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In 1933, faced with a housing shortage, the USA federal government began a program explicitly designed to increase – and segregate – America’s housing stock. The government’s efforts were to house one section of society. Federal lenders wanted to create stability in the housing market so they blocked off certain neighbourhoods where borrowers were supposedly more likely to default on their loans.
African Americans and other people of colour were not allowed to purchase a home in the new suburban communities but were pushed instead into urban housing projects. It was a calculated decision to provide housing to white, middle-class, lower-middle-class families.
The term “redlining” originates with actual red lines on maps that identified predominantly Black neighbourhoods. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board used ‘residential security maps’ to deny lending to ‘hazardous’ Black Americans. Reward the Whites. Punish the Blacks.
This map of Houston, shows grades of security: green – best, blue – still “desireable” [sic], yellow – “definite” declining, but the red area was graded as hazardous. This almost forgotten history of segregated America makes us shudder. Different times, we rationalise.
On Friday 3 December 2021, New Zealand’s segregation began. The Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern made a calculated decision to punish some and reward others. She ‘redlined’ a section of society, based not on colour or where they lived, but on taking the jab.
The original purpose of ‘redlining’ early last century was supposedly to prevent further financial disaster in the wake of the Great Depression. The purpose of the current ‘redlining’ could cause financial disaster. Worst case scenario: jobless, on the dole and likely living in crowded accommodation or undesirable state-sponsored motels.
Ardern ruthlessly lowered their standard of living by preventing them from working in their chosen careers. If there is a foreclosure on a mortgage in 2022, the result will be the same as the 1930s housing situations for African Americans. Debt and increasing deprivation. Ardern, in enlightened 2021, unbelievably went even further to make life harder, by banning them from places where others could freely go.
It is important to record that Segregation Day in New Zealand is based simply on whether a person has received the Covid 19 vaccine or not. Ardern may as well label the unjabbed as “hazardous”, as happened to the Blacks in the USA. Like the Whites there in the 1930s, many of the jabbed in New Zealand seem to have rationalised segregation, not only going along with it but believing it is the right thing to do.
Federal housing policies created after the Depression ensured that African-Americans and other people of colour were left out of the new suburban communities – and pushed instead into urban housing projects, such as Detroit’s Brewster-Douglass towers shown above.
Kiwis from Tauranga, who have lost their jobs. Memorial Park Protest in Tauranga. 20/11/21 Photo credit The BFD
The dark days of last century’s division have returned. Ardern’s legacy will not be one of a compassionate progressive leader. Instead she will be remembered as a prime minister who intentionally treated innocent people as ‘hazardous’, deliberately creating division and a wealth gap between Kiwis. This day will also be a day of shame as the jabbed turn a blind eye and continue their privileged lives as others suffer.
It would not come as a surprise to see Kiwi ‘red-liners’ required in the future to identify themselves by displaying their lowly status by always wearing a mask. The privileged ones are likely to be permitted to throw their masks away, and proudly carry on with their work and their freedom to travel.
Segregation Day must be remembered, lest we forget.
