Redevelopment has been driving African-Americans out of their traditional communities in Seattle's Central District and Rainier Valley for many years. But Tim Thomas, a University of Washington graduate student in sociology, showed how researchers are now combining geographic and census data to map the forced exodus.
Thomas presented the data at this year's Urban Poverty Forum Feb. 13 at Seattle's Town Hall. Sponsored in part by Real Change, the event drew about 150 participants and examined the economic and social forces that are working to remove African-Americans from the city and drawing immigrants across the border in search of jobs.
A map of residential blocks bordering Rainier Valley's Martin Luther King, Jr. Way South revealed a dramatic drop in the density of African-Americans between 1980 and 2000 as families have moved south to Renton and other communities, Thomas said.
Gentrification is one factor, he said. African-Americans are also removed from their communities as the result of a legal system that tends to define blacks as criminals, said A. Daktari Alexander, an assistant professor at Seattle University's Department of Criminal Justice.
As a result, a higher proportion of African-Americans end up in prison compared with whites. When they get out, a criminal record also makes it harder for them to get a job. Alexander cited a study in which pairs of black and white college students applied for jobs, telling some employers they had a criminal record. Employers called back the white students at double the rate, regardless of whether a criminal record was indicated, Alexander said.
The urban poor includes illegal immigrants who live with the fear of detention and deportation. Some Americans say immigrants take U.S. jobs, but that's because America took their jobs to begin with, said Pramila Jayapal, director of Seattle's OneAmerica, an immigrant advocacy group.
Prior to the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1997, 3 million Mexican farmers made their living on communal farms. Between 1997 and 2005, NAFTA drove 1.3 million of them out of business as U.S.-subsidized corn flooded Mexico's market at a price that was 19 percent below the cost of production, Jayapal said.
"To claim in today's world that a job is 'American' is simply jingoistic," Jayapal said.
Kris Rocke, director of Tacoma's faith-based Center for Transforming Mission, cautioned that working on behalf of the poor is important, but it's important not to be blinded by self-righteousness. Activists who win a fight but use power in the same way as the oppressors may win a battle, he said, but are simply "exchanging real estate" without really changing anything. n