Question 1
Question 2
The G.I. Bill ultimately failed black Americans in many factors involving real estate through racial discrimination. Coates states that “…title III of the bill, which aimed to give veterans access to low-interest home loans, left black veterans to tangle with white officials at their local Veterans Administration as well as with the same banks that had, for years, refused to grant mortgages to blacks” (p. 22). This automatically put black veterans at a disadvantage because they were already struggling to afford purchasing homes as a minority, and the fact that they had to put up with companies who didn’t care about them or their well-being only pushed them further down the list on who those home loans were going to. Meanwhile white veterans were being treated as the bill intended all veterans be treated and they ultimately were given better treatment. Another program that put black Americans at a disadvantage while simultaneously giving whites a major advantage was Roosevelts New Deal. Coates states that “when President Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935, 65 percent of African Americans nationally and between 70 and 80 percent in the South were ineligible” (p. 22). Most of the jobs that were mostly occupied by blacks weren’t included in the New Deal, which put them at a major disadvantage since they could rarely find better jobs due to other racial discrimination and governmental factors.
Question 3
Upward mobility is much harder for blacks than it is for whites because the roots of America are deeply infected and influenced by racism and discrimination of blacks and other ethnicities. Coates states that “…black college graduates still suffer higher unemployment rates than white college graduates, and black job applicants without criminal records enjoy roughly the same chance of getting hired as white applicants with criminal records” (p. 33). This is a prime example of how the racist roots of America affects modern day. If a system ultimately starts crippled, it will not improve or learn from its mistakes until the root of the problem is disposed of. The idea that any ethnicity is inferior to whites is deeply infused in the history of this country and that ideology is still enforced today, however it is less subtle and disguised to look like the great “founding” of our country.
Question 4
The issue of reparations is much more threatening because white Americans are not ready to admit that the system they were brought up in is faulty, and no amount of money can make up for the lives that were affected in order to develop the society they live in today.
