Marys Black on the Block - Essay Example

? Black on the Block               Introduction Many base their contexts on different areas. For instance there are those who have love for politics and follow it very closely and sometimes they tend to analyze it and come up with a book. However, other writers write about different things such as romance, adventure and horror stories among others. On the book by the name black on the block, written by Mary talks more about race and ethnicity, urban sociology and qualitative methods. She had really done a research on this by looking at the history of the area and analyzing the life of the people living in that area.    Question 1 Mary’s main idea in the book, Black on the Block mostly focuses on the middle class people who were living a middle class lifestyle in Chicago. High percentage of the people who were in this group comprised of the blacks who were struggling to keep their standards as those of most Europeans who had high class lifestyle. These efforts were also aimed at reducing discrimination on the blacks due to their race. Mary claims that the blacks were not given equal chances as the whites but she forgot that this was not their land of origin. Mary therefore focuses mostly on the poverty of the blacks and the challenges the faced as a result of this poverty. An area in Chicago by the name North Kenwood-Oakland was the resident for both the rich and the poor. However, the number of the rich was highly increasing in the area. That was a great challenge to the people in the middle class level since it subjects them to a risk of being pushed away and looses their houses to the rich. Mary believed that that would subject them to more poverty but they had no alternative. Mary claimed that financial institutions would loan them but that could not be right since they owned nothing as they were in a foreign country. This discrimination blocked them from borrowing a loan from financial institutions that could have helped them in coming up with projects which could have initiated profit generation. They thought that the main reason for the discrimination of the black was as a result of their race and skin color but it was their home origin.  The blacks did all they could to see to it that their rights as human beings were respected. They wanted to be given equal privileges like the fellow citizens. This led to riots in the streets of Chicago.   Question 2 Mary takes the reader through several things that were done to the black community living in Chicago and the problems they faced. She talks a lot of negative things concerning Chicago some of them being on how the whites were going to better schools than the blacks. She exaggerates this story so much on the negativity of Chicago. As she approaches the end of the story, she focuses mostly on the on the unity of the black community and how they worked together on fighting the discrimination that was subjected to them. This shows that she was very happy for the black since she was in their support. This proves that the research she did was not recommendable since she was biased and she favored the blacks. The reason for this was because she was also in the middle class as the African-America community.  What the blacks were going through was not discrimination since Chicago was not their land and that was the result for their poverty. However they were lucky to be treated as the whites after their demonstrations. Question 3 For an individual to be in a position of writing such a book, a lot of information is required. This can be easily proved by a lot of history that is contained in this book.  For instance, as Mary continues with her story, she gives a information in form of numerals and ratios to show the progress that the blacks were making in order for them to win this battle of discrimination. Within duration of twenty years, the black’s community increased from 21% to 99%, which was through interactions within themselves and also with the white. This increase helped them to be stronger since it made their group to be more large hence drawing more attention. In addition, that high rise was as a result of mixing of the races hence intermarriage occurred making the blacks to be more accepted by the whites. However, this increase in numbers came with more negative results than the positives ones. One of these negativities is the increase of poverty. From late 1960s up to late 1980s, Chicago closed down more that 60% of its manufacturing sectors hence leading to more than 500,000 individuals losing their jobs (Mary 2007). That increased dependency and poverty levels. If these blacks were returned to their land of origin which was Africa, Chicago could have continued enjoying its already well doing economy.  That drew a conclusion that the Africans brought more loss than the profit to the Chicago government and it was right for them not to be allowed to settle in Chicago unlike Mary’s opinion that they were subjected to torture. Up to date, Chicago government is under pressure due to the increase of the middle class members which still mostly consists of the African Americans. Question 4 This book was well written and it has a lot of significance to the society since it entails the history of the land. It also tells how Africans came to Chicago and what they had to go through. However, it can be well criticized since the outcome of this migration is not very encouraging. Most of the poverty problem that Chicago is going through was as a result of these Africans coming to Chicago. The high population was also as a result of this migration. This high population becomes a problem to the government when it comes to managing it. The fact that the writer was in support of these Africans being allowed to settle in Chicago gave it a good base to be criticized on.  The fact that outcome was a long term problem gave critics a chance to criticize it better. Question 5  If these African-Americans were deported to their land of origin at the ancient age, both parties, the Africans and the Chicago government would both be on profit. For the government, it could be because it was in a good position to manage its citizens. Before these Africans came the level of poverty were manageable. This meant that if these Africans were not allowed to settle there, the population and level of poverty could not have increased as it is currently. For the Africans, there was a lot of vacant land by then and the colonizers who had already left had shown them how to utilize that land and turn it to be more productive. This could have enriched Africa more due to the experience and the skills they had on working in the farm, the favorable weather and availability of land and crops that could be easily changed into cash. This could have led to full utilization of resources and hence increase in production. This could have also resulted to eviction of poverty in Africa since the ancient time which could have been a permanent solution of it being a third world continent.  Conclusion All books remain to be educative and relevant but the stand of the writer sometime is on the wrong and the message passed is not right. This calls for criticism from various individuals depending on how they take it.  This calls for individuals to weigh the matter and decide on what part to take. However, in most cases these critics lead to a debate and hence help people to understand the point better. It also helps people to be able to make the right decision since it makes them to think critically before concluding on any matter. For individuals to be able to come up with critical analysis, they have to understand the author’s purpose in that story, identify all the main ideas in the passage and also evaluate the means by which the authors have accomplished their missions. By doing this, one cannot criticize the writer unfairly.         Reference Mary P., (2007): Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City Read More