The Hidden Parts of Dallas

Congo Street pictured here is only 7 miles away from SMU, and I bet very few of us have every even heard of it. For my anthropology class this semester one of our assignments was to do a tour of Dallas. We were given a list of 32 places throughout Dallas to find. Our class is about diversity in America so the main point was looking for diversity in our own city. Most of us live in this perfect bubble around campus and never even realize there is another world out there with violence and poverty. We saw important landmarks of Dallas but we mainly became familiar with the Mexican and African American areas of our city. Dallas is one of the most segregated cities in our country, and one really sees this when you go looking for it. The minorities are stuck in their enclaves throughout the city and we rarely interact with them. For example, we visited The Stewpot, a center for the homeless downtown, and it is located 2 blocks from Neiman Marcus. However, I seriously doubt very few of the Neiman's  shoppers have ever interacted with Dallas's homeless community. Dallas seems to just want to forget about the poor and keep the upper middle class away from its less favored inhabitants. For example in 1936 when Fair Park was going through renovations, streets, such as Congo Street, were renamed these unique names to warn away white people from these dangerous areas. I found this very interesting but ridiculously close-minded.