Angela Dong, Period 7, 3/6/24

Modern Mythology 2024

Angela Dong
Period 7
3/6/2024

Research Paper

    At the beginning of February, I had the opportunity to travel to eastern Brooklyn, particularly Cortelyou, to meet someone for a project. I made the mistake of traveling by bus, not knowing how long it would take for me to get there. Cutting through all of Brooklyn I watched as the views turned from pleasant neighborhoods, to a little bit of some rundown buildings here and there, to houses that look like they haven’t been cleaned in years and cramped public accommodations. I watched as the ethnicities of the people on the streets turn from Asian and white, to Jewish, to eventually Africans and Mexicans. I also remember the time when my mother was looking at houses and she would virtually turn down any house that was in the region because she and many others considered it a dangerous part of Brooklyn. That begs the questions: why was east Brooklyn more run down and considered more dangerous than other parts of New York City?

    During the Great Depression, the Home Owners Loan Corporation was created to help prevent the housing market from falling by insuring mortgages to homeowners who almost had to foreclose their houses. However, the basis on where they decide to give loans to people depended on what location they were at and most importantly, what the majority of the residents' ethnicity of a neighborhood would be. The HOLC rated neighborhoods based on an ABCD scale, with A being the most desirable neighborhoods (with no black-skinned people around) and D being the worst and receiving little to no loans being colored in red, like a danger zone. Most of the desirable neighborhoods had restrictions on who could move in since there were deeds of the houses that prohibited selling to a Black or Latino family (Crooks, 2023) and were filled with white and wealthy people, This caused segregation as whites moved to highly desirable neighborhoods at the time while blacks were being pushed to poor, deteriorating places like Harlem and Eastern Brooklyn, while also enforcing the thought that black-skinned people were inferior to whites because they weren’t considered for the benefits that the HOLC provided during this time period and so were not worthy of owning homes. This also caused more investment in those highly rated neighborhoods and next to nothing for those with black residents.

    Another factor that contributed to the rise of segregation was the implementation of zoning laws. These dictate what buildings go where, where factories and landfills are located, where single-family houses are, and more. These zoning laws broke up New York City into different regions. White neighborhoods in zoning districts that allowed for single-family homes, in locations with little environmental pollution, had more access to public services  and were generally safer. However poor and predominantly African American neighborhoods were mapped in areas next to industrial districts, more environmental risks, and a lack of public services like police and fire safety departments. The zoning laws in poor neighborhoods allowed factories to be built next to family homes, landfills next to schools, something that would never be considered in higher, upper class neighborhoods. These along with the HOLC’s policy contributed to the rise of segregation by keeping African Americans out of areas with access to jobs and better quality schooling and in slums and areas with high crime rates. 

    In the end, the people living in these poor areas and their descendants are still at a huge disadvantage today. They weren’t wanted in the areas where they could have thrived the most, but pushed into the corners where they had to live in dilapidated conditions without access to most public services and good jobs. No wonder why crime rates are so high, right?

    Our study of folklore connects to this because this shows that no matter what, there will always be some form of oppression when you are distinct. If you’re different from everyone else, no matter what you think, your appearance will be the only basis that some will judge you on. Like Grendel in John Gardener’s book, even if he meant no harm, his appearance was why he was seen as something bad, fought against, and had to lurk in trees to observe the humans, the ones portrayed as good. Medusa, even when she meant no harm, was seen as a monster and her head a trophy to collect even when there was no actual writing of her using her powers for evil. People still interpreted her as a bad guy because of her appearance with her head full of snakes. Through furthering our knowledge of these injustices, we can put ourselves in the shoes of those that might look different and find that they also have interests, they also have personalities, and they also deserve a chance to thrive.



Cookes, Braden. “Opinion: How Exclusionary Zoning Perpetuates Segregation in New York.” City Limits, 31 Mar. 2023, https://citylimits.org/2023/03/31/opinion-how-exclusionary-zoning-perpetuates-segregation-in-new-york/.

Jacob William Faber “Vital City: The Stains of Redlining.” Vital City: New York City Policy, Culture and Data, 4 Apr. 2023, https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/the-stains-of-redlining.

Gray, M. Nolan. “Apartheid by Another Name: How Zoning Regulations Perpetuate Segregation.” Next City, 4 July 2022, https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/apartheid-by-another-name-how-zoning-regulations-perpetuate-segregation.

Emily Nonko. “Redlining: How One Racist, Depression-Era Policy Still Shapes New York Real Estate.” Brick Underground, 29 Dec. 2016, https://www.brickunderground.com/blog/2015/10/history_of_redlining.