Citation

Andreescu R. University of Bucharest Review: Literary and Cultural Studies Series 2016; 6(2): 180-193.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

Almost twenty years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, whose goal was to prevent housing discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender or national origin, the city of Yonkers, New York occupied central stage in a landmark civil-rights suit (1983). In it, City officials were accused of having intentionally followed a systematic pattern of selecting sites for subsidized housing projects that perpetuated racial segregation. My paper discusses the manner in which the ensuing battle to desegregate Yonkers was portrayed in Show Me a Hero: A Tale of Murder, Suicide, Race, and Redemption (1999), the nonfiction narrative by former New York Times writer Lisa Belkin, as well as in its subsequent adaptation to screen in a six-part HBO miniseries by the same name (2015). It seeks to reveal the dysfunctional politics of urban America in a city paralyzed by fear, corruption, and racial ignorance, which was nonetheless to become the birth place of scattered-site low-income and affordable housing. © 2016 University of Bucharest Review: Literary and Cultural Studies Series. All Rights Reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Racial discrimination; Court-ordered integration; Defensible space; Public housing (de)segregation