more commonly known as the Minnesota Timberwolves (like some kind of racist Mario Kart)

February 2022

“What you may not know is that when America first started building its highway system back in the 1950s, people were often forced to leave their homes to make room for all these fancy new roads. And guess which people were moved the most. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, one of the largest and most consequential infrastructure measures in American history, added 41,000 miles to the interstate system and cut through almost every major American city, displacing predominantly black and brown residents. 

The construction of I-94 in St Paul, Minnesota, for example, displaced one in seven of the city’s black residents. Highway I-94 could’ve been anywhere in Minnesota, but it just happened to displace the very few black people living in Minnesota, more commonly known as the Minnesota Timberwolves. 

And look, don’t get me wrong: these highways had to go somewhere. I’m not saying no highways. But more often than not, that somewhere was right through a black neighborhood. Black people are used to being displaced by gentrification, even today, but at least when that happens, they get to enjoy Shake Shack for a few months first.

 These highways, on the other hand, they didn’t provide any improvement to the neighborhood. They slashed a hole through it. And whatever was left of that neighborhood just withered and died. Highway construction not only displaced residents and permanently shut down black businesses, they also reinforced segregation at a time when new laws demanded the integration of schools. 

Highways in Atlanta, for example, were laid down primarily with regard to keeping the races apart rather than keeping traffic moving efficiently, said Professor Kevin Kruse of Princeton University. The city’s snarling traffic is in part due to design which winds around the city to cordon off black neighborhoods, rather than move cars. Man, racism is a helluva drug. Instead of designing the most efficient highway, they instead made it zigzag around the city like some kind of racist Mario Kart.” —Trevor Noah

https://idiocracy23.blogspot.com/2021/02/a-magisterial-collection.html 

“A magisterial collection. A combination of Bukowski’s Last Night of the Earth 

and Orwell’s 1984.”