Segregated by Design
Vimeo Short

Often, the segregation that we see today is masked with this term; preference. To some extent, sociology shows that preference has a huge role in where we live, send our kids to school, go to worship, etc. but history shows that it is much more than that. Taking a look at our own societies and what we know about the correlation between race and socioeconomic statuses, it becomes easy to see that in our preference, we are wired to choose segregation. When these truths reach the individuals that hold government office and make their way into legislation, we get what this next film is titled, Segregation by Design.

Mark Lopez, director of this short-film, pieces together a brilliantly animated resource that is paramount to understanding some of the residential injustices present today. The film aims to dig at the stereotypes of inferiority relating to the poverty of people of color -- laziness, incompetence, false entitlement, etc. -- and superiority relating to the wealth of white people -- hard working, smart, deserving, etc. by showing how wealth and poverty have both been governmentally deployed. Lopez shows how the white majority and the white authority, bound by solitude, intentionally (and sometimes inadvertently) created and have been complicit in racial systemic poverty.

The desire for segregation hides in all of us, but when coupled with authority and power, it creates systemic injustice. Segregated by Design does a wealth of justice to this topic and sheds light on a forgotten or unknown history of how our federal, state and local governments unconstitutionally segregated every major metropolitan area in America through law and policy.

Reviewed by Jarryd Cole