**Table of Contents Contents 1ac – Mass Transit
Solvency Extensions - Racism
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- Mass transit allowed for the potential for freedom and racial progress. McCammack, 2010.
- . Need to act now—can spur a paradigm shift in American transportation
- Americans have been giving up their car dependency
- There are many factors contributing to a natural shift in the habits of Americans in the way they live and move. But if more sustainable alternatives, including public transportation
Solvency Extensions - RacismRacism Can Be Dismantled, But Every Step is Key—Challenging Instances of White Privilege are Crucial to Preventing Total Collapse Joseph Barndt, Co-director of Ministry Working to Dismantle Racism, "Dismantling Racism,” 1991 (p.155) But we have also seen that the walls of racism can be dismantled. We are not condemned to an inexorable fate, but are offered the vision and the possibility of freedom. Brick by brick, stone by stone, the prison of individual, institutional, and cultural racism can be destroyed. You and I are urgently called to joing the efforst of those who know it is time to tear down, once and for all, the walls of racism. The danger point of self-destruction seems to be drawing even more near. The results of centuries of national and worldwide conquest and colonialism, of military buildups and violent aggression, of overconsumption and environmental destruction may be reaching a point of no return. A small and predominantly white minority of the global population derives its power and privelage from the sufferings of vast majority of peoples of all color. For the sake of the world and ourselves, we dare not allow it to continue. Mass transit allowed for the potential for freedom and racial progress. McCammack, 2010. (Brian McCammack is a W.E.B. Du Bois institute fellow at Harvard University and a lecturer at Tufts University, 2010, “‘My God, they must have riots on those things all the time’,” Project Muse. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_social_history/v043/43.4.mccammack.html). By contrast, the bulk of African American mobility in New York and Chicago was something that workers were largely compelled to do in order to make a living—it was a necessity. Given the choice, whites more often than not sought to reinforce barriers between white and black communities, not make them more porous. Once Harlem was established as Manhattan’s black belt, some citizens clearly saw subway lines as an unwanted connection between the black belt and white communities. In 1922, a proposed subway line extension that would connect the white Central Park West neighborhood directly to Harlem drew protest from the Central Park West and Columbus Avenue Association which claimed that “there is little use in trying to beautify Central Park West if the line serving it terminates in the ‘black belt’ of Harlem.”28 Similarly, in Chicago there was white resistance to a proposal that would extend streetcar lines and link predominantly white Hyde Park with the black belt.29 Despite these sorts of efforts, black mobility only increased as more transit lines were constructed and a growing population fueled mostly by southern migration utilized them to reach jobs all over the city. Mobility, whether for work or not, was something that black migrants from the South appreciated; it embodied the potential for freedom and racial progress. When asked by the Chicago Commission on Race Relations (formed after the 1919 race riot) about the freedom, independence, and wages in Chicago as compared to the South, a few respondents cited public transportation as the locus for these differences. One said that a benefit of higher wages in the North was that he could go anywhere he pleased on the streetcars after paying his fare and another noted that he could sit anywhere on the cars he pleased as well.30 As James Grossman points out, despite white prejudice against blacks that often manifested itself as an unwillingness to sit next to a black passenger, such white discomfort and distaste was most often borne silently—in stark contrast to the prejudice migrants were used to encountering in the South.31 And yet, while blacks could, in fact, go anywhere they pleased on the cars and sit next to whites, those journeys were not always without incident. The Commission saw the Great Migration as the catalyst for discord on the streetcars, stating that “The contacts of Negroes and whites on the street cars never provoked any considerable discussion until the period of Negro migration from the South.” . Need to act now—can spur a paradigm shift in American transportation American Public Transportation Association (APTA), “Changing the Way America Moves: Creating a More Robust Economy, a Smaller Carbon Footprint, and Energy Independence,” 2009, p. 6. We are at a pivotal moment in transportation history. Many indicators show that Americans have been giving up their car dependency over the past few years because they see the benefits of public transportation. In a 2003 survey, four in five Americans stated that increased investment in public transportation strengthens the economy, creates jobs, reduces traffic congestion and air pollution, and saves energy.v On November 4 2008, in a time of great economic uncertainty, people overwhelmingly voted for raising public revenue in order to improve public transportation. In fact, across the country, more than 75 percent of state and local transit-related ballot measures passed, with voters in 16 states approving 26 measures and authorizing expenditures of $75 billion.vi There are many factors contributing to a natural shift in the habits of Americans in the way they live and move. But if more sustainable alternatives, including public transportation, walking, and cycling, are not made available or easily accessible on a massive scale, we will lose the opportunity to permanently change the way America moves. However, if we can take bold steps today toward significantly increasing the availability and use of these choices, this can be the beginning of a new era, when America becomes one of the most livable countries in the world, and the majority of Americans have access to and opt for affordable and sustainable public transportation. 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