Wouldn’t you know it, car culture, roads, and suburbs were designed for the same exact reason and perpetuate the same bias to this day- looks like we have a common cause! The answer, however, is not creating an even more antisocial society or abandoning society altogether. Quite the opposite, actually.
You’ve never heard of white flight? Redlining? The black neighborhoods that were paved over in cities to create highway interchanges smack in the middle of them, enabling whites to flee to redlined neighborhoods newly built with government subsidies, into homes bought with VA loans that weren’t offered to blacks? The highways dividing white neighborhoods from black neighborhoods in cities to this day? Reliable transportation and all the things it enables being locked down just to those who can individually provide it for themselves, after black people were discriminated against and locked out of wealth for decades? Other community amenities, like schools and libraries and community centers, being funded by property taxes and therefore drastically lower quality or completely non-existent in lower-income neighborhoods (where blacks have been pushed to) that can be completely ignored by the wealthy because they are now a problem that is over there in a different area code than theirs? All of this taking place in the era of the southern strategy, where lawmakers refrain from using the N-word or stating their goals outright, but the intention and outcome is “blacks get hurt worse than whites”.
It was re-segregation under the guise of “progress” in a deeply racist society that collectively shit their pants because blacks were finally catching up, developing things like black wall streets and thriving, prosperous communities (that were first on the chopping block when they wanted to level things for a highway) and black businesses, and using their collective voice to fight back after centuries of injustice. Detroit, Atlanta, St. Louis, Chicago, these cities were all fucking powerhouses with high percentages of black population for their times, that were destroyed by suburbanization and the construction of highways and the physical division they created.
Yeah, save it. You can disagree, you’re entitled to your opinion, but you would be deeply mistaken.
Yes, absolutely there are some examples of that through history - but the things you talk about weren’t done for the express purpose of harming black society. They didn’t install roads JUST to roll over black neighborhoods, it’s that those neighborhoods were conveniently black so it aligned with their racism.
And the other things you state are tax distribution moreso than roads. Car culture is not anti-black, as it’s one of the few things that actually allow a lot of minority cultures to express themselves. Donks, Lowriders, etc - all allowed Hispanic, Black, and otherwise marginalized communities to come together over something we all enjoyed.
I don’t know why nobody understands that cars aren’t just transportation for a lot of people. They are a point of pride, they are something that people enjoy, customize, and genuinely love. It would be wrong to say that cars and car culture is anti black.
All I have to say about the first part is the cope is off the fucking charts 📈
Please, let’s not get caught up on semantics. If cars are your hobby, that’s perfectly fine, that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s not a zero-sum game.
It’s different when every single person has no other option but to own a car and have the physical ability to drive or else be completely reliant on someone who does in order to provide for themselves. You don’t work and you don’t eat without a car, and society treats that like a moral failing. Kids don’t go anywhere without (likely white collar) parents chauffeuring them. Elders don’t get groceries without home care assistance. That is the car culture I’m talking about. I don’t give a shit about your hobby tbqh, do whatever the hell you want in your free time.
I personally abhor owning a car. I hate fueling it, I hate paying for it, i hate maintaining it, I don’t want it. I hate sitting in traffic, I hate the stress of risking my life to get from a to b, I hate missing out on the exercise and fresh air I would get by walking if at least the streets were designed to accommodate me as a pedestrian. I have to own a car to get to work because my work is both a massive complex that I couldn’t walk or bike to even if I lived right outside of it, and the immediate area is exclusively million-dollar homes each with tens of acres to the property. Not just my work, even the community I live in is impossible to traverse without a car. Half the streets don’t even have sidewalks or convenient crosswalks. The streets that do are only designed that way to get kids to school and nowhere else. I can’t afford to live somewhere walkable because those homes are low-supply and high-demand and therefore pretty costly.
Wouldn’t you know it, car culture, roads, and suburbs were designed for the same exact reason and perpetuate the same bias to this day- looks like we have a common cause! The answer, however, is not creating an even more antisocial society or abandoning society altogether. Quite the opposite, actually.
Yeah, I’m gonna disagree on that one.
You’ve never heard of white flight? Redlining? The black neighborhoods that were paved over in cities to create highway interchanges smack in the middle of them, enabling whites to flee to redlined neighborhoods newly built with government subsidies, into homes bought with VA loans that weren’t offered to blacks? The highways dividing white neighborhoods from black neighborhoods in cities to this day? Reliable transportation and all the things it enables being locked down just to those who can individually provide it for themselves, after black people were discriminated against and locked out of wealth for decades? Other community amenities, like schools and libraries and community centers, being funded by property taxes and therefore drastically lower quality or completely non-existent in lower-income neighborhoods (where blacks have been pushed to) that can be completely ignored by the wealthy because they are now a problem that is over there in a different area code than theirs? All of this taking place in the era of the southern strategy, where lawmakers refrain from using the N-word or stating their goals outright, but the intention and outcome is “blacks get hurt worse than whites”.
It was re-segregation under the guise of “progress” in a deeply racist society that collectively shit their pants because blacks were finally catching up, developing things like black wall streets and thriving, prosperous communities (that were first on the chopping block when they wanted to level things for a highway) and black businesses, and using their collective voice to fight back after centuries of injustice. Detroit, Atlanta, St. Louis, Chicago, these cities were all fucking powerhouses with high percentages of black population for their times, that were destroyed by suburbanization and the construction of highways and the physical division they created.
Yeah, save it. You can disagree, you’re entitled to your opinion, but you would be deeply mistaken.
Yes, absolutely there are some examples of that through history - but the things you talk about weren’t done for the express purpose of harming black society. They didn’t install roads JUST to roll over black neighborhoods, it’s that those neighborhoods were conveniently black so it aligned with their racism.
And the other things you state are tax distribution moreso than roads. Car culture is not anti-black, as it’s one of the few things that actually allow a lot of minority cultures to express themselves. Donks, Lowriders, etc - all allowed Hispanic, Black, and otherwise marginalized communities to come together over something we all enjoyed.
I don’t know why nobody understands that cars aren’t just transportation for a lot of people. They are a point of pride, they are something that people enjoy, customize, and genuinely love. It would be wrong to say that cars and car culture is anti black.
All I have to say about the first part is the cope is off the fucking charts 📈
Please, let’s not get caught up on semantics. If cars are your hobby, that’s perfectly fine, that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s not a zero-sum game.
It’s different when every single person has no other option but to own a car and have the physical ability to drive or else be completely reliant on someone who does in order to provide for themselves. You don’t work and you don’t eat without a car, and society treats that like a moral failing. Kids don’t go anywhere without (likely white collar) parents chauffeuring them. Elders don’t get groceries without home care assistance. That is the car culture I’m talking about. I don’t give a shit about your hobby tbqh, do whatever the hell you want in your free time.
I personally abhor owning a car. I hate fueling it, I hate paying for it, i hate maintaining it, I don’t want it. I hate sitting in traffic, I hate the stress of risking my life to get from a to b, I hate missing out on the exercise and fresh air I would get by walking if at least the streets were designed to accommodate me as a pedestrian. I have to own a car to get to work because my work is both a massive complex that I couldn’t walk or bike to even if I lived right outside of it, and the immediate area is exclusively million-dollar homes each with tens of acres to the property. Not just my work, even the community I live in is impossible to traverse without a car. Half the streets don’t even have sidewalks or convenient crosswalks. The streets that do are only designed that way to get kids to school and nowhere else. I can’t afford to live somewhere walkable because those homes are low-supply and high-demand and therefore pretty costly.
So speak for yourself.