George Floyd’s murder is horrific in and of itself but so many people in America are so outraged because of the visual metaphor of centuries of collective trauma: a white police officer kneeling on the neck of a handcuffed black man. It’s representative of institutional racism and systemic violence toward Black people. Buffalo is no exception. For example, I was reminded every day of India Cummings, whose name is spray painted on a building I would pass on my bike-ride to work. Even if the entire police force and judicial system could be reformed, the city is still deeply segregated, contributing to the problem.
Growing up in the predominately white suburb of Tonawanda, my understanding of the city only began once I was in college at SUNY Buffalo, going to architectural destinations, attending events, and building houses on the East Side with Habitat for Humanity. I learned of the numerous ethnic enclaves that formed early in the city’s history and the policies, urban renewal and lifting of the school desegregation mandate in 1987 that produced today’s stark racial divide down Main St.
This year I started researching my family’s history using Census data with particular interest in the houses in which my relatives lived. I’ve been learning how my family’s history fits in with Buffalo’s history and America’s history. I don’t yet know all the details, but we likely fit neatly into the narrative of European immigrants living in the city who joined in the “white flight” to the suburbs, benefited from the low-interest mortgages of the post WWII GI Bill that excluded black veterans, and benefited from the property-tax funded schools in the neighborhoods where they built or bought houses.
According to the 2018 PPG report, “as recent as recently as 2014, Evans Bank was charged with redlining.” Redlining refers to banks literally drawing maps with red lines around neighborhoods they will not lend to- often explicitly black neighborhoods. Not being able to get a mortgage prevents a family from building wealth, access to better funded schools, access to produce-stocked grocery stores, and proximity to better paying jobs. I’m in my thirties and a lot of my friends are buying houses. A few have mentioned their parents are helping them out with the down-payment. These families are funneling wealth forward. I have a black friend who just bought a house for his mother, who had always dreamed of home ownership. He is funneling money back a generation while still trying to get ahead himself. It will take generations to ever close this collective wealth gap.
Example of a Redlining map in Buffalo
But our white privilege is not just about wealth, home ownership and inheritance. Even if you grew up in poverty, or experienced other hardship, white people live in a system that protects us in many ways, including in the justice system.
When my husband was robbed at gunpoint while in his car and had his car keys and phone stolen, he was able to knock on a door and borrow someone’s phone to call the police who gave him a ride home to get his spare car key and return to get his car. He did this without worrying the police would make the situation worse - or kill him. That was a traumatic experience, but his skin color did not make it harder or put him in further danger.
I was raised to call the police when you need help and to not fear them. I’ve never feared for my life when getting pulled over by the police. White privilege is being able to go on a solo bike tour across New York state and consider a bunch of “worst case scenarios” in which I might be in danger and none of them be that I experience a hate crime due to the color of my skin. Or knowing that the worst possible consequences for pitching a tent in the wrong location could be the hassle of relocating the tent and maybe a fine. But never violence or death.
A traveled this distance alone in 2015, never concerned I might be a victim of a hate crime.
I worry about a lot of things, including being a woman in public but never about being a black woman in public, or fear for my family’s life solely based on the color of their skin. I will never understand a black person’s experience in America, I don’t know what it’s like to have a black spouse or parent a black child. But I will listen, believe them and do the work of educating myself.
When faced with crisis, my personal instinct is to both gather information to understand the problem and to throw money at the problem. After reading about the murder of George Floyd by a police officer and 3 participating officer bystanders, I’ve been consuming articles and making reading lists, buying books, and donating to funds and causes. This is the easy part. The hard part is the ongoing conversations with white friends, family and colleagues, and calling out racism when I hear it in a way that does not alienate, and navigating my role as a white architect and white educator in Buffalo to support black students, black colleagues, black clients and black communities. Let’s also, as architects who must legally protect the health, safety and welfare of the general public, talk about how the adverse effects of climate change will disproportionately affect socially and economically disadvantaged communities including black communities in Buffalo and what we, as designers of the built environment, can do to make our city equitable.
It is also worth stating that property damage can be repaired. Yes, you can be angry about protestors damaging property, but only after you are outraged at the irreplaceable loss of life. And for my friends and family still saying “All Lives Matter,” I know you may have good intentions and that trying to say the right thing is better than saying nothing for fear of saying the wrong thing, but “All Lives Matter” it is not appropriate.
Black Lives Matter.
Maps Sources & Link to further reading on the History of Segregation in Buffalo by the Partnership for the Public Good & Open Buffalo: