segregation

In 2013, the abrupt closing of fifty Chicago public schools largely impacted people of color in West and South Side neighborhoods. Reasons for closures included under-enrollment and poor performance, but according to Chicago-based sociologist Eve Ewing, there is more to the story. In a recent interview with Morning Shift radio, Ewing describes systemic issues that contributed to under-enrollment, like the demolition of 22,000 public housing units across the city as part of the Chicago Housing Authority’s “Plan for Transformation.”

Subsequent school closings have disproportionality harmed students of color, and while these policies may not be intentionally racist, Ewing argues they reflect persistent structural racism in Chicago. For example, the school closings risk students’ safety, as many are now forced to trek through areas with perilous gang activity to reach their new schools. The emotional impact of school closings can also be devastating, comparable to family separations. Ewing observed close familial relationships between black students and their teachers and classmates, and thus the resulting separation can feel like losing a family member. And for “legacy” students, whose families have attended the same school for generations, the devastation is felt by entire families. To emphasize the severity of these school closings, Ewing makes a powerful connection between historical racism and policies today:

“A principal who was speaking at a school closure meeting, a black woman, stood up and said, ‘I feel like I’m at a slave auction right now.’… And I think that obviously there are many important distinctions between this kind of separation and chattel slavery, but I do think it’s important to think about, for black children, what it means to take them away from situations of stability, where they have deep, meaningful bonds with the adults and the other children in their lives.”

Among America’s history of race and racism, one particularly ugly violent memory is the practice of lynching in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. White mobs would often capture and kill Black men on false accusations as part of a system of racial domination and oppression. While lynching is often cast as a distinctly Southern problem, a recent article in The New York Times by sociologist Charles Seguin discusses how newspaper coverage in both the South and the North used racist language and symbolism when reporting on lynching incidents.

Seguin argues that work by activists — including sociologist Ida B. Wells and especially newspaper coverage on American lynchings around the globe — led to international embarrassment for the United States, questioning America’s image as an advanced nation and model democracy. With this increased scrutiny in the international spotlight, many Northern newspapers became more critical of lynchings, framing it is a shameful part of the South. As he describes,

“What these outside agitators — Wells, the British press and the Italian Embassy — accomplished was to embarrass the Northern newspapers, which eventually denounced lynching communities as barbarous and anarchic with headlines like “More Southern Savagery.”

Seguin’s article provides a rich discussion of how the intersections of racism, region, and press shaped the history of newspaper coverage surrounding lynching in the United States. Though Southern newspapers such as the Montgomery Advertiser have made public apologies for their role in racist coverage regarding lynchings, it is important to remember that this issue was not just confined to the South.

U.S. census estimates indicate that babies of color are now the majority and that by 2020, the majority of children under 18 will be non-white. Despite this growing diversity, many parts of the United States remain deeply segregated by race. A recent article in the Washington Post draws on U.S. census data and insights from sociologists Michael Bader, Kyle Crowder, and Maria Krysan to visually depict and explain the persistence of residential segregation in the United States.

Bader points out that the persistence of segregation is tied to the history of slavery, Jim Crow, and redlining practices against Black communities. Cities that have large African American populations, like Chicago and Detroit, have entrenched patterns of segregation. However, Krysan and Crowder argue in their book that housing policies and practices do not alone reproduce segregation. Daily routines and connections to others can also result in inequalities. As Krysan describes,

“We don’t have the integrated social networks. We don’t have integrated experiences through the city. It’s baked-in segregation, [Every time someone makes a move they’re] not making a move that breaks out of that cycle, [they’re] making a move that regenerates it.”

On the other hand, diversity in many suburbs has increased over the past decades. The D.C. metro saw a 300 percent increase in Hispanic American and a 200 percent increase in Asian American populations from 1990 to 2016. Bader connects this diversity in the suburbs to policy, arguing that both lower housing costs and the implementation of the Fair Housing Act helped to circumvent segregation,

“A lot of those areas were developed after the Fair Housing Act was implemented…If you’re building housing and you’re subject to the Fair Housing Act, you shouldn’t have, in those particular units, the legacy effects of segregation.”

While policy cannot address all residential segregation, it may lessen its reach.

“White flight” describes the uncomfortably common phenomenon in the mid-to-late 20th century wherein whites would quickly move out of a neighborhood once blacks started moving in. This would often lead to neighborhoods that were mostly-white, but quickly ended up mostly-black. Today, American neighborhoods are not as mono-ethnic as they once were, and the picture has expanded beyond blacks and whites to other populations, such as Latinos and Asians.

That said, however, segregation within neighborhood contexts is still present. A recent article in Slate detailed research showing that at the aggregate level, neighborhoods and residential areas are becoming more diverse in the U.S. However, this diversity does not necessarily mean that multicultural, cross-racial social relationships are thriving. Derek Hyra conducted research in parts of Washington, D.C. and found that even in a diverse neighborhood, people’s social associations—such as choice of church, schools, and restaurants—is often in a mono-ethnic context, leading to microsegregation or “diversity segregation.” 

This isn’t to necessarily suggest, however, that diverse neighborhoods have no potential to become more integrated.  Camille Z. Charles tells Slate that consistent exposure and contact with people of different races can foster integration. Places like public schools and community centers provide the opportunity for these kinds of relationships to develop and lead to diverse neighborhoods where people have diverse friends. Charles explains,

“We are often friendlier with people we actually interact with. We do find there is lasting benefit to that, which is why we think it is important to have [diversity] in schools because kids spend so much time in classrooms and on school campuses.”

Nearly 20 years have passed since Beverly Daniel Tatum released her groundbreaking book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations about Race. In it, she examines how and why black youth often segregate themselves in middle and high school, arguing that engagement in meaningful conversations about race can help deconstruct such racial barriers. While many may have lost hope in the Civil Rights-era dream of school integration, today, new sociological research demonstrates the importance of integration and the positive long-term effects it provides for working adults. A recent article in The Atlantic reveals that students who attend racially diverse high schools are more likely to work in diverse employment settings.

Adam Gamoran, Sarah Barfels, and Ana Cristina Collares tracked over 10,000 black and white high school students during the 1980s and 1990s, then recorded the racial make-up of their current work environment. White and black students who attended predominantly white schools were more likely to work in predominantly white work settings. Regardless of the various methods behind the integration (including busing and neighborhood development), the students from racially diverse high schools were more likely to work today with a diverse group of coworkers. The authors suggest that “Interactions with a diverse student body may mean that individuals are more likely to live in communities that are more diverse, or [are] more willing and comfortable in racially diverse settings later in life.” While they are reluctant to conclude that attending a diverse high school or working with diverse coworkers will eradicate the economic and social disparities of life in the U.S., it is safe to say that both provide a strong step in the right direction.Students from racially diverse high schools are more likely to work with a diverse group of coworkers in adulthood.

In an era of “post­-racial” rhetoric, whites may not openly declare their prejudices and biases toward blacks and other racial and ethnic minorities, yet sociological research illustrates how whites may both consciously and unconsciously maintain and reproduce racial segregation in schools and neighborhoods. More subtle negative racial attitudes are persistent and pernicious. A recent article in The Atlantic showcases a few of sociologies most relevant studies on whites and racial segregation that challenge the myth of a post­-racial America.

The white family is essential for the transferring and maintaining of economic wealth. Sociologist Thomas Shapiro notes that middle­class white families use their financial resources to pay for kids’ college or housing payments, thus alleviating some of the financial burden from younger generations. Racial segregations is also reproduced in this process when whites invest in neighborhoods that provide access to majority white schools. Due to the wealth gap, most blacks do not hold the privilege of supporting younger generations with existing financial wealth. Instead, researchers report they are more likely to use more limited funds to support their own parents and additional extended family members.

The work of sociologists including Mary Pattillo, Douglas Massey, and Nancy Denton has further demonstrated that blacks are not geographically located in neighborhoods that provide access to well funded schools, even when black families are homeowners. Other researchers such as Deirdre Royster and Lauren Rivera discuss the importance of exclusive white networks that systematically neglect blacks when sharing vital information about education and careers in schools and workplaces.

School segregation has been the topic of social science research and public debate for decades. Still, the average person may think than in the post-Civil Rights era, when the law explicitly forbids racial discrimination, school segregation is an issue of the past. In fact, sociologists of education point to changes in demographics, living arrangements, and school funding that have lead to unforeseen issues increases in school segregation. One city in particular, San Francisco, is seeing a resurgence; the number of schools considered “racially isolated,” or over-representative of one race, has climbed there in the last few years.

A recent article in the San Francisco Public Press describes new practices that determine where students get placed and how such mechanisms can undermine diversity. Parents can apply for placement across San Francisco’s public schools, meaning that many students don’t go to school in the area they live. This enrollment fluidity may seem helpful for increasing diversity, but the ability to make informed and effective choices within school system application is nuanced and heavily influenced by who you know, what you know, and what matters to you. Parent choices, especially within particular racial or ethnic groups, can exacerbate school segregation.

The article quotes Prudence Carter, a Stanford sociologist who studies inequality and education and was involved in creating the San Francisco school-choice system (implemented in 2010). Carter uses Asian families as a case in point: “there’s a lot of pride in the Chinese community in having created educational enclaves.” For example, a Chinese family is more likely to send their children to a school with a certain reputation; replicated across a community, it can lead to a school with a disproportionate number of Chinese students. Similarly, disproportionate concentration of students from certain income backgrounds can lead to a racially segregated student body.

If parents want to be part of segregation solution, Carter advises, “You have to think grander, and beyond your own self-interest… So long as we live in an individualistic and self-interested country, we’re going to probably continue to have this problem.” In her view, policy makers will have to adapt legislation to account for the sociology of parent choice when trying to increase diversity in education.

The lead article in the most recent Philadelphia Magazine, “Being White In Philly” by Robert Huber, has—to put it politely—spurred a lot of talk. Huber devotes his article to sharing the “true” voice of white people scared to speak their minds about the many struggles they face living among Philadelphia’s black residents. Since publication, Huber has been told in numerous venues that his piece ignores personal and institutional histories of racism, has an ugly, discriminatory core, and essentially perpetuates bigotry. Is Brotherly Love dead?

Charles Gallagher, chair of race and ethnic relations at LaSalle University, commented on Fox 29 News that indeed, everybody talks about race, whether privately or publicly. But, Gallagher says, Huber’s article only focuses on the opinions of white residents in a mixed neighborhood. What about people from minority groups? White residents across neighborhoods of varying segregation? Are there no “white voices” that enjoy living in a heterogeneous city? As a sociologist, Gallagher emphasizes that, beyond being offensive, Huber’s piece generalizes where it has no grounds to do so: there is no single voice of white Philadelphians.

Steve Volk, a colleague of Huber’s, crafted his response on one of The Philly Post’s blogs. In it, Volk dismantles the original piece to reach a refreshingly blatant conclusion:

[Huber] seems to miss the obvious here, which is that if white Philadelphians would like to be able to address race without being labeled “racist,” they should avoid saying racist things.

After more than half a century, the U.S.’s efforts to end segregation are winding down. In the years after Brown v. Board of Education, 755 school districts were under desegregation orders. But, according to a new study conducted by Stanford’s Sean Reardon and his colleagues, that number had dropped to 268 by 2009.

So, did Brown v. Board succeed? According to The Atlantic’s Sarah Garland, yes and no. more...