation like this, the person may turn to others for positive affirmation of their worth, in other words, they may value the opinion of their friends over their own. In this way, they may act out in order receive the approval of their peers. Some students may not be aware of this and simply attribute their behaviors as ways to fit in, and in answering a survey question, may ignore this real need for self worth and only focus on the idealized attributes they feel they posses. Institutional racism plays a large part in this process, as it attributes to the inundation of negative images and stereotypes. If this were the case at Shaker Heights, the results may have shown differences in the attitudes between races, since white students are more often than not presented with positive images of their own race. I do agree with the claim that attitude and behavior within one race can also have an effect as well. This would be true of any race and is a believable result of the survey. I could use this claim in much the same way as the preceding two to establish why eliminating institutional racism is so important.
“Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson have produced laboratory evidence of ‘stereotype anxiety,’ which is induced by “stereotype threat.”14 In the context of race, the anxiety is a nervous anticipation induced by the threat that one’s performance might confirm a negative racial generalization. Such anxiety can depress performance even among students who value achievement, know that they have the skills to do very well, and are trying to do their best.” From page 11
This statement offers another perspective on the previous quotation and works in much the same way. In this case, the institutionalized and internalized racism act to preserve one’s self image. When constantly presented with negative images and stereotypes, many may try to overcome the adversity and prove the negative sentiments wrong. However, when confronted with the possibility of failure, many may chose to simply live with the negative claims against their race and not risk discovering that the sentiments are true. This ‘survival technique’ is aimed at preserving self worth, but at the same time hinders the person from reaching their full potential. In short, they feel ‘if I don’t try I can’t fail’. This of course is just as damaging as the loss of self worth, and both situations end in negative consequences for the marginalized group. This could relate to the drug signs in my city. With so many drug prevention signs presenting negative images, many may feel the need to make something more of their lives and escape the harmful environment. However, in trying to get out of town and live a successful life, many may be scared at the possibility of failure and give up trying at all. The signs would then merely become a symbol of failure to them and a mark of success to the institutions that implemented them.
“Surprisingly large differences in parental schooling were found between Shaker Heights’s black and white students. Mothers and fathers together average at least four years of college in roughly 90 percent of white households, compared with about 45 percent of black households. Parents in one quarter of black households have only twelve or fewer years of schooling. The same is true for less than 5 percent of white households. A larger percentage of parents have postgraduate degrees among whites than have four-year college degrees among blacks. From page 11
I wonder why the writers of this quote would find these statistics surprising. This survey was taken in 1999 by 11-18 year old students. We can assume that most parents had their children between 16 and 35, meaning younger parents grew up in the 70s and older parents grew up in the 50s. Both of these times hold significant historical importance as many women in these times either didn’t continue on to college and took secretarial or other small jobs, or choose careers that required less education like nursing. White men made up most college populations, while many black males wouldn’t go to college at all Especially important is that parents that grew up in the 50s experienced segregation firsthand and even in post-integration were not given many of the same opportunities as whites. These historical events of institutionalized racism would explain why whites as a whole were more educated as blacks. Even today more whites attend college than do blacks, namely because of smaller examples of institutionalized racism. Using examples like this that don’t acknowledge the effects of institutionalized racism can be helpful in my paper to establish how widespread and important institutionalized racism is in our society.
Institutional Racism and Community Competence quotes:
“Afro-American children internalize the low estimate of their worth held by whites. This sense of inferiority in black children manifests itself in low self-confidence, lack of motivation, and aggressive behavior.” From page 15
This statement can be used to reaffirm some of the statements from the previous text and make them seem more credible to an audience.
“Racism also affects the environment in which people of color must live, creating an unending cycle which traps them in a position of powerlessness.” From page 15
This helps to shed light on why eradicating institutionalized racism is so difficult. With whites establishing themselves as the dominant race, they have authority and power that they otherwise wouldn’t have. In order to maintain this power, every other race needs to be suppressed. This is where institutionalized racism enters the picture. By suppressing all other races in every aspect of daily life, the white population retains its control and power. This makes eliminating institutionalized racism extremely difficult. Since whites are in power why should they give it up? It’s benefiting them so why would they change a good thing? It is attitudes like this that have allowed racism to continue living strong so many years after slavery and end of segregation. This quote will be useful in establishing what institutionalized racism is and why it is so important to get rid of.
“In addition, when minority children are diagnosed as mentally retarded or academically deficient, the resources needed for remediation often are not made available. Because the expectations about the potential of these students are relatively low, they are placed in [concentrated] classrooms designed more to maintain discipline than to teach.” From pages 22 and 23
This quote struck me because it is especially true of the schools in my community. The elementary school I went to contained such a large number of ESE and EBD students to the point that a whole wing of the school was dedicated to them. Having visited these classrooms, I observed firsthand how the teachers of these classes acted more like babysitters than educators. This is a huge difference from a school that specializes in mental handicaps and disorders located right across the street. Having volunteered there, I was able to interact with the children and actually played an active role in educating them. One notable difference was that the small school was made of mostly white children where the elementary school consisted of mostly black children in these programs. The black children weren’t expected to learn where the white students were. How is this justifiable?
“The infant mortality rate is significantly higher for nonwhites [two times as many black babies die than whites], and the life expectancy for nonwhites, especially males, is significantly lower. From birth to death, minorities experience higher susceptibility to chronic disease and health hazards than is generally true for nonminorities.” From page 23
I have read similar statistics in some of my other sources, and these trends point to institutionalized racism within the medical industry. In this way it acts as another example of the horrible effects of institutionalized racism.
“In summary, institutional racism might be described as (1) a failure to integrate the diverse perspectives brought to it by minority group members; (2) reluctance or inability to alter historical patterns of service provisions; and (3) a low level of awareness by institutional agents of the special needs of all its members.” From page 26
I think this acts as a good summary of all of the points listed above and would be useful in my own conclusion to reiterate the points I am going to make.
Formal Paragraphs:
While some members of my community may not admittedly report recognizing the institutionalized racism latent in many semiotic systems, it doesn’t mean that they are not aware of it. In Beverly Tatum’s “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and Other Conversations about Race,” she explains that “the dominant groups [in society] generally do not like to be reminded of the existence of inequality.” As a group, white society likes to believe that they have earned the good things in their lives and that those who are more unfortunate have done something to be so (Tatum 24). The idea that race has had any part in ‘their accomplishments’ diminishes the level of personal achievement and leaves a feeling of guilt. Instead of admitting that the distribution of ‘luck’ is not fair, many people in the dominate group would rather believe in the lie, that the world is a just and fair place where everyone gets what they deserve. But what does this mean for the subordinate group that is slated by this uneven system of luck?
Even though many do not like to acknowledge the negative results of institutionalized racism, or that it even exits, its results are widespread and hazardous. One only has to look at the educational system and see the achievement disparity between blacks and whites to grasp the unfair ramifications of racism. The case study “A Diagnostic Analysis of Black–White GPA Disparities in Shaker Heights, Ohio” by Harvard School of Education professor, Ronald F. Ferguson, revealed that “the black-white GPA gap equals roughly one letter grade. The mean GPA is in the neighborhood of C+ for blacks and B+ for whites” (Ferguson 5). But what could cause such a difference in GPA? For Ferguson, the answer is that skill sets, regardless of effort, are what account for the gap. For Tatum, it is more of an issue of respect. If a teacher does not respect a student’s integrity it will result in a “major loss of self,” causing the student to not work as hard or to completely stop working altogether.
So which one of these examples is right? It would seem that both answers actually are. What these responses point to is an underlying result of institutionalized racism, internalized oppression. This phenomenon occurs when a person has been inundated with negative depictions and stereotypes about their own race to the point that they start to believe them to be true and feel worthless as a result. In ‘Institutional Racism and Community Competence’ published by the National Institute of Mental Health, Editor Oscar A. Barbarin explains that “Afro-American children internalize the low estimate of their worth held by whites. This sense of inferiority in black children manifests itself in low self-confidence, lack of motivation, and aggressive behavior” (Institutional Racism and Community Competence 15). In other words, the institutionalized racism in cities and public spaces has become so commonplace that its negative messages are actually able to affect the performance of African American students in school.
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One of the online sources I located was ‘Institutional Racism and Community Competence’ published through the National Institute of Mental Health by Editor Oscar A. Barbarin in 1979. The text examines how institutionalized and internalized racism can negatively affect the mental health of subordinate groups and presents ways in which citizens, professionals, and scholars can recognize and better understand these mental health disorders. The editor of this publication, Oscar A. Barbarin was a recent graduate of Rutgers University’s 1975 class when he started work on this research along with professors Paul Good, O. Martin Pharr, and Judith Siskind, of the University of Maryland. With a Ph. D. in Clinical Psychology, and interests including children’s mental health, African American children and families, family and preschool interventions, and the black-white achievement gap, Barbarin had a strong foundation in the Social Sciences and Mental Health issues related to race, which later became evident in his research and writings.
The actual source that produced ‘Institutional Racism and Community Competence’ was the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institute of Health (NIH), a sub-bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services of the Federal Government. NIMH is the largest research organization in the world, using biomedical research of the mind, brain, and behavior to help reduce the burden of mental illnesses and behavioral disorders. Because of NIMH’s association with the government, the organization is very powerful and has many of the same bias’s of the government it works for. It is interesting then that NIMH would help sponsor a publication that criticizes the institutionalized racism inherent in the government’s laws and everyday actions. Although this relationship may seem a little strange, it is explainable. Stated in the essay, there is a disclaimer that the views reflected do not necessarily reflect the views of NIMH or any of its related affiliates. This helps to explain the possible disconnect between the two viewpoints and establishes Barbarin as a credible source.
The audience is revealed in the book itself. The introduction states that “this book is the product of several years of work, beginning with planning for the Sixth Annual Community-Clinical Workshop, ‘Institutional racism: Impediment to community competence,’ conducted November 4, 5, and 6, 1976, in Lanham, Maryland. The workshop was sponsored by the Clinical-Community Program, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, and supported with funds from grant 3R12MH28827-01 provided by the Center for Minority Group Mental Health Programs of the National Institute of Mental Health (DHHS)”. Because of this, the original intended audience was the scholars, professionals, and private citizens that attended the workshop. Because of this, the author made the assumption that the audience would only believe supported and credible scholarly information, and formatted his research to fit. The website I found this on, however, was Google Scholar, so the intended audience was solely a scholarly based one, which likewise required credible information. I tried to locate the publication on the NIMH website to examine their audience, but could not find it using the search function.
Since NIMH was the sponsor, the purpose of the book was both governmental and educational. This makes the information presented seem valid, credible, and balanced. I found the information to be very comprehensive, covering many different implications of institutionalized racism from housing to education. While the source may seem outdated, it is actually very current and relevant. Other modern sources I looked at related other types of diseases to the effects of institutionalized racism, and this is actually a new type of study just now being explored. The information can be seen as controversial however as many people would not want to believe that racism could have such harrowing effects.
The second online source I found was “A Diagnostic Analysis of Black–White GPA Disparities in Shaker Heights, Ohio” by Ronald F. Ferguson. Originally from the 2001 book ‘Brookings Papers on Education Policy,’ the College Board lecture presents a case study examining the achievement-gap between black and white students and the potential causes of the disparity. Ferguson is a distinguished scholar working as the Senior Lecturer in Education and Public Policy at Harvard Graduate School of Education and as an economist and Senior Research Associate at the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy. Ferguson received two degrees in economics from Cornell University and MIT before starting heavy research on the achievement gap. Notable publications include ‘Helping Students of Color Meet High Standards’ and ‘Within-School Variation in the Quality of Instruction across Course Levels and Racial Groups,’ both from 2008. Based on the author’s publications, it is clear that he believes that educators need to do everything that they can to make schools more equitable.
The publisher of the case study is College Board, a company whose goal is to help students be successful through opportunity. Makers of the SAT and PSAT tests as well as Advanced Placement (AP) classes, the College Board is a respected educational organization. Committed to excellence and equity, the College Board adds to Ferguson’s authority through their common goal of an equal opportunity educational system. While the College Board may by biased in its agenda of salesmanship of tests and testing supplies, the scientific case study Ferguson presents is as neutral as possible.
The intended audience of the College Board includes high school and college level students, parents, and educators. Ferguson targets the same group but places more emphasis on scholars and educators. Both the author and publisher expect that their audience will look for credible information, and make sure to present information in the most verifiable way.
The purpose of the website is to be academic and educational. The information presented is valid, reliable, and balanced because of the scientific manner information was gathered. The work was comprehensive, looking to many different potential factors. The work is relevant and current as the issue of the educational gap has been discussed by many scholars, especially after the no-child-left-behind act. The only controversy surrounding the investigation would be that there are many variables, so saying one decisive aspect is responsible would be unverifiable.
Comparison:
So why does institutionalized racism matter to my community anyway? Besides the obvious harmful physical and emotional effects, institutional racism can actually be damaging mentally. The case study “A Diagnostic Analysis of Black–White GPA Disparities in Shaker Heights, Ohio” by College Board lecturer and Harvard School of Education professor, Ronald F. Ferguson, examines how race, family, attitude, and behavior are related to achievement inconsistencies. Using the Cornell Assessment of Secondary School Student Culture, Ferguson asked all middle and high school students in Shaker Heights to participate in the questionnaire. After analyzing the information, Ferguson found that “no evidence exists… that black students are any more opposed than white students to achievement norms in Shaker Heights,” and claims that any differences can be attributed to skills.
Although Ferguson found no difference in desire to succeed, he did acknowledge that self image played a role in the achievement gap. When asked to respond to the statement “’I didn’t try as hard as I could in school because I worried about what my friends might think,’ 21 percent of black males, 10 percent of black females, [compared to] 7 percent of white males, and 3 percent of white females” agreed. What these two statements point to is an alarming reality. While many black students aren’t opposed to working hard and achieving, 30 percent of the black community at Shaker Heights cares more about their self image than on making accomplishments. But what exactly causes African American students to put their own self image over academic success? While Ferguson doesn’t allow the idea of institutionalized racism to be considered as a factor in this case study, many scholars feel that its effects are too great to ignore.
In ‘Institutional Racism and Community Competence’ published by the National Institute of Mental Health, Editor Oscar A. Barbarin examines how institutionalized racism actually affects the mental health in minority races, especially in children. Barbarin rejects Ferguson’s skill model while jointly acknowledging self perception as an achievement hinderer. Barbarin explains that young children often internalize stereotypes to the point that they start to believe them, lowering their idea of their own self worth and trampling any self-motivation or self-confidence they may possess. Furthermore, he believes that the uneven distribution of goods and services makes even the most common stresses in life hard to properly deal with. This may result in negative or even aggressive behaviors when facing difficult challenges, especially in school, and cause the child to work less and even stop working altogether.
This explanation can be useful in explaining why many of the African American students at Shaker Heights valued self image over academics. When lacking confidence in one’s self, many people often turn to others to measure the value of their self worth. For students, this self worth comes from the opinion of friends, and even if the student personally doesn’t oppose achievement, they may choose to work less if their friends make fun of them for performing well. Seen as a direct result of the nominative nature of institutionalized racism, Barbarin’s model provides a more complete examination of the potential causes of the achievement gap. Understanding institutional racism in this way helps explain why having large numbers of drug prevention signs in a primarily African American community may be damaging to the community’s idea of their own self worth. If they are always presented with negative images, they may start to devalue both their personal and community worth.
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One source that I plan to interview is the Eustis Police Department. I have set up an appointment with one of the officers this week, and I hope to gain knowledge on the anti-drug signs that have been implemented around the 9th grade center. I plan on creating a questionnaire with specific questions regarding the signs and their relationship to implemented racism. The officer will act as my sole participant for this part of my research. By setting up an appointment, I have gained access into the police station, and have been able to recruit someone who specifically likes to talk to people and would be and good interviewee.
In doing the research so far this semester, I know that I am biased because I feel that there are strong examples of implemented racism in my community, specifically around public schools. To make sure my biases don’t come through, I will formulate my questions so that they are as neutral as possible and don’t lead my interviewee to respond in a certain way. I hope to discover how successful the signs have been in deterring crimes, if they have been at all. I also want to find out if there is a specific reason that so many signs have been put on this one street. Is it because there is a major drug trafficking problem or is because of the neighborhood and the close vicinity to a public school? Do officers themselves find these signs to have racial undertones, making them inappropriate, or do they feel like they are serving their purpose, making them appropriate? Who decided which signs to use and where to place them? And did they need approval from any other part of the local government, or from the community itself?
Questionnaire
I want to start off by getting some basic information about you and your work with the police station.
Name:
Position:
Age:
Gender:
Race:
Education Level:
How long have you been a police officer?
How long have you been with the Eustis Police Department?
What type of work does your day to day job consist of?
How involved have you been in working against drug trafficking?
How many drug related calls would you say you get on average?
Are these calls usually from the same area, or do they occur in a variety of places around town?
How do these calls break down racially?
One of the topics I’m really interested in discussing with you is about drug prevention signs throughout town. How familiar are you with these?
Who decides where to place these signs?
What makes an area require a sign?
To your knowledge, have they been successful in deterring drug trafficking in the areas they have been implemented?
Have there been any fact based studies that compare the amount of drug trafficking before and after the signs were put in place? If so, what were the results?
We’ve been talking about drug prevention, specifically the signs used to help deter drug crimes. I now want to talk to you about the drug issues in a specific area of town. Are you familiar with these signs around the Eustis High School Curtwright Center?
What is your knowledge of drug trafficking in this area?
Would you say that the drug problem in this area is any better or worse than other areas in the city?
Why have so many signs been placed upon this specific stretch of road as opposed to other areas in town?
Does the location of the school have any impact on this?
Do you find these signs appropriate for the area? Why or why not?
Have you noticed that one race has more problems with drug trafficking in this particular area than others?
For my research paper, I am looking to address racism that appears in the signs and symbols of businesses and organizations. Do you personally feel that this type of racism appears in Eustis?
Do you feel that race has anything to do with the number of drug prevention signs around the Curtwright Center?
Can you think of a better way to present the signs?
Is there any other information I did not bring up that you would like to discuss?
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My community has had a long history of racism and racial violence. While many other communities in the south share this history, my community has made a name for itself by being known for its lynchings that continued well into the mid 1900s. While I would like to think that this history of racial violence and intolerance was a thing of the past, the fact of the matter is that it is still as present as ever, only taking on a less severe façade. Like I demonstrated in my last post, street signs around my community act to target the black community in a way that presents them as dangerous and as being highly involved in drug trafficking. 
Signs and symbols like those presented are harmful to the black community because they present hidden racial messages in public space and make racism seem justified.
Another aspect of racism I discussed in the previous post was the tension many had about white students going to school in what was formerly the black middle school. All of the schools in the nearby area are located in ‘nice’ areas that parents feel safe sending their children to. It happens that all of these ‘nice’ areas are in the white community. To clarify, my town can be seen as being divided by a major street that runs from downtown to the nearby cities. This divide separates the ‘rich white area’ from the ‘poor black area’ and also served as the segregation line when both white and black schools coexisted. In recent times, the main high school on the ‘white side’ has become overpopulated, creating the need for an over-flow space. The school’s solution was to take over the former African American middle school and turn it into a 9th grade center. This created uproar in my community because many parents did not feel that the school was located in an ‘appropriate’ neighborhood. As shown in my previous post, the need to ‘feel safe’ meant big changes for the school like the tall fence that surrounded it in entirety. 
This gate, as well as many other ‘protective’ changes, acts as a public display of racism by the white community of my town.
At one point I was also considering looking at public institutions, specifically schools and churches, and how they feel the need to advertise to gain recognition in a world over barren with signs. For example, I might have looked further at the Chapel of Love on the school bus stop as a controversial advertisement of a public institution. Surprisingly, even signs like these can contain hidden racist messages. Two Baptist churches located a mile apart on a busy highway nearby always contain very clever sayings to draw attention to the community. Often times, these ‘advertisements’ display the church’s openness to new members regardless of shape, size, or color. 
What is interesting though is that these churches have entirely white congregations where churches like the one in my last post have an all black congregation. It seems in this case that people are self-segregating themselves to stay within their own race.
After looking at all of these examples, it seems that the signs and semiotic systems in place are causing people to ‘segregate’ themselves because of the racism they support. Taking all of this into consideration, my inquiry is this:
How do signs reinforce institutionalized racism in my community and what alternative signs could be erected to create a more impartial public space?
To bring in course readings, I may use Mitchell’s “The End of Public Space” to examine how different members of my community define public space and if they feel that signs with racist undertones should be allowed to exist in this realm of public-ness. I could also look at both sides of the ‘divide’ between the white and black neighborhoods to see how Flutsy’s arguments could be affirmed or denied by either side. More importantly, how do Flutsy’s arguments stand on the actual divider of the road; is there a marked difference between the two sides or does the road denote a neutral zone? I may also use Scollen and Scollen to examine the emplacement of the signs; which side is the sign located on and how does this help determine its meaning? Examining situated semiotics may also be useful when examining the regulatory street signs that attempt to prevent drug trafficking.
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The spaces I chose are all in a close geographic vicinity. This is the area that I described in the first free-writing activity about our hometowns. A road separates this area from the rest of the town and can be seen as the ‘rich’/'poor’ dividing line. It is dominantly African American and is also the area of my town known for drug trafficking.
These two images are from public schools. The top image is of the road view of the 9th grade center that formerly was the African American middle school. My high school took over the property and used it exclusively for the 9th graders to spread out the school population. The second image is of the road entrance to the main campus of my high school, which is located on the ‘richer’ side of the dividing street and is a largely white area.
The 9th grade center is being secured by a large gate to keep trespassers out. The gate uses vertical bars to make it hard to climb over and ‘decorative’ points meant to hurt anyone that attempts to enter. The school is also under video surveillance at all times, and during the school year there is always a patrol car parked in front. The main campus is secured less drastically. The gate used to surround the school also uses vertical bars, but instead of decorative points, they simply have a blunt top, which makes the gate easier and less dangerous to climb over. Surveillance is used, but the cameras are less visible and somewhat camouflaged. While there is always a patrol car on campus, the car is more out of sight and the deputy normally leaves right when school is out, while the 9th grade center deputy stays after for about an hour and arrives an hour earlier. While these two setups are fairly similar, one major difference is that the main campus (as shown in the picture) allows the public ‘access’ through the planters that could be used to sit on. The 9th grade center eliminates any type of seat-like aperture completely gating the campus, creating a prickly, crusty, and jittery space. In both cases, the school is trying to keep trespassers out. The 9th grade center takes this a step farther by trying to keep the whole surrounding community out. For students, this creates an uncomfortable feeling where the only place to feel safe is inside of the tall gates.
When the school was used as an African American middle school, there were no foreboding gates, the school was simply open to the surrounding area. This openness allowed for a more welcome and inviting appearance even though the school still didn’t want trespassers to enter. It is interesting then, that when the school was transformed to include a white student body, the large gate appeared and security increased. In many ways this gate seems to represent ‘safety’; it was implemented by the white community for the white community so that they would feel safer sending their children to school there. Even though the school did still maintain a large black community, that was the way of the white population cutting off ties from the ‘sketchy’ neighborhood that many saw it as.
While the motives behind this gate are inappropriate, I feel that having a gate surrounding a school is a completely appropriate action to take. There are many people that parents wouldn’t want to be able to enter a school easily like known sex offenders, and the gate makes them ‘feel safer’ regardless of whether it really is or not. I think parents always search for that type of peace of mind regardless of whether or not what they believe is true, so the symbol of the gate is a necessary reassurance.
This very directly affirms Flustsy’sarguments. This gate acts in the same way as the road systems that made it extremely hard for the poorer neighborhoods to gain access to the richer districts. The gate acts, in this case, to exclude through both race and socioeconomic status by separating the ‘poor’ neighborhood from the integrated and varied student body.
These signs appear in the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the 9th grade center. As I mentioned in the opening, this whole area has been separated by the main road in my town, making it into a ‘zone’ of its own. The particular road that these signs are located on have been known to have crack houses and drug trafficking and have been busted on multiple occasions. The bottom sign, which prohibits parking, standing, and stopping, is located on both sides of the street and multiple signs mark the road about 30 ft. from each other. This zone is being secured through the use of signs and through police patrol. The signs, of course, are trying to stop the drug problem by intimidating perspective buyers and scaring sellers away.
The police are responsiblefor the signs, as visible from the very large sign that is located at the entrance to the road. I think the signs are appropriate but I also feel like they may be hurting the area by presenting it as a stereotypical drug hub. The problem lies with a very small group compared to the larger population, so to put so many of these signs up makes it seem as if the whole area is involved. I’m sure the police were pressured to put these up though, since this road is only two down from the 9thgrade center. Many parents have been concerned that the signs may actually point students in the ‘wrong’ direction and ‘lead’ them to known drug areas. I think police control is a more subtle and more effective way to deal with the problem because it wouldn’t put a giant target over the area to attract buyers and would result in more arrests since an officer would actually be present.
These signs reaffirm Flutsy’s claims in a different way from the schools. This space isn’t exactly prickly or jittery but morphs them in a way to create a different kind of space. If a cop is not around, the signs don’t carry as much weight and can be ignored, so the status of the space is constantly changing based on who is occupying it. The overall feeling is still a jittery one to outsiders who happen to pass by, but those who live there might find it completely normal and ordinary.
These two buildings can be found on side streets to the road containing the signs above. The top image is of part of a small community church and the bottom is of a house. The church here is more of my focus since it is considered public space, while the house is used as support. The church is most noticeably secured by metal grills over the windows that have been made to appear decorative. Other than that, the only real defense mechanisms are the locks on the doors and windows. The church’s only safety concern is that no one breaks in and steals anything. In this way, they are keeping the public out ‘after hours’ to protect their assets. The church obviously built or added these structures themselves as a safety precaution. In this community, these grills, as shown by both the church and house, are commonplace and almost create the aesthetic of the neighborhood. I think that they are perfectly acceptable especially since many families in the area are lower income and can’t afford to install an alarm system. Safety is obviously a big issue, so since these grills actually make the property safer and not just feel safer, they are appropriate.
The buildings reaffirm Flutsy’s idea of the blockhome that protects itself from the outside world. The grills form a type of crusty space in that the windows can not be occupied from the outside. I think this example also complicates Flutsy’s arguments in that the grills are not meant to exclude a certain racial group but are merely protection in the simplest form.
This weeks research makes me wonder why so much of our surveillance and security is directed to protect ourselves or exclude ourselves from other races or social classes. While these may not be explicitly ‘spelled out’ anyone can see what is going on and nothing is being done about it. You would think that with an African American president, a very prominent symbol of change, that others would follow suit. Why is there still so much racial tension in the world and how can we use the signs and symbols we produce to help eliminate it?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljofzb-hGt4
As many of you may know, one long standing tradition at many high schools is that the graduating senior class performs some sort of prank as a way of leaving its legacy behind. While the pranks may vary in scale and appropriateness, one thing they all have in common is that they are transgressive acts. This senior prank happened this school year at Cypress Creek High School. The students broke into the school in the middle of the night and moved over 100 desks and chairs on to the tops of nearly 20 portables. While no one was criminally charged, seven students were punished for the incident out of an estimated 20 that were involved. School officials were upset because it took janitors most of the morning to remove and replace the desks and chairs into their proper locations. While this may not be a traditional transgressive sign, the act of removing objects from their proper locations and moving them to an improper, or ‘wrong’, location is enough to grant it that classification. The incident happened at a public school, was then recorded and played by a national public broadcast station and aired on Good Morning America, and then put onto the public realm of the internet. In this way, this one transgressive act of a local high school was able to reach large masses of the American public on a nationwide scale.
The students committed this act merely as a fun way to leave their mark before graduating. As with most pranks, school officials are normally tolerant if nothing is vandalized, hurt, or defaced in any way on the school campus, so no criminal charges were pressed. This said, the school officials still deemed the students’ transgressive act as unacceptable and punished them accordingly. In this way, the school itself was granted the right to define whether this particular ‘sign’ was transgressive since the students trespassed on their property unlawfully and broke in to about 20 portables. The public, as demonstrated by the attitudes of the Good Morning America broadcasters, showed no sign of uproar, actually finding the prank to be very amusing and well executed.
While this prank was well received, not all receive such a reception of laughs. This was the case in my graduating class’ senior prank. Six students broke into the school at 2 a.m., assisted by both a local cop who kept watch and by two stolen goats, a mother and her kid. The students took the goats, one spray painted with a ‘1’, and the other with a ‘3’ to confuse authorities and broke into a nearby two story building. They then proceeded to place one goat on the roof of the building and the other in a classroom of a well known senior teacher. With the goats, they placed heads of lettuce and two gallons of vegetable oil so that the goats would slip around and make a mess all night. When the goats were discovered the next morning, school officials had to call in firefighters to identify the liquid before cleaning could commence and no one was happy. When news spread, animal activists were in an uproar at the treatment of the animals as well as many in the community. Where Cypress Creek was successful in keeping their prank easygoing, the prank at my school warranted nothing but controversy. The students, who had already graduated and were 18, all faced burglary and criminal charges since they were no longer under the school’s authority. The local cop who acted as an accomplice was fired, and all of the students’ colleges for the fall were told of what happened. This one transgressive act, seen as a simple joke, proved to have dire consequences for the students involved. One student was even told by his college that no medical school would ever take him and that he should change his major immediately.
Examples like these help shed light on how vast the scope of the transgressive can be. It can simultaneously be seen as comical and an appropriate and as a horrifying act that is devastating to the sanctity of public space. The term ‘transgressive’ can certainly be seen as latent with many conflicting connotations, as we have seen in the works of Banksy and the Billboard Liberation Front. It seems that the motive alone is what decides if these acts are acceptable or not. Acts that try to incur change or make audiences think or laugh- like Banksy, the Billboard Liberation Front, and Cypress Creek High School- are all seen as ‘appropriate’ in their own way even though they do break an expectation of society. Acts like that of my school, however, have no goal other than to leave a mark, whether physical, like graffiti, or mental, like the legacy of a class, making them inappropriate in both their motive and execution. This makes me wonder why these two groups of motives are even classified in the same category. How can they both be seen as transgressive when they are meant to accomplish such different tasks? It seems that we need a way to distinguish between the two- between the good and bad motives of the transgressive- to better understand and explain their connotations.
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All of these advertisements use celebrities to try to warn teenagers about the unwanted side affects of unprotected sex, specifically the risk of becoming pregnant. All of these are part of a campaign by the Candies Corporation to educate young women. The ads, which are featured in Seventeen and CosmoGirl! magazines, all feature a close up shot of a celebrity next to a page with an eye catching phrase. The conceptual magazine ads use the celebrities, with their full face stare to make readers engage with the page. The celebrities themselves are seen as representing the ‘given’, with the catchy statement representing the ‘new’. Both pages also use text to present the ideal and the real. In each of the first pages, the celebrities act as the ideal in the sense that they are role models that are looked up to and respected. Their familiar faces are what first bring us in. The bottom of the page then contains the real information- the website that sponsors the ad. The same division occurs on the second pages. The use of large text that contrasts greatly with the black background is used to present the idealized catchy statement, or the hook that invites the reader to continue reading. The white of the text is also used to give more of the ‘real’ of the slogan by highlighting the most important and thought provoking part of the text. Below that is where all of the real information is- statistics, facts, and the company logo and information. All of these are meant to create one common goal- to prevent teenage pregnancies. To achieve this, the pictures have been altered to a point where they have relatively high modality. All of the pictures have simply been made black and white, only altering the contrast and the lighting slightly. The goal is to make the celebrity look as good as possible to make people stop and look closer. Every ad is intimate in that they use head shots with eye contact with the viewer. They also make the frame equal with the viewer; we are not looking above or below them, we are simply looking straight at their intense gazes.
The commercial, on the other hand, uses a narrative sequence- if you have unprotected sex, this is what may happen. The opening scene focuses on a couple being intimate in a bed. We are viewing the majority of their bodies, making it appear to be a social place and they are presenting civil inattention, allowing the viewers to examine their actions. Low modality is used to add to the visual interest and grab the viewers’ attention. Black and white is used to intensify their actions and flashes of white light are used to help depict the elapsed time of the narrative. We then see a girl texting on her bed, pushing the narrative forward. Again, the time is lapsed and she is now on a bed in a large black room, which plays with the modality of depth. Sound and a screen effect take us to a crib in a depthless room. The camera zooms in on the girl’s eye as she realizes what has happened, forcing us to engage and become invested in the scene. All of this acts as the ideal and the given in the commercial. A celebrity then makes an appearance to give the audience the real and the new.
I chose these advertisements because I found the way they present their argument is slightly ineffective. All the magazine ads are featured in Seventeen and CosmoGirl! magazines and have to compete with pages and pages of celebrities, fashion, and make-up. While the graphic quality of the ads is very successful in its attention grabbing, the use of a celebrity just isn’t helping enough. I feel like the ad could simply be the second page and that the first is unsuccessful in reaching its goals. The celebrities used in the ads are very unrelatable to their content, and many chosen have lost their iconic status in passing years. For example, Teddy Geiger used in the first ad, was once considered to be a Hollywood Heart-throb, but he is not in the spotlight at all anymore. I think that replacing the first page of the ad with an actual teen mother or father to show the reality of the situation would be much more appropriate and would connect with the readers on a more personal level. Because in reality, how is Fall Out Boy going to help me make decisions about my sex life while just standing their inactively? Band member Pete Wentz actually got his young girlfriend, Ashlee Simpson, pregnant before being married. How does that make him a role model for pregnancy prevention and unwanted and unplanned births? This brings up an inherent danger in using celebrities; we know everything about their lives, including all of their mistakes, which could render their endorsement void at the first hint of scandal. Using a celebrity is probably one of the most dangerous things an ad like this can do, especially with many teenage celebrities like Jaime Lynn Spears having children of their own. I think this ad is much more effective as a commercial. The use of a narrative rather than a conceptual picture really aids in explaining the cause and effect of the situation. Unfortunately though, I have yet to see this commercial on the television while the magazine ad appears in almost every magazine issue.
Another issue with these ads is that they are only effective for women. Targeting men about the inherent risks of unprotected sex is very difficult because they are not the ones to actually become pregnant. They may see these ads or commercials and think that the situations will never happen to them; that if they ‘pull out’ there will be no problems. Even the risk of STD’s doesn’t bother most men, because they know that using protection can shield them from any possible disease. Getting through to men about this issue is extremely difficult because of this and creating an ad or commercial to get through to them is nearly impossible. It doesn’t help either that the magazines these ads are found in target teenage girls specifically and have no male orientated outlet to them.
After doing research this week, I wonder why so many agencies and corporations choose to use celebrities in their ads instead of real people. It would come across as so much more sincere if people’s true stories were being told to audiences instead of paid celebrities lecturing about something they have never had to deal with.
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This sign acts as an index because it is a physical object located somewhere in the world, specifically on the playground of an elementary school. The sign was formerly located off to the side of the playground and out of sight as shown in the image below and then was moved to a more public location right at the heart of the playground.
The move signifies that the sign’s meaning was not being communicated as effectively as the makers would have liked, so the change in location was made to try to communicate more effectively. The sign is also an icon because the images of the children are representative of what they actually looked like. Additionally, the sign is also a symbol because it was placed on the arbitrary shape of a tombstone to represent that these children all died and are being remembered through a memorial on the playground. The sign is not really trying to change behavior, but is honoring those who have died.
This school bus stop is an index because it gains its meaning from where it is located in the world, specifically next to a highway. The bus stop is also a symbol because the arbitrary shape of a ‘house’ is used to represent it. The text on the advertisement for the chapel of love is also a symbol because of the text that comes together to form the English words. The bus stop gets its meaning by being a safe place for children to wait for the bus to come on the highway. The advertisement gets its controversial meaning through being placed on the side of a school bus stop by advertising to the oncoming traffic. The bus stop itself is trying to control behavior by keeping the children safe inside and away from dangerous traffic. The sign, however, is trying to encourage passers-by to get married in a ‘quickie’ wedding. These two goals are very contrary to each other, making the sign innapropriatly placed on the school bus stop.
This is an example of another type of memorial. While the children were honored on a small playground, the late deputy was honored through renaming the road. This sign acts as an index because it is located on the side of the road that it is naming. It also acts as a symbol because of the text which forms its English meaning. This sign is not trying to change behavior, it is simply honoring the late deputy who died on the job.
This gate acts as an icon because of where it is located in the world. It also acts as an icon because it represents the world and children in their likeness. There are symbols through the use of text written in an African language meaning ‘friendship’. The organization, which helps orphans in 10 communities in Africa, conducts most of its work in the native languages of the tribe. The main hub of the organization, located in Central Florida reflects this in its African language that can only be understood with previous knowledge. Symbolism also appears in the children holding hands to represent how united they are in an abstract way. The sign is not trying to control behaviour, but is meant as a way educate the community.
This sign acts as an index because of where it is located. In freewrite #1, I described the layout of my town, where one road divides the primarily white and black areas. This sign is located on the more predominantly black side of the city and gets its meaning from that. On the white side, these types of signs don’t appear at all, but on the black side, the huge signs can be seen everywhere. This area of town is also known for its drug trafficking so signs like this are meant to deter people from selling and buying drugs. The sign also is an icon because the star represents the police badges that are worn. The text acts as a symbol by creating English words, and the shape of the badge itself, a star, is an abstract representation of power.
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Mitchell defines public space as a constant struggle between two definitions: public space as a place of unmediated action versus public space as a place of order, controlled recreation, and spectacle. He also presents what it means for a public space to be pubic; which groups or people are included, excluded, represented, and presented. After reading the article it seems very striking that spaces that we perceive as being ‘public’ are actually very controlled and exclusionary. The use of surveillance cameras, signs explaining what can and can not be done, and ‘hours of operation’ all limit the idea of what a public space could and should be. Even more striking was the situation involving the homeless population of People’s Park. In my hometown, I have yet to encounter a homeless person in a space that is designated for the public. My only knowledge of the homeless around where I live is in the news like the more recent case when teenagers attacked and killed a homeless man simply because they were bored. It really brings up an important point that the homeless are an underrepresented group in society and in public space particularly. They are shunned away into hiding so that they are out of sight and out of mind. Furthermore, the article also explained that the homeless are not only being shunned out of physical public space, but virtual as well. With the internet becoming a stage for public debate and inquiry, “there is literally no room in Internet’s ‘public space’ for a homeless person to live,” or be heard from through representation. I also think that the issue of privately owned public space that the article brought up is important to consider. Active examples occur everywhere, from the ‘disneyfication’ brought up in the article, to recreational parks, to privately owned pay-toilets in Europe that exclude those without money. It would seem to be the end of what we ideologically think of when we hear the term public space, a space that is not actually open to the public as a whole, but to a select group of the ‘public’.
