Redlining

Redlining in Baltimore, circa 1930s.

Hello friends! Today we learned about redlining. Redlining is refusing to give a loan or insurance to someone who resides in an unfortunate area. This also includes student loans, housing loans, and credit cards, and, in this case, health insurance. Back in the day, these areas are mostly black city neighborhoods. A sociologist named John McKnight, an Ohio native and a Northwestern University graduate, coined the term redlining in 1960. Different colors on a map of a city would be color-coded; green was for the ‘best’ neighborhood to invest in, blue was ‘still desirable’ for investment, yellow was for the ‘declined’ neighborhoods, and finally,  neighborhoods in red were ‘hazardous.’ Redlining was actually banned 50 years ago, but is still affecting minorities to this day. 

This topic relates to another very similar one; you guessed it: systemic racism! Systemic racism and redlining are like siblings; it uses races and ethnicity to target particular communities. People in these redlined neighborhoods are poor and underserved. They lack quality healthcare, which may lead to a higher chance of contracting coronavirus and a lower chance of surviving it.

Although I am a minority (American-born Asian), I believe I am greatly privileged. I grow up around friends and neighbors who could care less about my background and I never feel discriminated. I also go to a Quaker school in Baltimore City that encourages equality for everyone, and that God is in each of us. I never realized how fortunate I was until now. I plan to use this advantage to voice and advocate for the underprivileged. 

During learning about redlining, we came across another very interesting topic: reverse redlining, which we will write about in the next blog. -Hannah