12-YEAR-OLD: U.S. PUBLIC HOUSING A CORPORATE PROJECT

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression in the United States, the federal government could no longer ignore the lack of affordable housing. Thus began the history of US public housing, also known as the so-called 'projects.’ The National Housing Act of 1937—among many depression-era laws—aimed to address the housing crisis through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).

However, instead of encouraging ‘improvements in housing standards and conditions' as was the FHA’s goal, the policy, like many others in the United States, discriminated against non-white, poor people. Richard Rothstein, author of the 2017 book, 'The Color of Law', defined the FHA to National Public Radio as a ‘state-sponsored system of segregation … primarily designed to provide housing to white, middle-class, lower-middle-class families.’ While the US government’s homeownership programmes offered government-insured mortgages for homeowners, Black people in the US and Black neighbourhoods could not access the federal aid, one phenomenon among many that formed what is known as ‘redlining.’ Redlining barred Black residents from buying homes, which led to predominantly Black communities remaining segregated, leaving many such neighbourhoods in deplorable conditions to this day. Now, about 1.1 million public-housing units, operated by over 3,000 local public-housing agencies, serve 2.2 million people.

So, in this clip, a 12-year-old brother is not wrong in saying that the projects are really ‘corporate America’s’ project for Black people, given the United States operates in the interest of big business. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink made this clear during the last election year, when he said the market will remain unaffected no matter who won, Democrats or Republicans.

We definitely need more of our children to be as politically aware as this brother!

While we would love to acknowledge the speakers in this video, we unfortunately don't have their names. Please let us know if you know who they are!

Video credit: @_velliiiiii (Instagram)

Sources

https://nlihc.org/resource/public-housing-history

https://nurseledcare.phmc.org/advocacy/policy-blog/item/641:a-brief-history-of-housing-policy-in-the-u-s.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/realestate/what-is-redlining.html

https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/11/05/blackrock-doesnt-matter-us-election-trump-kamala-harris

https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america

https://x.com/african_stream/status/1853838199652553107