A PORTFOLIO

CHRISTINA
OMEO
Table of Contents
Op-Ed Sample ............................................................ 2
Press Release Sample ............................................................ 3-4
Letter to Editor Samples ......................................... 5-6
Press Statement Sample .................................. 7
Social Media Calendar Sample .......................... 8-9
Testimony Sample ......................... 10-12
Academic Writing Sample .......................... 13-25

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Getting to Home Base: Coalition of Providers Call for Stable Housing Funding for New York’s Most Vulnerable

New York has the largest selection of housing choices for those with psychiatric disabilities, but lack the funding needed to
support these facilities. These community- based mental health housing facilities are tackling a financial breaking point–putting
tens of thousands of New Yorkers at risk of displacement. In order to keep care in communities, a coalition of healthcare
providers and families of patients are launching the campaign “xxx.” The campaign calls on the State to fulfill their moral obligation
and promise to allocate adequate funding for this critical system before it becomes stretched beyond repair. Xxx emphasizes that
there are two immediate consequences when New York fails to protect their most vulnerable residents

First, when patients aren’t able to access proper care, these populations often are faced with homelessness, incarceration, or
incapacitation that leads to destroying families and the patients’ lives. These patients are our neighbors, community members,
and New Yorkers who need support in order to reach full recovery and re-integration. Secondly, the cost of more expensive,
higher level of care, emergency care or incarceration fall on the shoulders of the New York taxpayers. For instance, there are 17
state hospitals who serve only 3,200 people at the cost of $400,000 per person annually–a stark comparison to the cost of
$320,000 per person annually at community based hospitals. Not to mention, when those with psychiatric disabilities are held in
jails and prisons, the cost can rise up to $75,000 per person annually– all funded by the tax- payers pocket.

The coalition also advocates that continuous and reliable care is critical for the most vulnerable. However, implementing this kind
of care becomes increasingly difficult when the State continues to exceed the realistic means of the community-based housing
systems. By enforcing admission of populations from state psychiatric centers, prisons, and jails without funding, the system
becomes unsustainable and increasingly insufficient. If this cycle persists, New York will face inevitable drops in housing
providers simply because they are forced to reduce beds or cease operations due to the financial strain.

When thinking of community–based hospitals and housing, it’s imperative to recognize these are living and breathing New York
citizens. They are our neighbors and family members who suffer from psychiatric disabilities–and just like every other person–
deserve stable, affordable housing with built-in supports and accessible treatment and services. With consistent caregivers by
their side throughout their treatment plan paired with a stable home base, these citizens can finally have the safety net needed to
re- integrate into their families and communities. Without these pivotal foundations, the most vulnerable will need to keep starting
over treatment while also losing momentum and hope in themselves. Proper funding will dismantle this tiresome cycle.

New York has the opportunity to show the nation how to address a major health crisis by promoting an approach with strong
foundational housings programs that ensure integrated care. Besides, without the leadership of Governors Andrew, and
previously Mario, Cuomo, these community-based mental health housing systems would have not been developed in the first
place. With New York already leading the nation on caring for those with major psychiatric disabilities, it’s time for the State to
bring community-based housing all the way to home base. Now, more than ever, adequate funding for existing mental health
housing programs need to be prioritized before we lose our national legacy and are forced to abandon our most vulnerable New
Yorkers.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: [xxx]
MEDIA CONTACT: [xxx], [xxx], [xxx]

NY-21 CANDIDATE [xxx] APPLAUDS GOVERNOR CUOMO FOR INCLUDING HER INITIAL CALL TO
PROTECT ADIRONDACK PARK FROM PREDATORY RAIL COMPANY IN STATE OF THE STATE
[xxx] Reiterates Her Months-Long Call For Rep. Elise Stefanik To Take Action And Halt Use of ADK Rail
Line To Store Contaminated Tanker Cars In Adirondack Park
KEENE, NY – North Country Congressional Candidate [xxx] today issued a statement praising Governor Andrew Cuomo
for following her leadership and including a proposal to pressure the federal government to take action and halt an out-of-
state railroad company’s plan to store thousands of toxic, aging chemical tanker cars in Adirondack Park in the State of
the State.

“I am pleased to see Gov. Andrew Cuomo push forth my initiative and join me in the frontlines by including a proposal in
the State of the State to stop the railcar storage to protect the natural beauty of the Adirondacks,” said [xxx]. “As we’ve
said for months, Iowa Pacific’s plan to turn 22 miles of an Adirondack Park rail line into a junkyard for toxic rail cars is a
blight on the North Country–posing both a safety risk to our local families and serious harm to the local businesses and
tourism industry that rely on our park remaining wild, untouched, and unbought.

“Since November, concerned North Country citizens and I have protested and have called for the federal government to
intervene while Elise Stefanik has remained silent. By forcing Governor Cuomo and the state government to intercede on
behalf of our North Country communities proves that Stefanik has once again failed to serve her constituents. With the
support of Gov. Cuomo and the DEC, we will fight for the federal government to return jurisdiction over this stretch of
track to state and local authorities–even without Rep. Stefanik– to protect local North Country communities from the
dangers posed by this ill-conceived, money-grabbing scheme.”

On November 7, [xxx] called on the federal government to intervene, highlighting their clear jurisdiction over Iowa
Pacific’s use of the rail. The federal STB granted Iowa Pacific “common carrier” status in 2012, cementing their authority
to investigate the situation now and to return control of the tracks in question to the local government.

For more information about [xxx] platform and background, please visit the campaign’s website: [xxx]

###
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: [xxx]
MEDIA CONTACT: [xxx], [xxx], [xxx]

[xxx] , [xxx] , AND STAKEHOLDERS ACROSS THE STATE URGE GOVERNOR CUOMO TO
CONTINUE HIS LEAD ON 480 TAX LAW REFORM
480 Tax Law Will Position New York As National Leader In How States Address Climate Change,
Support Forest-Related Tourism/Recreation Industry, and Reduce Carbon Emissions
ALBANY, NY – Today, [xxx] was joined by [xxx] and statewide stakeholders to call on Governor Cuomo to fulfill his promise to
reform the Forest Tax Abatement Program, known as the 480 Tax Law. The Governor laid out the 480 Tax Law in last year’s
State of the State, and advocates in favor of the tax law are again asking it to be included in the 2018 New York State Budget.

The Forest Tax Abatement Program would reform the 480 Tax Law as well as incentivize private forest landowners to reduce
the conversion of forests to non-forest uses, and encourage sustainable forest management on privately owned lands to the
benefit of New York’s people, economy, environment, communities, and climate.

“When we do not have the promise of the federal government to take a clear role in contesting the serious threat of climate
change, we have the obligation to do what we can at the state and local level,” said [xxx] . “This measure is a proactive way for
New York to do its part and have our forest landowners mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon and putting their land
to work.”

“The 19 million acres of New York’s forest support a robust forest economy in upstate New York and provide a wealth of social
and environmental benefits to our communities,” said [xxx] . “Over the years we have done tremendous initiatives for the
publicly owned forests in New York and the time is ripe for us to address the private forest lands which make up 75 percent of
the forest lands in the state.”

Alongside being beneficial for the sanctity and wellbeing of New York’s forests, whilst a concrete method to combat climate
change with strong bipartisan state legislative support, the program has widespread backing from uncommon allies. Many
regional, state-wide, and local organizations within the business, farm, environmental, energy, and land conservation
communities support reforming and expanding the 480 Tax Law.

“The current program requires that forest landowners must create a management plan and comply with various regulations
aimed at maintaining their forest and producing timber. This stipulation normally discourages forest landowners to participate in
the program,” said [xxx]. “By addressing the regulatory issues and burdens associated with administration and participation of
the program, more forest landowners will be encouraged to enroll in the program and will be able to manage their lands for their
families and New York’s benefit.”

“By reforming the current tax abatement program to reduce the acreage threshold from 50 to 25 acres of land, as well as allow
half of the parcel to be open space but not necessarily forested, it will open up the program for landowners in more rural parts
of the state,” said [xxx] . “This law will not only economically benefit the Upstate economy by boosting forest-related tourism, it
will branch across the state and serve the agricultural sector as well.”

The 480 Tax Law receives strong bipartisan support and is paired with a diverse coalition of statewide, regional, and local
organizations ranging from businesses to environmental sectors which gives Governor Cuomo an incentive to include strong
480 Tax Law reform into the 2018 budget.
###
Dear Editor:

In the State of the State, Governor Cuomo made a commitment to protect New Yorkers with mental
illnesses. He declared that our collective “obligation as a caring people – a compassionate society –
to reach out, to provide whatever social services or address whatever needs the individual presents.
It is our job.”

Yet, in his proposed budget, only $10 million dollars went towards the community-based mental
health housing system. By not adequately funding the system he helped develop, the Governor did
not fulfill his promise to support New Yorkers with mental illnesses. Due to this lack of funding,
[Town/city]’s mental health housing system is at a financial crisis.

As the [title] of [Organization’s name], I know that stable housing is a crucial step for members of our
community who suffer from psychiatric disabilities recovery. (# of people your organization houses]
rely on us to help them reintegrate into our community and their families. Without proper funding, our
most vulnerable [Town/city] residents are at risk of displacement.

The community-based system is not only a crucial component for recovery, but also a way to combat
homelessness. If the Governor wants to provide for homeless New Yorkers, he must recognize the
root causes of homelessness includes mental illness.

The time is ripe for our Governor and state leaders to stand up for these members of our families
and communities. Without adequate funding, Governor Cuomo and our state leaders will not only
forsake this population but risk adding to the homelessness crisis.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]
[City, NY]
[ MM/DD/YYYY]
Dear Editor:

In Governor Cuomo’s Budget proposal, $10 million dollars was allocated towards the community-
based mental health housing system. However, even though we are grateful to be in the budget, we
have not received an increase funding in decades. Due to this shortfall in funding, [Town/city]’s
mental health housing system is at the brink of a financial crisis.

As the [title] of [Organization’s name], I know that stable housing is an integral component towards
recovery for members of our community who are suffering from psychiatric disabilities. (Number of
people your organization houses] [Name of people from town/city]‘s rely on our organization to help
them reintegrate into our community and back into their families. Without adequate funding put into
the final budget, our most vulnerable [Town/city] residents will be at risk of displacement.

Everyone in [town/city] has been touched by mental illness, whether through family members,
colleagues or friends–we all know someone who either suffers from psychiatric disabilities or is
affected by the struggles of a loved one.

Our Governor and state leaders must stand up for these vulnerable members of our families and
communities, and adequately fund community-based mental health housing. It’s the single best way
to put New Yorkers on the path to recovery, and without appropriate funding, we will find ourselves in
the midst of a public health crisis.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]
[City, NY]
[ MM/DD/YYYY]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: [xxx]
MEDIA CONTACT: [xxx], [xxx], [xxx]

STATEMENT RELEASE ON HOUSE REPUBLICANS’ FIRST DRAFT OF TAX REFORM BILL

KEENE, NY – North Country Congressional candidate [xxx] released the following statement today
in response to the unveiling of the House Republicans’ Tax Bill Draft this past Thursday:

“Once again, Republicans are serving large corporations, big-business groups, and the country’s
wealthiest individuals at the expense of our everyday citizens and, especially, our college students.
This newly unveiled plan will increase the relative rate for middle income earners while decreasing
the rate for the wealthiest income earners. With this being said, the tax plan will not stimulate our
economy – our middle-class citizens will be paying for it because of the cap on the mortgage interest
deduction, while the rest will be funneled into the deficit.

This bill will also eliminate the interest deduction on student loans which affects a third of Americans
with student debt. By eliminating employer-provided educational assistance, the student loan interest
deduction, and other higher education tax provisions, we are undermining the very workforce that
Congress seeks to support. These changes will also make college less affordable for students who
access higher education through public colleges and universities.

Rep. Elise Stefanik has claimed to be in support of hard-working college students when she
introduced legislation earlier this year to save the Perkins Loan Program. But, by supporting this first
effort for tax reform, she is willfully ignoring the dire economic consequences our current and future
students will face. This tax “reform” is only for the benefit of the wealthiest individuals and
corporations while severely impacting the future of everyday citizens and our current and incoming
college students.”

###
 Testimony of [xxx],
 [xxx], [xxx], on behalf of [xxx]
JOINT SENATE/ASSEMBLY LEGISLATIVE HEARING ON 2018/2019 BUDGET: Mental Hygiene
February 13, 2018
Good morning Senator Young, Senator Ortt, Assemblywoman Weinstein, Assemblywoman Gunther, Committee
Members and other Members of the Legislature. On behalf of the [xxx] coalition, I thank you for this opportunity to testify
before your committee.

My name is [xxx] and I am the [xxx] . [xxx] is a statewide membership organization of not-for-profit providers of
community-based housing and rehabilitation services for more than 35,000 New Yorkers who have been diagnosed with
serious, persistent psychiatric disabilities. Virtually all of the people living in these units rely on state-funded housing with
a variety of supports and services, as well as Medicaid for mental health treatment and other health related services.

Today I’m speaking on behalf of my organization, [xxx] , as well as [xxx] – a statewide coalition of more than 200
community-based mental health housing providers and advocates, faith leaders, residents, and their families. Through
education and advocacy, we are working to bring better funding for better care to New York, and we strongly urge you to
include adequate funding for our critical mental health community based housing in the final New York State Budget.

In his State of the State address last month, Governor Cuomo made a commitment to combat homelessness, and when
speaking about New Yorkers with mental illness, he said that our “obligation as a caring people – a compassionate
society – [is] to reach out, to provide whatever social services or address whatever needs the individual presents. It is our
job.” I could not agree more. Unfortunately, the poetry of the governor’s annual address did not match the prose of his
budget proposal, and that’s why I am here urging all of you to take action.

Let me tell you a little about our residents. The men and women who are living in community-based mental health
housing are as diverse as New York State. They are young people recently diagnosed with schizophrenia. They are older
folks learning to live on their own after hospitalizations. They live in rural areas in upstate New York, on Long Island, and
in every city from Buffalo to Brooklyn. They are our neighbors, our friends, our family. They are your constituents.

New York has historically been a national leader in mental healthcare. Under the leadership of both Gov. Andrew Cuomo
and his father Mario – and with the support of the New York State Legislature, including many of you listening to me
testify today – New York set new national standards to care for, and protect, people with psychiatric disabilities. However,
despite building a breadth and depth of mental health housing opportunities that is unparalleled in the nation, the state
has not kept its promise to adequately fund these housing programs that care for the New Yorkers who most need our
help.
For more than 25 years, mental health housing providers have received few increases to their funding — and most of the
increases that were provided went to New York City, Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley, because the state just
wouldn’t make enough money available – so it focused on the units that would imminently fail without help. This has kept
them on life support while the rest of the state is near cardiac arrest. None of the programs are financially healthy.

In bad years, we’ve been told there isn’t any money, and in good years, we’ve been told there wasn’t enough for us. Within
the five models of housing programs, only three have received increased funding since 2009, and only in restricted
geographic areas. All of the programs throughout the state are stretched untenably thin. For example, the Supported
Housing program spends nearly all of its funding on rent, which leaves little for mandatory staffing, lease management and
other obligations. With unreliable funding across the state, our mental health housing system has reached a financial
breaking point. And the people who will feel it are some of New York’s most vulnerable residents, who suffer from the
disruption that staff vacancies and staff turnover create, not to mention overworked supervisors.

I want to be very clear: Mental health housing providers cannot survive under these circumstances. We have reached the
point where we will be forced to reconsider renewing state contracts. Don’t just take my word for it; I talk to these providers
every day as can you. Without adequate funding, they are going to shut down – maybe not tomorrow, but it will happen. And
when they do, the people who they serve will have nowhere to go.

What does this mean? Without mental health housing programs, recovery for many of our most vulnerable residents is just
not viable. When providers are no longer able to provide the affordable housing with supports and services that our clients
need, it will create a domino effect within our social safety net. People will go back to their pre- housing cycle of relapse and
recovery, relying on shelters and hospitals and emergency rooms to get treatment or meals or just to get out of the cold –
the human and financial toll this will inevitably take can be avoided.

Beyond the moral imperative, taxpayers end up footing a larger bill when these citizens fall through the cracks. Without
mental health housing options, those with major psychiatric disabilities end up hospitalized, homeless, in nursing homes, or
become incarcerated, often due to minor infractions. Governor Cuomo made a commitment to combat homelessness. But if
you’re creating new homeless New Yorkers by failing to address the root causes of homelessness, why should we bother?
The Governor is funding all the new housing opportunities at an adequate, and much higher services rate, so why wouldn’t
providers just give up the underfunded units and just develop the newer, adequately funded units? We could lose as many
units as we develop.

As I mentioned, the men and women who are living in community-based mental health housing are as diverse as New
York State. A report from the state Office of Mental Health found nearly half of all residents in the community-based
mental health housing system are people of color. In New York City, half of all system residents are black and nearly a
quarter are Hispanic. New York should not fail any of its communities, but with well-documented racial health disparities,
it should certainly not fail our minority communities in the behavioral health and housing fields as well.
The residents who receive care in our community-based housing are living, breathing New Yorkers who need our help. They
suffer from serious psychiatric disabilities that result in functional disabilities, and – in the governor’s own words – as a
caring people, a compassionate society, we have an obligation to provide them with stable, affordable housing with supports
and accessible treatment and services. Without it, these people need to constantly restart their recovery, losing momentum
and falling farther and farther away from becoming part of the community once again.

New York is facing a dilemma: we can either become a national model for how states can successfully protect a population
that so desperately needs support, or watch the system collapse and become an example of what can go wrong. It’s time for
our state leaders to make the right choice. Let’s show the rest of the country how to handle a health crisis and become a
model of how a strong system can succeed when it’s properly supported. On behalf of all New Yorkers impacted by mental
illness, their families, friends, colleagues, and neighbors, we urge you to increase funding for community-based supportive
mental health housing in this budget. We cannot allow this system to fail.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify before you today. I would be happy to address any questions you may have or to
continue discussing these crucial matters at any time in the future.
 We’ll Paint the City Rainbow: Shaping Urban Policies by Asserting Queer Existence Through
Claiming Urban Space
Before the prominent transgender LGBTQ+ activist Marsha P. Johnson threw the first stone at the Stonewall Riots, LGBTQ+
community members were seldom identifiable in the public sphere. As a community, LGBT+ people had to ensure that they
were passable as “normal” heterosexual and cisgender people in order to protect ourselves from the violence towards our
community. These vibrant communities were formulated through more private means to mask their true identities. Through
the ballroom culture in the early 1980’s to late 1990’s, gay, lesbian, transgender, and gender non-conforming people joined
together to celebrate the fluidity of sexual identity and gender. Underground lesbian and gay bars were pinnacle factors of
the LGBTQ+ communities because after long hours of pretending to be heterosexual in the daylight, LGBTQ+ people were
able to be their authentic selves come night fall.

In each of these examples, LGBTQ+ people were creating a sense of community by manipulating urban space. As Yvonne
Doderer states in her article, Lgbtqs in the City, Queering Urban Space, “…city and urban life opens up many possibilities
for LGBTQ people:

to submerge and indeed emerge within the urban anonymity, to escape the bonds of controlling family, to enjoy urban
nightlife, to share experiences with other LGBTQs, to celebrate and to discuss together, and to organize political action”
(Doderer 434). After the Stonewall Riots, this defense mechanism, per se, to claim these urban spaces was used as a vital
tool to assert their existence in the city. Publicly declaring these once hidden queer spaces was a powerful tool in the
LGBTQ+ liberation movement because it was a method to normalize and assimilate LGBTQ+ people into the “status quo.”
However, with assimilation as the end goal, it becomes more increasingly difficult to ensure every member of the LGBTQ+
community is included and accounted for.

In my paper, I aim to argue that developing and sustaining distinct LGBTQ+ urban spaces and, in turn, urban coalitions was
a historical tool of resistance against the systematically oppressive heterosexual, cisgender social order. I also argue that
this was a method that was eventually adapted to assimilate some, not all, community members into that very social order. I
also will examine the ways in which asserting LGBTQ+ existence within these urban spaces was one of the many tools of
humanizing queer existence which, in turn, influenced urban policies to reflect the needs of LGBTQ+ community.

Throughout my paper, I will use the term “queer” as an umbrella term for “LGBTQ+” with the exception if the space or
population I am referring to is specific to sect of the LGBTQ+ community. Although each of my sources may not perfectly
overlap and do challenge my core argument, they each serve as pieces that make up the complexity and dimension of
queer urban spaces. As well as, overtime, they may change form but are still at their core the foundation of queer
resistance and have influenced how the community has accomplished the liberation we continue to fight for today.
In Petra L. Doan’s and Harrison Higgin’s article, The Demise of Queer Space? Resurgent Gentrification and the Assimilation
of LGBT Neighborhoods, they explore how the construction of traditional queer spaces begin to be dismantled by the
beginnings of gentrification in several urban cities. By large, urban city planners and municipal officers were “…eager to
capitalize on any glimmer of urban redevelopment, have often promoted wider urban revitalization, changing zoning codes
to attract large-scale real estate firms, further exacerbating the rise in property value, and inviting a new wave of
gentrification that alters the LGBT character of the neighborhood” (Doan 6).

The appeal of predominantly LGBT neighborhoods like Boys Town in Chicago, the South End in Boston, Chelsea in New
York, the Gayborhood in Philadelphia, and Midtown in Atlanta were that even though they were in non-desirable areas, the
queer communities that lived there recreated them to the point they became attractive to heterosexual populations.
Increasing the demand for property in these now “desirable” neighborhoods resulted in “…rising rents, frequent conversion
of rental properties to condominiums, and competition for commercial space” (Doan 6) which made these once LGBTQ+
communities inaccessible to less affluent LGBTQ+ people and small businesses. When non-queer populations and parties
become interested in these historically rooted queer spaces, not only do they threaten the sanctity of these spaces but the
planning itself serves as a tool to promote heterosexuality and further suppress queer people and political organizing in the
cities.

With this being said, the second-wave of predominantly heterosexual gentrification served as a tool of suppression because
it directly affected the ways these queer spaces functioned for the LGBTQ+ community at large. Historically, as mentioned
in the beginning, the experience of queer populations in physical urban spaces prior to Stonewall was a struggle for
tolerance. By containing the LGBTQ+ community in these inner-city neighborhoods, it was both a mechanism to protect
each other because there was strength in numbers, but it was also a political organizing tool to elect LGBTQ+ people to
both city and state offices. By having queer representatives at the local and state level, it humanized and solidified queer
existence and made policies that would empower queer populations entirely more possible to be codified into local and state
law. Doan elaborates on this newfound political power within these queer spaces when they state:

The concentration of LGBT people in the Castro district helped propel Harvey Milk in 1978 to become the first openly gay
man to be elected to public office in California. When the city of West Hollywood was created in 1984, a majority of its
elected city council members were gay men (Ward 2003). A number of scholars have argued that strong LGBT political
organizations (Wald, Button, and Rienzo 1996) and LGBT elected officials (Haider-Markel, Joslyn, and Kniss 2000) are
critical factors in explaining the passage of antidiscrimination ordinances. Furthermore, Davis (1995) found that the proximity
of gays and lesbians in Boston’s South End enabled political victories such as redistricting that would not have been
possible without proximate neighborhoods. (Doan 8)

Therefore, when this second-wave of gentrification washes over these queer urban spaces, they not only economically
devastate these spaces, but begin to exclude and suppress queer people within these areas. By forcing the queer
community to be “…dispersed as a result of high home values and rents” it becomes “far more difficult to organize for
political purposes” and therefore it creased a “tension” that was “…exacerbated by the “invasion” of middle- and upper-
middle-class heterosexuals into what were previously gay and lesbian enclaves” (Doan 9). It becomes apparent that “non-
conformist” groups, in this context LGBTQ+ people, will be “…ignored by the planning profession and are invisible in
planning documents” because these plans and policies that promote rban redevelopment “…frequently use zoning to
establish narrow definitions of what constitutes a family and fail to consider the effects of other policy changes on the LGBT
populations” (Doan 9). Although urban planning is marketed as “progressive and reformist,” they are used as a tool to
control and oppress minority groups, and in this context, LGBTQ+ people in the very spaces they made desirable to begin
with.
This form of subtle erasure of LGBTQ+ people in the neighborhoods they created from the ground up and have made
politically significant was a glaring trend in many “second -wave” gentrification projects around the nation, with glaring
effects in cities such as Atlanta. In this particular case study, when reviewing their planning documents, they did not mention
the city neighborhoods that had a rich LGBTQ+ populations whatsoever. In one of the interviews, Doan discovered:

Nonconformist populations continue to be ignored in most planning efforts. There is a remarkable uniformity in their
invisibility in every planning and urban development document reviewed. Despite substantial concentrations of gay residents
and businesses in Midtown, discussion of this population and its pioneering role in the redevelopment of Midtown is omitted
from any of the Midtown Alliance Blueprint documents. Even documents on the history of Midtown from the Midtown Historic
Preservation website are entirely silent about the role of gay men in rehabilitating this neighborhood. (Doan 12)

Other glaring indicators of the planning board deliberately suppressing and silencing the LGBTQ+ population in the area
was stating their goal was to “…change the character of the neighborhood by reducing the presence of these adult
businesses and making the streets more pedestrian friendly promoted a neighborhood that would be attractive to
heterosexual families at the expense of the LGBT community (Doan 14).” This measure targeted not just the businesses
that were primarily heterosexual strip clubs but would also formally close down gay and lesbian community bars and
nightclubs that were central to the character of the neighborhood but also served LGBTQ+ populations in the surrounding
area.

Although this measure seems innocent, by closing down these bars and nightclubs, it diminished these neighborhoods
purpose of being queer urban spaces. It served as a tool to “re-closet” the LGBTQ+ populations in the area because
developers who desired to make these neighborhoods “family friendly” and “highly cosmopolitan” put a “pressure on gay
bars” because they were “highly visible elements of the gay community” (Doan 16).

In a different light, it can be argued that because heterosexual populations want to further develop LGBTQ+ communities
and make them more “inclusive” means that they have developed a societal tolerance towards LGBTQ+ people. By
assimilating into this new wave of gentrification, perhaps, in the long run, can work in benefit LGBTQ+ people and work
towards greater equality between the oppressed and the oppressor. However, this argument that gives a hopeful spin to
second-wave gentrification. Queer urban spaces cannot be adapted for heterosexual and cisgender populations because
they were built with the intention of being a space of queer resistance. Queer urban spaces were created to organize
political power in order to enact urban policies that would empower and lift up this systemically marginalized community. To
adapt to the oppressor, in this sense, even if there will be economic gain, only further allows the oppressor to trample over
and reclaim space that was formulated for and by the oppressed LGBTQ+ community.

Moving forward, I have examined one of the many forms in which queer spaces existence are threatened by “second-wave
gentrification” efforts because these efforts are rooted in erasing the historical significance and political power of queer
urban spaces. As well as, the reason these queer spaces are a very threat to the social order because they empower these
communities that have historically been silenced within urban cities. But, when queer urban spaces develop and begin to
influence not only public opinion but public policies, do they work to represent all members of the community?
The foundation of queer resistance and the formation of queer urban spaces is rooted in the intersectionality of race and
sexuality, however, in the common narrative of the LGBTQ+ liberation movement, it is seldom mentioned. In Stewart-
Winter’s article Queer Law and Order: Sex, Criminality, and Policing in the Late Twentieth-Century United States, he speaks
of the James Clay Jr, who was black gay man in Chicago who was murdered by two Chicago police officers who were
arresting him for “impersonating the opposite sex” in 1970 (Stewart-Winter 61). This case sparked a desperate need to
discuss the “…neglected intersection of the histories of sexuality and the carceral state by highlighting a missing link in the
trajectory of gay politics: black-gay coalitions against police harassment. The rise of the gay rights movement and the
emergence of the carceral state coexist uneasily in the historiography of the late twentieth-century United States” (Stewart-
Winter 61).

The history of the policing and punishment is central to the discussion of pre-Stonewall LGBTQ+ urban communities.
However, it was seldom discussed in the larger scope of the LGBTQ+ liberation movement. Stewart-Winter elaborates on
this sentiment when he states, “The dynamics of police harassment were central to the first wave of urban gay community
histories and are understood to be involved in the rise of the homophile and gay liberation movements. Scholars have
traced the association of gays and lesbians with crime in the 1950s, but far less has been written about how antigay policing
changed in the 1960s and 1970s, as big -city police departments adopted a more aggressive approach to black insurgency”
(Stewart-Winter 62).

With this being said, police raids, in particular, were the only relationship that gays and lesbians had with the state and local
government. “Police raids were the most important point of contact between gays and lesbians and the state, and the
practices of local law enforcement were the crucial targets of activism for most of the movement’s first half century”
(Stewart-Winter 63). For example, the state and local government officials would punish “working-class African American
lesbians and gay men most harshly” while also “funneling some into a youth correctional system that snatched children
deemed troublesome away from their parents” (Stewart-Winter 65). One case study of this trend of criminalizing queer youth
was the story of Ron Vernon:

Ron Vernon, a “flamboyant” black teenager who grew up on Chicago’s South Side, recalls that when he began high school
in the early 1960s, he was “sent to a counselor immediately,” “because of my overt femininity.” Later, a family court judge
asked the boy’s father during a hearing if he was “aware that your son is a homosexual?” The man recalled, “My father is a
very honest man, and just said, ‘Yeah.’ So they said, ‘Well, we’re going to send him to Galesburg Mental Institution to try to
correct his homosexuality.’” The young Vernon, twelve or thirteen years old at the time of the hearing, would spend much of
his adolescence in and out of the custody of the state of Illinois. (Stewart-Winter 65)

Other instances of over policing queer urban spaces and communities was with the raid of the C&C club, which was a “blue-
collar lesbian bar in Chicago” where over fifty women were arrested along with their bartender. At the station, they were
arrested for wearing “fly fronts” regardless if the rest of their attire and physical attribute were outwardly feminine looking
(Stewart-Winter 65). In order to combat this overly policed state, queer coalitions formed, mimicking not only the efforts of
the LGBTQ+ liberation movement, but echoed the organizing methods of black radicals. For instance, in the case of the
C&C club raid, it inspired “Chicago’s first chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, the nation’s first lesbian organization, based in
California” (Stewart-Winter 65).
Stewart-Winter expands on the way in which queer urban community members fought back against the overly policed state
when he states, “Gay activists borrowed from the playbook of African Americans who increasingly challenged police brutality
in city halls and state legislatures, in the courts, and in public protests. Black mobilization against police harassment was
buoyed by the revolution in the rights of criminal defendants begun by the Warren court in the late 1950s. Joined by their
shared concern with combating the overzealous activities of law enforcement, black and gay activists found common cause”
(Stewart-Winter 66). This “playbook” that queer activists adopted to protect their urban spaces and assert their existence
inspired them to attend “police-community meetings” and forming the first “Gay Rights Task Force” (Stewart-Winter 66-7).

It was not only in Chicago where these coalitions were forming. In NYC, particularly in Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen, Jackson
Heights, East Village, and Williamsburg–the tensions between black queer youth and the white, straight, and cisgender
community was alive and well. In order to combat the violence against this marginalized sect of the LGBTQ+ community, the
“gay-safe street patrols” emerged to “…pre-emptively tried to stop queer-bashing by lobbying for an increased police
presence, members would occasionally use coded language and pinpoint African American and Puerto Rican public
housing projects in Chelsea as the source of the threat, contributing to class-based and racialized understandings of
homophobic violence” (Andersson 270).

However, Andersson in their article 'Wilding' in the West Village: Queer Space, Racism and Jane Jacobs Hagiography, goes
a step further in his analysis of why particularly black queer youth were targeted as most dangerous. He connects back to its
historical roots that even though the narrative of the “violent homophobe as a closeted homosexual” isn’t race specific–anti-
gay crime is connected always as a “cumulative image of the perpetrator of homophobic hate-crime as a dark-skinned man
of unstable sexuality” (Andersson 271). This historical stereotype of the “violent and overtly sexual black man” can be traced
back to the films like Birth of A Nation. This narrative only further stigmatizes black, male, and queer existence as a threat to
not only the social order, but to the community at large. This brings forth a larger debate of the racism within the LGBTQ+
community, particularly of white gay men and lesbians, who have not always been a part of these kinds of queer coalitions
and have not confronted how this issue affects queer urban spaces inclusivity.

Moving forward, although over time these groups loosened their grips of being overtly critical of state power by challenging
police brutality and over-policing of their communities, the queer coalitions they formed were able to advance and shape
urban policy up to the federal level. For example, “the gay rights movement’s advocacy for hate crime legislation,
culminating in enactment of the federal Shepard-Byrd Act of 2009” as well as successfully lobbying the California assembly
to alter California’s version of “Megan’s Law” to exclude elderly gay men as registered sex offenders (Stewart-Winters 72).

Although the LGBTQ+ liberation movement shifted their once militant stances in order to achieve these legislative victories,
they did so in order to change the public opinion that LGBTQ+ people were not a threat to the community and were worthy
of asserting their existence within their urban spaces. Some of the byproducts of this historical foundation is actualized in
Kian Goh’s Safe Cities and Queer Spaces: The Urban Politics of Radical LGBT Activism. In their article, they highlight two
LGBTQ+ organizing projects in New York City: Fabulous Independent Radicals for Community Empowerment (FIERCE) in
the West Village and the Audre Lord Project (ALP) in Bedford-Stuyvesant that are both reflective of this militant past of
carving queer urban spaces.
Goh states, “To many, the city—more accurately urban life—presents a normative ideal, the potential of difference without
exclusion, or living together. Cities have been considered places of relative safety for those confronting institutionalized
violence. In the aftermath of the 2016 election, many city governments proclaimed their continued commitment to inclusion
and diversity. Cities are not always safe spaces, though. They are sites of disinvestment, marginalization, and inequality and
spaces of capital accumulation and social contestation” (Goh 464). The development of FIERCE and ALP, just like queer
spaces in general, was created to protect and empower marginalized populations. FIERCE was created to “maintain access
and safety for queer youth of color” and ALP was created to maintain safe spaces without police intervention in their
community.

Goh’s article focused both the “contradictions and contestation around queer politics and urban space” in New York City and
also follows the same trajectory of the narrative earlier of Atlanta. When the city was on the brink of bankruptcy, “…
enthusiastic urban development and rapidly rising rent have produced some of the most high-value real estate in the city”
(Goh 467-8). This trend of urban planners entering historically, and predominantly queer spaces is a continuous theme in
order to police and constrain these vibrant queer communities in the city.

In Goh’s article, they aimed to further explore “queer margins” and extend “…the arguments that emphasize and insist on
the interconnections between systems of oppression—particularly of race, class, and gender identity—when researching
sexuality and space” (Goh 467) . As well as, how when queer urban spaces become “normalized” it reignites the issues
surrounding how “…physical space at the scale of the urban, not simply explorations of sexuality in space but how territories
are actively fought over, marked and signified, and controlled and built” (Goh 467-8).

Beginning in mid-1990’s, “tensions erupted between older residents in the West Village and LGBT-identified youth, largely
youth of color. Residents and business owners protested the presence of “unruly” queer youth, drawn to the area around
Christopher Street and the adjacent Hudson River waterfront and demanded more police presence” This conflict influenced
former Mayor Guiliani to enforce “quality-of-life citywide crime crackdowns” on any and all minor offenses (Goh 467-8).

In these times when urban queer spaces and their community members, particularly their young, poor, and queer people of
color, were riddled with antigay popular opinion and heavily policed–LGBTQ+ liberation movements had strategies to protect
themselves but sometimes the most targeted members of their already marginalized community fell through the cracks. Goh
points towards Christina Handhart’s research that proves this sentiment to be true, “…the complicity between LGBT
movement building and real estate development. The status of gay safety in gay spaces in the city—in politics, economy,
and popular culture—is historically constituted and contested, even between members of the LGBT community” (Goh 468).

Therefore, FIERCE and ALP had to emerge in order to protect the members of the community that that the LGBTQ+
movement at large could not afford to fill. FIERCE, founded in 2000, was in response to this increasingly unsafe
environment for queer youth of color. Goh states, “Neighborhoods such as Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, historically
black working and middle class, confront rapid gentrification, financial distress among many longer -term residents, and the
displacement of people of color. Adjacent Bushwick and Crown Heights face similar challenges. These neighborhoods have
also witnessed assaults against immigrants, LGBT and perceived LGBT residents, and police violence” (Goh 468).
With ALP, founded in 1994 and named after the black, feminist, lesbian poet, organized to ensure “…social and economic
justice for the most marginalized members of its community, in particular transgender and gender-nonconforming people,
the young, and the elderly (Goh 469). One of their most prominent programs, the “Safe OUTside the System (SOS)
Collective launched “…the Safe Neighborhood Campaign in Bedford-Stuyvesant in 2007, attempting to create community
accountability around violence” (Goh 469). By forming this campaign, the Collective was able to confront the “unjust criminal
justice system” within the neighborhood that was both “violence-stricken” and “rapidly gentrifying” (Goh 469). The group
designated churches and community centers as “safe, queer urban spaces” as a place of “refuge from anti-LGBT violence”
with the intention that it would decrease the amount of police intervention.

In this instance, gentrifying the historically recognized LGBTQ+ community of Bedford-Stuyvesant was an act of violence on
the most marginalized members–poor and queer youth of color. With these two groups, they were able to approach
LGBTQ+ people in an intersectional lens, particularly in the way queer urban spaces were being transformed to assimilate
into the social order. By changing the perspective in which LGBTQ+ people were viewed as, in this sense, predominantly
white, cis gay men and women, as a more inclusive community–they were able to tackle the “broader systems of
oppression.” Their work that centered on “marginalized members of their communities: queer people of color, transgender
and gender-nonconforming people, youth, immigrants, and working-class” was from the point of view that the state and local
government have not been supportive for poor queer people of color and in order to be supportive, these groups had to step
up and create these safe queer urban spaces for them.

This perspective was ultimately radical as it connected back to true roots of the Stonewall Riots that was a reaction to the
heavily policed and police violence that gay bars and nightclubs faced for decades. This perspective vastly differed to the
idea of “homonormativity” and that they only way to achieve true equality was by assimilation of queer spaces and
communities. Even with their more militant approach, FIERCE was able to garner a great amount of success in changing
the relationship between queer communities and urban development planners and the city legislators that supported them.
For example, FIERCE has maintained a “…tenuous working relationship with the Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT), the city-
and state authorized entity that oversees the Hudson River Park, and with Community Board 2, representing the West
Village” (Goh 470).

Goh elaborates on this relationship when she states, “The lead organizer described West Village residents, in the early
2000s, “not even wanting to look at LGBT youth if they walked into those [community board] meetings.” A decade later, “The
chair people of Community Board 2 reach out to FIERCE because they want to talk about issues affecting LGBTQ youth. .
.They want residents around the table to understand the impact of issues LGBTQ youth are facing” (Goh 470). By 2009,
FIERCE was given a seat on the HRPT Advisory Council which granted them the political power to create change in urban
policies that affected queer youth of color.

Even though FIERCE eventually dismantled this specific campaign, they were a prime example of the ways in which queer
organizations tackle the external forces that begin to threaten their queer urban spaces. It proved that by channeling the
spirit of their former LGBTQ+ leaders and their historical roots of queer resistance, these queer coalitions are able to enact
sustainable change. By asserting queer existence through defending the sanctity of queer urban spaces, despite if other
members of the LGBTQ+ community have already assimilated, these groups were able to have their voices heard on their
local city boards and committees and change urban policy to better represent them. This, in turn, worked to humanize the
existence of queer youth of color and other marginalized groups within the LGBTQ+ community that did not fit the more
commonly tolerated cisgender and white gay men or lesbian identities.
Throughout my essay, I have presented both ways in which the LGBTQ+ community has successfully helped their
marginalized queer siblings to achieve positive visibility and helped crush the narrative of them being inherently violent. By
“queering” urban space, it allows for “allows for difference, whilst […] questions dominant gender regimes” (Doderer 432).
As well as, queering urban spaces means “…building an emancipatory public and emerging from the shadows of a
mainstream society which hitherto denied and negated urban-societal reality (because queerness exists in all societies and
always has, and queerness is part of human sexuality and identity even if it is oppressed or if it is named and lived in
different ways)” (Doderer 432).

The queering of urban space and the development of urban queer coalitions is part of the revolutionary LGBTQ+ liberation
movement that I have aimed to prove was a historical tool of resistance against the social order. However, what is then the
price to pay when LGBTQ+ people begin to successfully assimilate into the heterosexual and cisgender communities that
have always been the oppressor? And when assimilation occurs, which groups within the LGBTQ+ reap these benefits and
which communities fall through the cracks? In Ghaziani’s article, “Gay Enclaves Face Prospect of Being Passé: How
Assimilation Affect the Spatial Expression of Sexuality in the United States” he summarizes this “post gay” paradox
perfectly– “assimilation expands the horizon of residential and social possibilities, but it also erases the roots of sexuality in
specific urban spaces” (Ghaziani 763).

LGBTQ+ people have asserted themselves as a community deserving of fundamental human right and have shaped urban
spaces and policy in the wake of it. However, with assimilation, there is the price of erasing the very roots of their identity
and why the community have worked to safeguard these urban spaces. Is the dissolving of our community’s unique and
sacred urban spaces necessary in order to achieve assimilation mean we have reached a level of tolerance from our
oppressors? Or, has our community better marketed our urban spaces and differences for the commercial benefit of our
oppressors?

If I were the continue this research, I would want to better address the intersectional issues of gender identity, race, and
class within these discussed queer urban spaces. Specifically, how that because of the ingrained gender binary, we often
overlook an analysis of queer spaces in relation to the oppression that queer people of color, particularly transgender
women of color and black queer men face. In Stewart-Winter’s article, he portrayed this struggle to better represent queer
people of color as well as transgender and gender non-conforming populations perfectly; “For gay people of color and for
white women, the gay rights movement was often not the one that spoke most directly to their daily concerns. Many gay
men were—and are—privileged by race and class at the same time that they were victimized by antigay discrimination.
Though despised and vulnerable to being fired if their sexuality became known, a sizeable and growing number of white gay
men held economically comfortable positions in urban America” (Stewart-Winter 69).

With this in mind, I would delve deeper into the historical transition of queer spaces and the deep racial issues that plague
the LGBTQ+ community internally, farther than I already have in this paper. In Goh’s article, they quote Natalie Oswin that
summarizes this approach rooted in intersectionality precisely: “She proposed, instead, a queer approach to geography
focused on understanding the making of norms across multiple identities: sexual, gendered, classed, and racialized. Oswin
noted how much queer space research, although conscious of intersectional relationships between sexuality and race,
remains relatively muted in its engagement with the latter. For her, there exist broader issues at stake, including race and
class as well as poverty, migrations and diasporas, and geopolitics and globalization” (Goh 466).
In conclusion, I have argued that developing and sustaining distinct LGBTQ+ urban spaces and, in turn, urban coalitions
was a historical tool of resistance against the systematically oppressive heterosexual, cisgender social order and have
explored how eventually this method was used assimilate some, not all, community members into that very social order. By
asserting LGBTQ+ existence within these urban spaces, queer existence was humanized which, in turn, influenced urban
policies to reflect the needs of LGBTQ+ community.

However, after examining the historical roots of claiming urban space–assimilating LGBTQ+ communities to better serve the
interests of their initial oppressors only benefitted white, cisgender gay men and lesbians. This then forced queer coalitions
to emerge within these queer urban spaces to better protect and represent the most marginalized members of the LGBTQ+
community, queer people of color particularly youth, transgender, and gender-nonconforming people. Publicly claiming
these queer urban spaces, in theory, helped humanize queer existence, alter public opinions and influenced LGBTQ+ urban
policies, but it was up for queer coalitions of color to make sure every LGBTQ+ community member was accounted for.

Queering urban space is a revolutionary tactic to assert and normalize queer existence, but there is still more work to be
done. LGBTQ+ communities are still heavily policed spaces and struggle with police violence. It is up to every LGBTQ+
person to recognize that the rate in which this occurs is heavily dependent on the communities’ class, race, and whether
they fit in the gender binary. White, cisgender gay men and lesbians must show up for LGBTQ+ youth transgender and
gender non-conforming siblings, especially for people of color in the community. Without acknowledging these truths of
these systemic flaws in queer urban spaces, then the LGBTQ+ community will cease to be revolutionary in their way in
which they have asserted their existence through queering urban spaces and, in turn, shaping urban policies.

Works Cited
Andersson, Johan. "'Wilding' in the West Village: Queer Space, Racism and Jane Jacobs Hagiography." International
Journal of Urban and Regional Research, vol. 39, no. 2, Mar. 2015, pp. 265-283.
Binnie, J. “Queer Theory, Neoliberalism and Urban Governance.” Queer Theory: Law, Culture, Empire, Routledge, 11 May
2010.
Doderer, Yvonne P. "Lgbtqs in the City, Queering Urban Space." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, vol.
35, no. 2, Mar. 2011, pp. 431-436.
Doan, Petra L. and Harrison Higgins. "The Demise of Queer Space? Resurgent Gentrification and the Assimilation of LGBT
Neighborhoods." Journal of Planning Education and Research, vol. 31, no. 1, n.d., pp. 6-25.
Goh, Kian. "Safe Cities and Queer Spaces: The Urban Politics of Radical LGBT Activism." Annals of the American
Association of Geographers, vol. 108, no. 2, 2018, pp. 463-477.
Ghaziani, Amin. "'GAY ENCLAVES FACE PROSPECT of BEING PASSE': How Assimilation Affects the Spatial Expressions
of Sexuality in the United States." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, vol. 39, no. 4, n.d., pp. 756-771
Stewart-Winter, Timothy. "Queer Law and Order: Sex, Criminality, and Policing in the Late Twentieth-Century United
States." Journal of American History, vol. 102, no. 1, June 2015, pp. 61-72.

Works Consulted
Brown-Saracino, Japonica1. "How Places Shape Identity: The Origins of Distinctive LBQ Identities in Four Small U.S.
Cities." American Journal of Sociology, vol. 121, no. 1, July 2015, pp. 1-63.
Hirshman, Linda R. Victory: the Triumphant Gay Revolution. Harper Perennial, 2017.
 The American Dream and Its Discontents: Constructing Capitalism with Behavioral and
Psychological Modification
Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon journeys through a retelling of a period of time unbeknownst to most.
This hallowing and painful truth still echoes through to today in a recycled form of discipline, punishment, and manipulation
of the black body and psyche.

However, although some forms of power were more apparent than others, there was a power on emphasizing what makes
an American and pushing the evolving economy. Amidst constructing the economic face of America, this growing concept
was then used to justify the apparent need to restrict black liberation through two different forms of power.

In order to maintain the hierarchy, white people created a mode of thought which manifested into those that they oppressed.
This new method of control transcended into not only a physical force over the black body but transformed itself by the
process of recycled thinking which validated and justified the need to prevent black liberation. I argue that behavioral and
psychological modification over the black person’s psyche was used to maintain the power structure and to push the
emerging economy and the making of an American during this time period post-Civil War.

When pinpointing the use of behavioral modification as a form of control over the black psyche, a quote from Paris is
Burning rings back to me, “This is White America, and any other race has to accept this until the day they die. Blacks [and
minorities] are the best example of behavior modification, we have had everything taken away from us, and yet we have all
learned how to survive.” The key was surviving, which was all that the black person could do in a society still rapidly
adapting to their apparent freedom. However, black freedom was considered a “problem,” when there was an urge to
identify the idea of being an “American.” With the shifting from a purely agricultural market to an industrial one, the need for
a different type of preferably cheap labor was desperately needed. Without the ability to take advantage of slavery for the
changing economy, there had to be another way to coerce and control the black body to help continue to build up the nation
as an economic powerhouse. Behavioral modification came into play in order to shift the focus from forced labor to creating
the narrative that there was no other way to survive but being complicit with the system that was rigged against black
liberation.

Behavioral modification was in the form of molding the way a white person would perceive the actions of the black person.
These modifications were created by forcing the black population to be put in predicaments controlled by the white person.
By having the white person string the black person like a puppet, it was easier to manipulate both the circumstances of
black life and then the reasoning behind their “behaviors.” In simpler terms, for a white person to advance they needed to
maintain that a black person would still be a few steps back. It was all constructed to have a valid reasoning to keeping the
black population down.
An example of “behavior modification,” was through the de-funding and segregation of the black schools. The ability for
black children to be educated brought a whole other realm of fear within the white man. If a black child were to be educated,
it could bring the next generation up and put them on the “same plane” as a white child all under the white man’s taxes.
However, most importantly, educating a black child would then interrupt the “emerging new economic order,” because
“Education would spoil a good plow hand,” alongside encourage the “upper hands of Negroe society,” to assert their political
rights (Blackmon 105). The white man did not need any generation of black people to feel as though they had a sense of
agency in this “emerging new economic order,” so they needed to do something to alter the new behaviors, in this sense the
act of being educated, back to being for their benefit.

In the 1880’s, the Alabama legislature “…attempted to enact laws specifying that school funds would be apportioned on the
basis of which tax payers contributed them: white would fund white schools, black would fund black schools” (105). This was
ruled “openly discriminatory” by the Federal court under the 14th Amendment (105). But, there is always a loophole and
instead the white leaders of the Alabama legislature made it a law that school taxes weren’t distributed in “equal per pupil
allotments” but by the total number of students, white or black, in each county.

The black schools severely suffered because under this new law, the white schools received the most funding. Black
teacher salaries were slashed and later on the “…length of the black school year was cut to just six months—reducing the
cost and eliminating school as an excuse for African American children not to work in the fields during planting and harvest”
(106). The white leaders were able to modify the behaviors of the black people by carefully constructing how it would best
benefit the economy because to the white man, the black body was only meant to be profited from. The way in which
behavioral modification manifested itself into the black person’s psyche was by rationalizing why the black body was only
meant to be used for profit. A great example of this infiltration of thought and the policing of other black bodies by a fellow
black person is Booker. T. Washington. Washington was admired by white leaders, both northern and southern, for his
ability to rise above his former slave status to being one of the nation’s “…most prominent black leader and the founder of
the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama” (161). Perhaps Washington was well liked because he commented the rugged
individualism of being American that was sincerely prominent during the time period. Or, perhaps, it was because
Washington took the role of placing himself as complicit in the system and encouraging his fellow black community
members to accommodate the white man’s politics.

As mentioned before, the issue with the black schools was created because if a black child was educated, that black child
and another black adult would then demand their political and civil rights. The white man feared that with education there
would be a ripple effect of black agency over their individual selves and their communities to strive for equality. Without
education, the black body could remain easily tangible and manipulated for labor power. Booker T. Washington a few years
later pushed for “…black self-improvement, industrial education, and acquiescence to white political power,” as well as,
urging African Americans to focus on “black skills” such as mining, lumbering, and farming (161.) Obviously, Washington
was well-liked among white people because he had become complicit with the system that was built to be rigged against
black liberation and manipulated to adjust black behaviors to be for white man’s profit.
The other form of control over the black body was by psychological modification which differed from behavioral modification
because it purely was the white man perpetuating their dominance over the black body. With the abolition of slavery, the
South specifically was reconstructing their perception of “American Greatness,” which seemed to be connected to being
“self-made.” What allowed the South to rise up was the ability justify the enslavement of others to continue rendering profit
in . It was for the “great American good,” if you will. However, once this justification is treading towards being abolished,
there is a madness for another need for dominance. They must still be the “other” and there needs to be something that the
White man has to do this without breaking the law. There needs to be something that the white man can do to continue to
render profit and not lose out on their “investment” of the black body. An example of early psychological modification was
the naming of slaves such as Scipio.

The origin of Scipio’s name has a certain edge to the White man’s need to make a joke out of a person’s most simplest form
of identity. By naming Scipio after a general who governed Rome and controlled all Northern Africa manipulates the only
form of identity Scipio has. This was a little joke to the White man, but something larger for the Black man. It’s a small detail
on the larger scope of constant punishment, degradation, murder, you name it—but this simple psychological modification of
naming a slave after one would have enslaved him speaks multitudes. It’s a consistent reminder that once a black person
walks American soil, they can no longer identify with anything other than being the “other,” in this emerging society. By re-
naming a person, the White man has taken all control over the identity of a Black person and in this case, they are named
after their oppressor that goes centuries deep.

The other psychological modification was through the white man rendering the “image,” of the black man through tangible
means for the American public. By being able to manipulate the white public in a way that alters their vision of the
capabilities of the black body beyond being used for labor was another form of power over their liberation. As the United
States began to “emerge as an authentic global power,” and the building of the industrial South continued to keep both white
and black people in poverty. However, their needs to be a division that keeps even the white poor above the black poor and
that is where producing artistic productions for the white poor come into play. The white poor need to feel like they are still in
power even though the economy has shifted not in their favor. Literature by Joel Chandler Harris alongside other white
writers provided the need for “nostalgia” of the black person as below them, so these authors romanticize the antebellum
South. Providing this romanticization that only the poor white class could have access to shifts the narrative that the black
body was better then, than now.

The other form of providing psychological modification was through the production of “The Leopard’s Spots” and “The
Clansman” by Thomas Dixon. These two novels was used as a tool of the psychological re-branding of the black
personhood. The author took the success of his two racist novels and created a stage play that toured all around the United
States. The production reenforced and validated the perceived “violent nature,” of black personhood. This depiction of black
psyche as being a danger to white society was another important means of modifying the American white public of their
perception of black people. Visual representations of the black body were made accessible and affordable to the white
public and was used as a vehicle to continue a warped perception of the psychological standing of black people. By
depicting them as “savage,” further enforced the need to keep the power structure in order. Similar to how the media warps
the perception of the American public today, literature and plays were the media of today back in this time period.
In conclusion, with the rapid emergence of Capitalism, the white man needed to still profit over their investment in the black
body. However, there needed to be a “valid” reasoning to keep black people as the other in society in order to still render
profit from their labor. By the use of behavioral modification, the white man was able to control any form of liberation of the
black mind and person. With psychological modification, the white public was given access to tangible means of texts and
visuals to alter their perceptions of the now freed Black Americans. These two modifications worked together that the
American public would simply police each other for the sake of emerging industrial society and re-inserting our making of
being an American.

Works Cited
Blackmon, Douglas A. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to
World War II. New York: Anchor, 2009. Print.