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When the first gangsters were white: the color of salvation
New York, 1930s. In the working-class neighborhoods, kids of Italian, Irish or Jewish origin organize themselves into gangs. They fight for a street corner, for a speakeasy, for control of the slot machines. But these“ bad boys” have a horizon: that of respectability. Because the system leaves doors open for them. Urban politicians, unions and even churches absorb their raw energy. Organized crime becomes an integration machine, paradoxically: you“ work” for the mob before joining a union or a business. And when Roosevelt’ s New Deal arrived, social policies, labor protections and, above all, housing loans reserved for white neighborhoods did the rest. The result: within a generation, many of these former juvenile delinquents blended into the white middle class.
As for the white gangs, they’ ve all but disappeared from the landscape. Not out of virtue, but because they’ ve found something better: stability and recognition. At the same time, blacks were excluded from the banking system, the real estate market and stable jobs. For them, no social escalator, but a conveyor belt that always brings them back to the starting point. In reality, the New Deal’ s housing finance programs, created to generate employment for the thousands of unemployed during the Great Depression of the 1930s, did not benefit everyone equally. A system for assessing residential areas was put in place, and“ redlining”, a discriminatory practice, delineated in red on maps areas where government-backed mortgages could not be granted. These exclusion criteria were based on the socio-economic characteristics of the neighborhoods and the presence of minorities, not on the creditworthiness of the residents.
Flashmag! Edition 165 Octobre 2025
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