“Oh, Susquehanna” and the geography of race
February 8th, 2009 | Published in Defiance Ohio | 2 Comments
In the Defiance, Ohio song Oh, Susquehanna, I always envisioned rivers and the Susquehanna, familiar to me from where I grew up, as a metaphor for organic connectedness and aknowledgement that our lives have implications on our neighbors. The metaphor is imperfect since, when used for our means, rivers become not only connectors but barriers. As I recently read in James W. Lowe’s Sundown Towns:
Unfortunately, open housing came too late, after suburbia was largely built. Across the United States, whites had kept African Americans out of most suburbs throughout most of the twentieth century. By 1968, suburbs were labeled racially. Once in place, these reputations were self-sustaining. Desegregating them was an uphill struggle, a mount that we are still climbing. Like anyone else, African Americans don’t want to live in a place where they aren’t wanted, and one way to deduce that they aren’t wanted is to note that no African Americans live there. Today, just a little steering by realtors suffices to keep sundown suburbs nearly all-white. Here is an example from Pennsylvania. Whites and blacks refer to the suburbs across the Susquehanna River from Harrisburg as “the white shore.” A man who grew up there wrote me:
I can tell you that there were (are?) sundown towns in Central Pennsylvania. You were right about the “white shore.” I have no objective proof at all. However my mother grew up in Enola, and my uncle live in Camp Hill. It was common knowledge that African-Americans would not be sold a house in those towns and those that surrounded them. It was indeed a “white shore.”
By August 2002, when a new black employee moved to Harrisburg to take up her new job with the State of Pennsylvania, the pattern was in place. “The realtor told me I could live on the west shore, but it’s really called ‘the white shore,’ so I’d probably be happier somewhere else.” She bought in Harrisburg. Such steering is illegal, but it goes on every day.
November 28th, 2009at 12:13 pm(#)
speaking of harrisburg area suburbs, in addition to the white shore, anything east of lower paxton township also fell under that “sundown town” thing. included among these was hershey. “chocolate city usa” had [still has] almost no chocolate residents outside those who attend the boarding school in the town.
when i was a student at that school, there was one black student in the public high school, and also one mexican girl [who had been adopted by white people who attended my mother's church].
i’m black. i went to high school in the harrisburg area. there’s a reason that i now live in africa.
my mother is a pensioner now, and i have to sort some things out with her next year. i really do not want to return to that area because of the bonecrushing racist assumptions, but i don’t have a choice in the matter.
December 1st, 2009at 1:06 pm(#)
I hear you about the prevailing whiteness of places like Hershey and how that framed the perception of youth attending the Milton Hershey boarding school. I remember playing soccer against Milton Hershey and how my coach set the expectation that the team would a) have good athletes and b) be rougher/more aggressive. Though race was never explicitly stated as part of this, I now see that both of these things are stereotypes applied to people of color, particularly black people. I guess this is a really good example of how living in segregated communities means that youth have very limited interactions with other youth with different experiences or backgrounds and that these interactions are premeditated by race-based expectations and prejudices.
I’m sorry that your experience in central Pennsylvania was not a good one and that you’re not happy to have to return there. I hope that your return is okay. My experience as a multiracial person (asian father, white mother) was that I was able to pass as part of the white culture, but also felt like there were some big gaps between my experience and that of my peers.
Good luck, and take care.