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Tag(s): American Civil Liberties Union; American Minority Populations; Americans African; Americans Latin; Census; Crime; Education; Education; Justice; Policy; (more...) Population; Poverty; School; Schools; Segregation; South (less...)
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April 5, 2008 at 01:42:06

Promoted to column top on 4/5/08:
Has America Overcome Segregation?

by Nandinee Kutty Page 1 of 2 page(s)

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On March 31, 2008, Al Gore, the Nobel Prize winning rock star of the public policy world, announced that just as America succeeded in-- putting the first man on the moon, stopping fascism in Europe during World War II, and overcoming segregation-- America can now commit to achieving the same success with tackling problems related to climate-change. No one challenged Gore on this statement.

Has America really overcome segregation, in the same way as it has put a man on moon? Is it an achievement that is done and over with? In the 21st century, several cities and suburbs in America remain highly segregated. African Americans face, by far, the highest levels of residential segregation, and Latinos, especially lower income Latinos, live in segregated conditions too. U.S public schools are re-segregating to alarming levels throughout the length and breadth of the nation. Schools are re-segregating most rapidly in the South. In some parts of the country, Latino students today face higher levels of school segregation than even African American students did before the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision of 1954.

One measure of residential segregation is the dissimilarity index, measuring how apart whites and non-whites are in a city or region. Chicago city has a dissimilarity index of 87 for African Americans. What this means is that 87% of whites in the city would have to move to another neighborhood in order to achieve an even distribution of whites and African Americans in Chicago. This reflects an extremely high level of residential segregation of African Americans from their white fellow-citizens.

In New York City, African Americans have a dissimilarity index of 85, and Latinos of 70. In Washington, DC, African Americans face a dissimilarity index of 82. In Atlanta, this index is 84 for African Americans and 65 for Latinos; in Philadelphia it is 81 for African Americans and 67 for Latinos; in Houston, it is 76 and 62 for African Americans and Latinos respectively; and in Dallas, it is 72 and 65.

In Miami, the dissimilarity index is 80 for African Americans, and in Baltimore, Boston, and Milwaukee it is 75, 76, and 71, respectively. You can look up the levels of segregation for U.S. cities and metropolitan areas from this Census website.

Census data reveal that residential segregation has decreased since 1970. Much of this decrease is the result of there now being a smaller share of neighborhoods that are exclusively white or predominantly white. It is a positive step towards living as one nation, indivisible, that non-whites have started to live in what used to be exclusively white neighborhoods. Many of these pure white neighborhoods had been artificially created by violence, intimidation, statute, and U.S. public policies from around the early part of the 20th century till well into half of the century.

While we can celebrate having overcome intense prejudices and exclusion of the past, it is sobering to learn that between 1970 and 2000, the proportion of neighborhoods in which African Americans were the majority of the residents actually increased. This suggests a greater concentration of blacks in black areas, even as white areas were opening up to a few blacks moving in there. The declines in segregation are most noticeable in communities with small African American populations. In the older Northeastern and Midwestern industrial cities, segregation levels for African Americans have remained high. America’s suburbs have also become highly segregated, with the emergence of suburbs that are predominantly black.

Segregation between Latinos and whites seems to be increasing. Some studies show that Latino populations—especially recent immigrants--- are now dispersing to newer locations, other than the traditional gateway cities for Latino immigrants. While this is true, a majority of Latinos in poverty live in majority-Latino neighborhoods. Mexican Americans, in particular, face high levels of segregation; and for this group of Latinos, the segregated pattern of living seems to have continued over time, and across generations.

Why is this important? When so many members of the nation’s two largest minority groups live in segregated neighborhoods, they are not connected to the normal economic, social and political opportunities available to other Americans. When lower income minority families live in segregated neighborhoods, their children must often go to inferior quality schools, their streets are not maintained as well as in other types of neighborhoods, they are exposed to more crime in their neighborhoods, they receive less police protection, they have worse access to public transportation and to jobs, and they lack access to good medical facilities. Furthermore, their concentration in a few neighborhoods makes it easy for predatory operators like payday lenders, predatory subprime mortgage lenders, and retail stores (such as grocery stores) that charge higher prices for the same or inferior products to target these families for their predatory practices which leave these families financially worse off.

It was segregation that made redlining possible, and it is segregation that has made the recent reverse-redlining possible. Under reverse-redlining, predatory lenders have targeted segregated minority neighborhoods for their abusive practices like over-appraisal of property value, exorbitant interest rates and fees, non-disclosure of terms, and not properly recording mortgage payments that the homeowner has made.

When Martin Luther King Jr. said that “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny” and that “whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly,” he was probably not talking about the current subprime meltdown and the global financial crisis it has led to. But that is a powerful example of the network of mutuality, and why segregation and abuses of a segregated minority population affects us all.

Similarly, all Americans pay the price for inferior schools in segregated neighborhoods, the alarming school dropout rates, and poorly educated students. U.S. employers are turning to the labor force of other countries, in the absence of competitively skilled workers within our shores.

The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world today, and segregated minority neighborhoods directly contribute to this. There are few employment opportunities available for residents of such neighborhoods and crime levels are high. Furthermore, youth from impoverished communities, even when they are innocent, are more easily rounded up by the police and sent to prison because they lack access to adequate legal services. With job prospects being so poor for people released from prison, recidivism is high.

The rising level of brutality represented by the growing incarceration rates—brutality of criminals and law-enforcers (police and prison guards) alike—ties our entire society in a single garment of a diminished humanity.

If these trends are allowed to continue, the U.S. could easily become a place like or worse than Brazil, with a severe division between the mainstream and those who live in slums or favelas, and where brutality against poor, minority children is commonplace. Early symptoms of what is in Brazil a full-blown syndrome are already visible in the U.S. Our criminal justice system is increasingly putting children in prisons. The number of juvenile offenders in state prisons more than doubled between 1985 and 1997, at a time when the incidence of serious and violent crimes by youth was decreasing. The Children’s Defense Fund in the U.S. has termed these alarming trends “The Cradle to Prison Pipeline®.

Segregation in America must be overcome. For the sake of one nation with liberty and justice for all.

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4 comments

Conservative prolife anti-death penalty tree hugger. Believe that less government is good government, government cannot solve anyone's personal problems, the government taking money from one group of people and giving it to another group of people is a crime, and that people should take responsibility for their own lives.
Mad JayhawkConservative prolife anti-death penalty tree hugger. Believe that less government is good government, government cannot solve anyone's personal problems, the government taking money from one group of people and giving it to another group of people is a crime, and that people should take responsibility for their own lives.

Segregation

The word segregation means voluntary or enforced separation. To me it is one of those racially loaded words that always seems to mean enforced separation by legal means. That no longer exists in this country and if by some small chance it still does, it should be eliminated.

Separation of races in this country occurs, in my opinion, for a couple of reasons. First, it is voluntary. For whatever reason people seem to choose to live in neighborhoods that they feel comfortable in. Certain numbers of Italians like to live around other Italians. There are Swedes who like to live around other Swedes. No one makes the Swedes or Italians live where they do in this country. They chose to voluntarily segregate themselves. This happens all the time with every group under the sun. Personally I do not care. When I chose a neighborhood I do not do a racial or ethnic census. I primarily look at how good the schools are, what the crime statistics are, and how well do the residents protect their (and my) property values by maintaining their property.

Segregation by choice happens at our universities as well. There are black dorms. Black fraternities. Even black graduation ceremonies. Required by law? No. By choice.

The second way segregation occurs is economics. Minority populations have for some time have not enjoyed the economic slice of the pie, although that is changing for the better all the time, and as a result have not had the opportunity to buy then trade up to better housing as have other groups. I started with a $16,000 house 30 years ago and now live in, after 5-6 moves, in a $400,000 house. My black neighbors in my area have done the same thing. I did not want to spend the rest of my life in what I call a 'starter' houses or in an apartment so our family made economic sacrifices to move up. If a minority family has the money 99.5% of the people with a house to sell will sell it to them. I sold my last house to a young Hispanic couple with 3 kids, two jobs, and the need for more room to raise their families in an area with great schools. I said "Show me the money" and they did.

Some people never could afford to make or made the sacrifices to buy that first house. If people don't take steps on their own to improve their housing (bigger, house, nicer neighorhood, safer neighborhood with better schools, etc) they will continue to live in low income housing forever. What happens is that those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder will tend to be segregated in areas of less desirable housing where there is more crime and bad schools. The people that live in these areas have made economic choices in order to live here just as our family made choices to move up and out. Economic choices include lifestyle choices, employment choices, partner choices, family size choices, and educational choices. There is a great book about choices called Manchild in the Promise Land by Claude Brown. It should be required reading in every high school.

I have seen a lot. White and colored water fountains. A realtor telling me that I should sell my house now because a black family bought a house on the next block. Schools that were white only with a broken down black only school a mile down the road. Buses that I rode on daily where the black people had to sit in the back. Restaurants where black friends and I were denied service. Stood on the balcony, with tears in my eyes, where MLK died 30 years before. Watch daily a young black man advance towards being a presidential nominee. If you don't think things have changed in this country then your eyes and your mind are closed.

by Mad Jayhawk (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 311 comments) on Saturday, April 5, 2008 at 1:27:20 PM

Nandinee Kutty is and economist and a public policy consultant. She has a Ph.D. in economics from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She served as a faculty member at Cornell University for seven years, where she taught courses on policy analysis and economics. She has published numerous scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals of economics and public policy. She lives in the Washington, DC area.
Nandinee KuttyNandinee Kutty is and economist and a public policy consultant. She has a Ph.D. in economics from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She served as a faculty member at Cornell University for seven years, where she taught courses on policy analysis and economics. She has published numerous scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals of economics and public policy. She lives in the Washington, DC area.

is segregation voluntary?

Mad Jayhawk has offered a perceptive comment based on what he has seen for many decades in America. He notes the improvements, and he is right.

But segregated neighborhoods continue to exist in America. America has not overcome segregation. For children who are born into the worst, segregated, isolated, crime-ridden neighborhoods, living there is not a matter of choice. And they can remain trapped in these bad neighborhoods through a vicious cycle of poor education, bad company, unstable family situation, lack of jobs, getting a criminal record based on petty crime, and irresponsible personal behavior.

It is still difficult for a lower income black family to move out and try to rent or own a home in better neighborhoods. When families such as these encounter discrimination and steering back to segregated neighborhoods, they are discouraged from searching more and finally making it to a better situation.

Yes, voluntary segregation also exists. But most of the segregation in impoverished minority neighborhoods is not voluntary. People living here don't have enough social connections with the outside world to be able to move out. And yes, certain pathologies develop that result in a sense of hopelessness and lead to inertia. Of course, it is not only the poor in our country who suffer from pathologies--so do the very wealthy. Their pathologies are manifested in overmedication (by children as well as grownups), and uncontrolled greed for even more money. But that is the subject of another article.

One way to reduce the deleterious effects of lower income segregated neighborhoods is to have a system that can ensure equal public school quality across all neighborhoods. This way, children in segregated neighborhoods will have at least one vehicle for upward mobility.

by Nandinee Kutty (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments) on Saturday, April 5, 2008 at 2:27:39 PM

I am a 47 years old,married and have a 17 year old daughter.My hobbies are bicyling, weight training and off road motorcycling.I have lived in a midwestern red state my entire 46 years.Now that I have reached middle age I have become interested in politics and its related fields of study.I dont often think of things being either liberal or conservative,I like to veiw political events in an objective manner and find the agenda or reason that a bill or policy is brought to bear.Simply put seeking ...

to see more of bio, click on member name
Gary DensonI am a 47 years old,married and have a 17 year old daughter.My hobbies are bicyling, weight training and off road motorcycling.I have lived in a midwestern red state my entire 46 years.Now that I have reached middle age I have become interested in politics and its related fields of study.I dont often think of things being either liberal or conservative,I like to veiw political events in an objective manner and find the agenda or reason that a bill or policy is brought to bear.Simply put seeking ...

to see more of bio, click on member name

segregation

Mad jayhawk has made some excellent points. People tend to socialize and live in areas were people are much like themselves. As far as issuing government mandates to relocate people to attain a perfect racial mix, one must be careful this notion may be more harmful than racism itself. A good example is minority high school graduation rates. These rates are lower than ever and very high for minorities who go to a white majority school. Just think about how it would feel to be forced to go to a school were 90% of the population were white and you were black. In some cases minority kids may excel in schools were they are the majority, and excel despite the fact that their school has less funding.

by Gary Denson (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 217 comments) on Saturday, April 5, 2008 at 7:27:46 PM

Education

Education is the key. Uneducated or undereducated people create huge social problems that we all would like to do something about with money or more government programs. I think, by now, it is safe to say more money and more governments programs do not solve the basic problems in our society. We have to make some fundamental changes in the way we educate children

Our educational system, in every neighborhood but especially in low income ones, started its downward path to failure when teacher's unions got a toe hold and began its growth as an educational force. Teacher's unions have done absolutely nothing for the children of this country. Nothing. Yet they have tremendous leverage over all aspects of education. They have a death grip on the educational system to such an extent that all suggestions for improvements to the education of our children are dead on arrival.

Yet when we watch the political conventions this fall we will watch our politicians falling all over themselves to lavish praise on these evil people who are taking our country down child by child. People do not realize what is going on in our schools. I would home school my children now rather than put them in the academic and social cesspools in our schools.

We need vouchers. We need educational freedom to choose. We need all the alternatives out there to lessen the power of the unions to dictate educational policy. If teachers do not want to be accountable for the outcomes that they control in their classrooms then parents should have a right to find the best possible educational environment for their children. One parent or even a group of parents cannot fight the unions that have the politicians and, now, judges in their pockets. Because individual parents are powerless to fight the big teacher's unions who have the money and political clout parents should be able to make educational choices. If this doesn't happen we will continue to see the dumbing down of everything in our society. Without a good education people are nothing because they will not have a chance to succeed when the opportunities present themselves.

Make a diference. Do not support or vote for any politician who supports teacher's unions.

by Mad Jayhawk (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 311 comments) on Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 5:21:42 PM