Can a highway be racist?

[Scott5114]

Saying things like affirmative action are "racist" and "punish" white people is like a basketball player saying it's unfair that you gave a stepstool to a five-foot-tall person and not them.

Not at all. In the case of affirmative action, an advantage is purposely given to the minority race. I'm saying that no advantage should be given to either race. By saying that the step stool would otherwise be given to the basketball player, you're saying that the lack of affirmative action would automatically give white people an advantage. I believe that whatever advantage there may be for white people is not caused by the lack of affirmative action, because there is plenty.

Your logic is hard to follow. The purpose of affirmative action is to offset advantages that White people naturally have (due to essentially getting a multi-century "head start" in development over Black people). It is not that not having it would automatically give them an advantange–they're going to have one either way, it's just that this is a tool to help mitigate that advantage, like a golf handicap. Or to use the stepstool analogy–my 5'1" wife using a stepstool does not change the fact that I'm 5'10", it just means she can reach the same shelves as me.

But that's not a competitive situation with dreams and money on the line.

I don't agree that college should be competitive or cost money, either.

[J3ebrules]

I'm going to be honest that I stopped reading the thread after page 3, but when I saw the title of the post, my mind went immediately three places:

No, highways cannot be racist but they can be made in a racist fashion (I've never seen I-95 only screw up the suspension of black people's cars - it's pretty equal opportunity).

The phrase "white roads through black bedrooms"  comes to mind to support my prior statement.

Also, would everybody be happy with an Adolf Hitler Memorial Freeway? Yes, I pulled a Godwin. Yes, I know that there are Americans who'd be perfectly thrilled with that, but the point stands.

[Tonytone]

I am not sure what generation you are talking about, but what you are describing is hardly new.

True.  Maybe it's just because a lot of the older folks I know are highly literate, that by comparison the younger folks seem less able or willing to do otherwise than what I've been accusing them of.

C. S. Lewis lamented the same thing as I've been, several decades ago.

Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet.  [...]  It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united—united with each other and against earlier and later ages—by a great mass of common assumptions. We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century—the blindness about which posterity will ask, “But how could they have thought that?”—lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H. G. Wells and Karl Barth. None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.

This is the best thing I've ever seen you post, and something I 100% agree with and think of daily.

[Tonytone]

Some of the statements in this thread makes me wonder how many People of color we actually have on this forum or even have lived in minority communities or the hood.

When the Rosevelt Subway line was proposed for the BLVD in NE Philly the residents in certain areas were against it due to "Undesirables" coming up to their areas.

With that type of thinking, what makes people think the same thinking wasn't applied to highway development? if that statement can be said by just a regular person in a neighborhood about a commuter train proposal used by the public including people of their own why wouldn't a highway planner or board say

"This area is a low income area with Undesirable people, we can do a 2 for 1; Clear out what WE VIEW as SLUM, and put the highway down with low cost and not much of a fight."

Then when you look at factors like the green book and the fact that certain highways that were built in the cities didn't even have on or off ramps and those were built as an afterthought should tell you enough who would build something that's cuts right in the middle of your neighborhood but you can't use it.

People can play like that's not how it was but racism/prejudice was in the open heavy at that time and still is in some instances IE: I've experienced it in my 2 decades of living.

The main thing in this current time that needs to happen is bygones need to be bygones and people need to move on, there is no change without work.

And as a classified "Zoomer" the talk of removing highways is plain stupid highways are essential for transportation of people and goods without them it will take 3 weeks to get USPS and tomato soup, what the real solution should be is to tunnel/cap what we can and transform the areas around highways so they aren't such deadzones/blight.

[hotdogPi]

how many People of color we actually have on this forum

AnthonyJK, tolbs17, kenarmy, and Bruce are all nonwhite. I'm not sure about others (some may be hiding it).

[Rothman]

I think affirmative action is still necessary since every time they run a study submitting the same resumes but with white/black sounding names, there is still a bias towards hiring white people.

[hbelkins]

However, a white person who was denied their dream job or dream university, might feel differently if that institution used affirmative action, knowing they might have been just as or more qualified for the job/school, but were passed up due to skin color.

This gives me another chance to tell a story.

I spent a semester in college as assistant sports information director as a graduate assistant. During that semester, my college basketball team won the conference championship and advanced to the NCAA tournament for the first time in eons. I couldn't go because of travel party limitations, and also because the college was serving as host for the high school basketball regional tournament and I was designated as the media director, in charge of Press Row and the press room. The baseball team also won the conference regular season championship and hosted the conference tournament, and won it and advanced to the NCAA. I had a good relationship with the boss and he agreed to serve as a reference on my resume.

Several months later, after I had graduated, he got the job as SID at the University of Louisville. Some time after that, an associate SID job opened up at U of L. I would have been in charge of publicity for some minor (non-revenue) sports. That was something I had done as a college GA so I had pertinent experience. I applied for it and thought I had an excellent shot at it because of my past relationship with the boss. I could have either stayed with relatives who lived about 20 miles from campus, or could have rented an apartment upstairs of my aunt and uncle's garage.

I got a call from my old boss who was extremely apologetic, but he told me I could not be considered for the job. I'm a white male, and this was a "quota" job earmarked for a minority or a female (or a female minority). He told me that he'd love to hire me, and he knew I was qualified for the job and would do extremely well, but he was unable to hire me.

It was for the best, anyway. I can't imagine having a long-term career at U of L, or having to live near Louisville, as much as I've come to despise the city.

Psst.  We declared independence because of the UK's strict classism... ;D

Heh, yeah, there are some aspects of the UK class system that make absolutely no sense to me, even as an American who has actively tried to understand them. The peerage is one of them–I cannot comprehend why the government takes the time to hand out titles like "Archbaron of Drawerchester" or whatever, much less why they or anyone else would care if they had that title, since it seems to not really carry any duties or responsibilities of office.

Chicks people with vaginas dig it.

how many People of color we actually have on this forum

AnthonyJK, tolbs17, kenarmy, and Bruce are all nonwhite. I'm not sure about others (some may be hiding it).

So is Lord Carhorn. He plays the race card quite often.

[Roadgeekteen]

Road's can't be racist as they are not sentient.

Now people building a highway and routing it through minority neighborhoods can be racist.

[Rothman]

Road's can't be racist as they are not sentient.

Now people building a highway and routing it through minority neighborhoods can be racist.

Thank you for reviving a thread to state an opinion already shared by others multiple times in this thread...

[Max Rockatansky]

Road's can't be racist as they are not sentient.

Now people building a highway and routing it through minority neighborhoods can be racist.

Thank you for reviving a thread to state an opinion already shared by others multiple times in this thread...

I was hoping for a brief on the history of racially motivated infrastructure development in Alanland.

[Roadgeekteen]

Road's can't be racist as they are not sentient.

Now people building a highway and routing it through minority neighborhoods can be racist.

Thank you for reviving a thread to state an opinion already shared by others multiple times in this thread...

I was hoping for a brief on the history of racially motivated infrastructure development in Alanland.

Highways were built through majority non-goat neighborhoods to make it easier for goats to get to the Grand Alan.

[Scott5114]

Road's can't be racist as they are not sentient.

Now people building a highway and routing it through minority neighborhoods can be racist.

Thank you for reviving a thread to state an opinion already shared by others multiple times in this thread...

I was hoping for a brief on the history of racially motivated infrastructure development in Alanland.

Highways were built through majority non-goat neighborhoods to make it easier for goats to get to the Grand Alan.

i.e. not you

[Dan Blather]

First post here.  Weird, because I was somewhat active on misc.transport.roads back in the day.  Even though I'm a planner that specializes in urban design, comp planning, and land use law, I'm not one of those "f cars" types.  I'm a champion of TND/NU development, complete streets, and road diets, though.

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article about how the Kensington Expressway (NY 33), often thought of among some urbanists as a "racist" highway, really isn't.

tl;dr: the past paragraph.

So, back to the thread title: what really makes a highway racist? The current criteria among urbanists seems to be "it goes through an area populated primarily by people of color." There's also an assumption of racial malice on the part of the planners, engineers, and civic leaders involved in the project. However, this ignores the history of the highway and the neighborhoods around it, the highway's role in a larger regional or national network, local geography, and the impacts from highway planning and construction elsewhere in a region.