Political Frenzy

The number of homeless Seattlites has caused me great concern. So I decided to do a bit of research as to why so many people in the United States are living in poverty. What I found surprised and saddened me. It is literally impossible for many to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” - and this is why, using Seattle as a microchasm.

When black soldiers of World War II returned from combat, they were denied use of their G.I. bill in certain suburban neighborhoods in which it was written into the contract of many land deeds that they could not sell to “colored people”.

In Seattle, that meant that West Seattle and Arbor Heights remained white, while all the non-whites were forced into the ghettos of the Central District and Chinatown. The value of land was low because of their very presence, and no major businesses would open operations there because the residents didn’t have money, and they couldn’t get jobs because there weren’t any businesses there.

President Johnson made it illegal for racial wording to be used in housing contracts, which opened up new possibilities for black and Asian Americans. The formerly all-white neighborhood of White Center, just north of Burien and just south of West Seattle, was called such because of its racial homogeneity - startling, really. It was once the ultimate Seattle suburb, with large houses taking up several lots, and flourishing business. Because of its relatively low property value, many non-whites flocked to it, moving in, taking out mortgages and loans, with the local job market promising that they would be able to pay it off within a few years.

Instead, white landowners were told by real estate companies that the presence of colored people would diminish their property value. The real estate agents offered to pay the current owners a diminished price so they could cash in and move immediately. They then sold the property back to non-whites at inflated prices. This phenomenon is known as “White Flight”.

But now that the majority of the people in White Center were now indebted non-whites, the property values plummeted, the house no longer worth the money they had put on the mortgage, but the debt still the same. The local businesses closed up and moved to more profitable sectors, taking their jobs with them. White Center is now in utter disrepair, with neither the city of Burien nor the city of Seattle taking responsibility, and leaving it up to the already overloaded King County’s Unincorporated County Jurisdiction. The poverty in the area due to plummeting land value and receding job market has kept two generations in debt, the sins of the father passing on to his offspring. White Center is now known affectionately as “Rat City” to most locals.

Meanwhile, the blacks and Asians split the Central District into both the Central District and the International District, the CD housing primarily blacks and Hispanics, while the ID houses Asians. While a boost from the presence of super-mall Uwajimaya’s in the ID helped increase the economy of the ID, its own preference for hiring Japanese and Korean workers prevented blacks and Hispanics from working there, as its mission statement was to help Asians, not anyone else. The CD suffered tremendously.

Education in these areas, White Center and the Districts, also suffered. Because many were non-native English speakers, they did poorly on tests. Poor test results meant deficient funding. Deficient funding meant cutbacks, laying off educators, reducing technology expenditures, and using outdated books. Lack of resources led to increased illiteracy and caused even worse test scores, which forced more budget cutbacks. The vicious cycle of rewarding those already doing well and punishing the struggling had been put into play.

A bit of hope appeared on the horizon as the APP, or Accelerated Progress Program, found a home at Washington Middle School, smack dab in the middle of Seattle, the heart of the Central District. This APP would attract wealthy and exceptional students from across the Seattle School District to the CD, hopefully increasing funding. In conjunction, the high school, James A. Garfield High School, would be creating Advanced Placement classes, providing college-level education for those who placed in the program.

Instead, the schools were polarized, with APP and AP programs receiving the bulk of the funding, while ‘regular’ and even honors programs were still cut back. Managed and funded differently, the schools were divided along racial lines.

This exists today - as an alumnus of both schools, I can attest to that fact. While in an English class that had both honors and non-honors students, I was shocked that a black ninth grader who was a resident of the CD had to ask the question: “Is ‘excellent’ spelled with two ‘g’s?” This displayed tremendous illiteracy, but not a lack of intelligence. Using what he already knew of the English language, he heard people pronounce with word as we do in the pacific northwest accent: “egg-sul-int”, and knew how to spell the word “egg”. He used reasoning skills, and understood not to jump to conclusions, so he asked. It was simply a matter of the fact that he had not been taught how to correctly spell the word until that day.

The culmination of this process was sub-par education to blacks, Hispanics, and the ‘lower-rung’ Asians like the Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians. Whites and ‘acceptable’ Asians like the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese were receiving better education. They could afford to take the PSAT and improve their SAT scores. They could afford to not get a job in High School and instead take extra-curricular activities that poverty-stricken neighborhood schools could not provide. This meant that those from rich neighborhoods were more likely to be accepted to universities and get scholarships, which results in better jobs.

And the cycle continues.

Within the last two decades, the problem has been growing worse. In the Central District the land is owned mostly by real estate investors and housing companies, with few people owning their own homes due to debt problems they inherited from their parents. But with Seattle Central Community College, the Art Institute of Seattle, and the University of Washington being in relatively short commute from the Central District, white students with higher budgets than the blacks and Hispanics of the community began seeking to alleviate a bit of their financial strain by moving to low-rent housing in the CD, and taking up jobs in the ID. Because these students were willing to pay a bit more than the original tenants, black families who had lived there for generations watched as their rent climbed. What was a meager $100 to students - many of whom are getting funding from parents - was the rest of the paycheck for those who lived there before. The opposite of White Flight was happening. The CD was getting gentrified.

Now the CD is home to less and less non-white Americans while foreign and out-of-state students set up residence - again, something I have been personally privy to. South American and Asian employees of local businesses in the ID are losing their jobs to students from California, Wyoming, Oregon, and Idaho. In the CD jobs are being lost by blacks whose families have been in the United States since slavery, while Eritrian, Ethiopian, Sudanese, and Algerian immigrants come and set up shop - the Ethiopian Tana Market, for instance, which made it appearance next to Garfield High School a few years ago, replacing an old grocery run by a family in the CD.

With nowhere left to go, the cheapest rents in Seattle now moving out of their price ranges, whole families are forced into the streets, or in to even worse living conditions.

This is a systematic problem, not easily solved by “buckling down”. These people are living from paycheck to paycheck, unable to afford a decent meal or a place to sleep, let alone college. Businesses do not hire the homeless, and the limited mobility of these people in a city with an underdeveloped metro transit system and hills and passageways sometimes literally insurmountable on foot prevent them from leaving the impoverished areas.

If you think this is a strictly Seattle problem, think again. This has been going on and is currently happening in almost every major city in the United States. The racial discrimination of the past may no longer be on the tips of our tongues or the wording of our contracts, but its legacy has left thousands of people unable to support themselves, unable to escape the bonds and failures of generations past.

The fundamental flaw in the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” philosophy is the assumption that all Americans are born into equal opportunity. But we’re not. Where you are born and the color of your skin does bar you from certain privileges, and does stop you from achieving all that you could.

And before anyone quotes to me from that damned movie “The Pursuit of Happyness”, the true story of Chris Gardner was that he was well educated in Milwaukee, and the internship paid $1,000 a month. They changed it for the big screen. Read the book.

So enough of “up by your bootstraps”. Just enough. Why don’t we try helping our fellow Americans instead of letting them languish in the misfortunes created by the decision makers of deceased generations.