Between and , black ghettos expanded and cemented themselves in economic life. Since , though, urban segregation has declined, especially for more educated blacks. The authors suggest and evaluate three different explanations for urban segregation. First, ghettos may be a way for new migrants to adjust to a different cultural environment. Since , for example, black migrants from the South are 10 percent more likely to belong to an all-black church than native Northern blacks, and are 24 percent more likely to prefer a segregated neighborhood.
Second, "collective action racism," such as restrictive covenants, racial zoning, policy instruments, and threats of violence which were widespread before , may have played a role in creating segregated urban neighborhoods. Indeed, the authors find a much higher use of restrictive real estate covenants in cities that are more segregated.
Third, there may be "decentralized racism," in which whites simply pay more to live in areas with other whites, a "privilege" that is worth more to whites than to blacks. The data seem to support this explanation as a contributing factor for the persistent segregation we experience today, decades after equal housing laws were enacted. Aerial view of Campo Ghetto Nuovo, Venice. By Daniel B.
Harvard University Press. Related Stories. Already a print subscriber? Go here to link your subscription. Need help? There are many ways to make a flat map of the world — each of them a unique distortion. Email Save Tweet Share. Aeon Video has a monthly newsletter! Sign Up. Privacy Policy. But social background, cultural affinities, and communal influence are also of great significance. But the deeper truth is that, for some three centuries now, the communal experience of the slaves and their descendants has been shaped by political, social, and economic institutions that, by any measure, must be seen as oppressive.
We should not ignore the behavioral problems of the underclass, but we should discuss and react to them as if we were talking about our own children, neighbors, and friends. This is an American tragedy, to which we should respond as we might to an epidemic of teen suicide, adolescent drunken driving, or HIV infection among homosexual males—that is, by embracing, not demonizing, the victims.
The problem with talk about black culture, black crime, and black illegitimacy, as explanatory categories in the hands of the morally obtuse, is that it becomes an exculpatory device—a way of avoiding a discussion of mutual obligation. It is a distressing fact about contemporary American politics that simply to make this point is to risk being dismissed as an apologist for the inexcusable behavior of the poor. But this is what political discourse assessing the status of blacks has come to.
The highly ideological character of racial debate in America makes nuance and complexity almost impossible to sustain. For while it may be true that the most debilitating impediments to advancement among the underclass derive from patterns of behavior that are self-limiting, it is also true that our history has dealt poor blacks a very bad hand. Yes, there must be change in these behaviors if progress is to be made.
But a commitment of support will also be required from the broader society to help these folks help themselves. The conservatives deny this. That nonwhite immigrants succeed is taken as a vindication of the system; that blacks fail is said to be due entirely to their own inadequacies. This is obscenely ahistorical. Frankly, I remain optimistic about the prospect that black teenagers, given greater opportunity, might respond with better behavior. What makes me pessimistic about our future is the spectacle of politically influential American intellectuals grasping at these cultural arguments as reason to abandon or ignore their moral responsibilities to those who are least fortunate in our society.
The debate over affirmative action has also become quite ideological in tone. I have been a critic of affirmative action policies for more than 15 years.
I was among the first to stress how the use of racial preferences sheltered blacks from the challenge of competing on the merits in our society. However, in the wake of a successful ballot initiative banning affirmative action in California, I now find it necessary to reiterate the old, and in my view still valid, arguments on behalf of explicit public efforts to reduce racial inequality.
In my view, race-based allocations of public contracts, explicit double standards in the workplace, and large disparities in the test scores of blacks and whites admitted to elite universities are unwise practices, deservedly under attack.
But the U. The mere fact that these efforts take race into account should be not disqualifying.
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