It would appear that Richard Rothstein doesn’t have kids, or was privileged enough to send them to private schools.
De facto private segregation is largely the result of integrated public schools and busing. As schools integrated, parents perceived that educational outcomes were declining, and they fled to the burbs. This drove up prices and largely kept black families out. This continues to this day in many metros where the young start their adult lives “in the city,” and once their kids start reaching school age, head to suburbia.
I highly recommend reading the book. Suburbia was made more expensive by design through zoning (high minimum lot sizes etc) to keep out PoC. Many of these zoning rules are still in place, which is contributing to wealth inequality, and the current housing “shortage” — which is mostly artificial through restrictive zoning.
One of the largest indicators of educational attainment is family wealth, and guess where much of that wealth comes from? Housing.
What you’re describing is a symptom of the larger problems brought on by racist policies this book describes in detail.
You’re applying 2022 thinking to a process from the 40s and 50s.
While racially restrictive covenants and deeds certainly were a thing, at the time these subdivisions were created, the primary goal was to keep riffraff out. In many (most?) of these communities, the idea that blacks would be moving in was about as big of a concern as Eskimos. The notion that 1/2 acre lot with 100ft setback ordinances were racially motivated is silly.
The history of public schooling is pretty racially-driven. Consider the massive private school enrollment in response to the Brown vs Board of Education decision (https://www.southerneducation.org/publications/historyofpriv...). This happened too quickly to be explained by educational outcomes; it was overt racism, a belief that school integration was fundamentally wrong.
The rural area where my family comes from was segregated by European origin. The English got the best lands, then the next areas went to Scotts, Irish, Germans and Poles depending on time of arrival. My grandparents wedding was not attended by both families because one ethnicity (Germans) thought they other ethnicity (Irish) were 'alcoholics'. (I mean, it's a little bit true ...).
In the urban area where the other side of my family is from, it's broken up into Little Italy, Greek Town, China Town, Jewish Market etc..
Whether that era was better or not I won't or can't say - but it certainly was more richly diverse than the McDonald's and Starbucks drinkers of today.
Also it should be noted that even without regressive and overt kinds of racism (rooted in slavery), segregation will have happened anyhow.
I think framing systems purely in 'Black ex-slaves' vs. 'The Others', presumably White is a bit misleading. Italians and Greeks in NYC probably were not even considered 'white' during that era. It's much more nuanced. There are vast numbers of very poor people of all groups who have been 'serfs' since the dawn of time, who have never had any status, and similar segregational policies will have been applied to them as well.
Though I'm looking forward to learning more from sources such as this book.
Eh, I find this is a common narrative, but the gap in treatment between the various European "ethnicities" is just not anywhere as close to the gap between how black vs. other is treated.
> even without regressive and overt kinds of racism (rooted in slavery), segregation will have happened anyhow.
You really do not have the evidence to make a claim like that.
> similar segregational policies will have been applied to them as well.
There’s a lot of confusion caused by thinking that “white people” are a coherent group. For example, we talk about racial income gaps as if incomes among white ethnic groups are uniform. But there’s a huge gap between those who report themselves on the census as “American” Americans (usually Scots Irish folks who came here long ago) rank near the bottom of the income distribution, lower than recent immigrant groups like Bangladeshis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...
You seem to be shadowboxing an opponent that doesn't exist.
People who discuss categories such as "white" are not making the claim that "race is all that matters for determining one's circumstance, class does not matter at all." This claim is a strawman that very few people actually believe.
But without race, you can't explain stuff like realtors discriminating against black homeowners in 50% of interactions [0]. Even the poor from Appalachia could pose as home buyers and get the "white" service experience from the realtor.
Of course people recognize that white people come from different classes—that’s not what I’m talking about. What people don’t recognize is that those class differences among white people also map onto ethnicity. “White people” aren’t a single ethnic group any more than “brown people” (south Asians) or “black people” (Africans) are a single ethnic group. And when you look at the different subgroups of “white people” the story becomes much more nuanced.
As to your hypothetical—that may be true but is also mostly irrelevant. It’s pretty uncontroversial among people who study these disparities that economic and other differences between subgroups is caused by structural issues, not prejudice. That’s why, for example, incomes for second-generation Nigerian Americans exceeds those of third+ generation whites even when adjusted for age and education: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23780231211001....
And as to your larger point, that’s true in theory but not in practice. In practice, one division dominates the others. In the current political environment, race is given the highest emphasis. Thus as a “person of color” I fall into the “oppressed” camp (despite being from a wealthy family back home) while my wife’s family falls into the “oppressor” camp (despite being poor the entire time since they came here 350 years ago).
> It’s pretty uncontroversial among people who study these disparities that economic and other differences between subgroups is caused by structural issues, not prejudice
And what do you suppose much of those structural issues are rooted in here in the U.S.? Housing makes a very substantial portion of family wealth, which is the biggest indicator of educational attainment.
> Housing makes a very substantial portion of family wealth, which is the biggest indicator of educational attainment.
That explains a little—Black people whose parents were redlined into neighborhoods with low property values will inherit a lot less on average than white people. But that only explains so much—few immigrants will ever inherit property in America yet nearly every immigrant group has similar or higher income mobility compared to white Americans: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/135/2/711/5687353.
Hispanic immigrants, who typically come here at the bottom of the totem pole, reach near parity with whites within three generations. Vietnamese came here as refugees and attained parity with whites within a generation. The only groups which aren’t converging with whites is Black people and Indians (native Americans).
But to circle back to my point, we’re glossing over something important—the “median white income” is illusory! Italian Americans lapped Appalachian Americans despite coming here later and suffering much more discrimination.
If you want to understand what causes structural economic disparities you’re doing yourself a disservice by white American communities that exhibit similar structural and generation economic disparities. Why are Appalachians poor? Why are coastal Oregonians poor?
People that uproot their entire lives and move to a new country is a very high filter, so it's no surprise that those same people and their children tend to be more successful overall. Things aren't as rosy when including non-immigrants.
"family wealth may have become even more important to support direct investments in educational opportunity—in the form of good neighborhoods, secondary schools, and colleges"
One need not inherit anything from their parents to reap the benefits of family wealth.
I don't understand the argument here. You yourself just cited Chapter 3 of Color of Law, which makes a persuasive case that the United States remains under a system of de jure racial segregation, in which a specific animus against Black families undergirds essentially all our zoning laws.
As I read the argument, it doesn’t point to continuing racial animus in the present as being the explanation for continuing disparities. I.e. racial wealth inequality isn’t the result of realtors being racist against Black people in 2022. It is focused on the present effects of past prejudice that segregated Black families into less desirable neighborhoods with low property values. The characteristics of these neighborhoods is what perpetuates income and wealth disparities. Lower property values alone can’t be the explanation, because many waves of immigrants have come here with no wealth at all but have economically converged nonetheless. Hispanics continue to do so. It’s not just that these neighborhoods have lower property values, but there are things about those neighborhoods that keeps people poor.
My point is that communities that trap people in generational poverty aren’t unique to inner city Black neighborhoods. There are many white people who aren’t just poor, but who are in communities with generational poverty, and where that poverty lines up with ethnic groups.
My further point is that different structurally impoverished communities may have similar mechanics. Appalachian Americans weren’t redlined into where they live, but those communities seem to be just as hostile to upward mobility as inner city Baltimore.
That was 50 years ago. A Black millennial may have grown up in a $200,000 house instead of a $300,000 house because their parents were redlined into a lower income neighborhood. But that Black millennial will have much lower income mobility as an adult than not only whites, but Hispanics and Asians who also grew up in $200,000 houses. The first order effect of redlining into the 1980s is reduced housing wealth. But that doesn’t explain why Black-white gaps haven’t changed since the 1980s while multiple waves of poor immigrants have come to the US since then and dramatically closed the gap with whites.
What explains those gaps? One possibility is persistent anti-Black animus. That doesn’t explain why Nigerian immigrants enjoy similar income mobility to whites with comparable education levels. It also doesn’t explain why gaps remain static even as prejudiced attitudes decrease.
There must be some explanation, such as higher order effects from housing segregation, to explain the persistent disparities. My point is simply that Black and indigenous people aren’t the only ones who have faced structural disparities that aren’t closing—so do some white ethnic subgroups. The reasons why these groups came to live in these communities in the first place may be unique, but the characteristics of these communities that make them poverty traps likely are not.
> A Black millennial may have grown up in a $200,000 house instead of a $300,000 house
As an example: In Boston, the average net household wealth of a white family is $200,000. The average net household wealth of a balck family is $5 (no typo).
Your examples are just wildly off-base if you are trying to paint them as a "typical" example.
I think perhaps the smarter way to look at this: If not for the unifying force of "whiteness," you probably would have much stronger and more serious distinctions between those groups you mentioned; I could easily envision something like "Oh, the Irish folks shouldn't be on the Italian side of town at night," today.
But that is practically nonexistent, at least here in the US, and the reason should be relatively obvious by now.
> I think framing systems purely in 'Black ex-slaves' vs. 'The Others', presumably White is a bit misleading.
Even if we could magically make racism disappear today, we would still have to deal with the legacy of racism. It affects everything from where people are today to the future they can build for their children. Take something as simple as wealth. It affects where people can afford to live, and those with children and the means will typically choose to live where they have access to better schools.
We should also remember that these ethnic communities are not simply cute little bastions of cultural diversity or places where immigrants choose to settle to live among their own people. In some cases, those who live there had very little choice in where to settle. In some cases, they were told where to settle. Even if they were given a choice where to live and these ethnic communities emerged because it's where land was available when they arrived, we have to remember that immigration policies are frequently based upon race. Consider the prairie provinces of Canada, where there are various communities that have strong cultural ties. Many of those communities exist because particular peoples were allowed in at the end of the 19th century. Other communities never existed, since those peoples were not allowed in. We also need to remember that the diversity within a race is also meaningful. Think of it this way: we have Little Italy and Greek Town, but not Little Europe, since European cultures are distinct in our eyes. On the other hand, China Town arose since it is distinct from European culture yet it fails to consider the cultural diversity within China. If you're black, both cultural diversity and culture are typically overlooked altogether. A Little Ethiopia may sneak in here or there, but the acknowledgement of culture is usually overlooked all together.
My apology for the rant, but I believe that the claims of racism are both historically valid and legitimate in the present. While monocultures are distressing, legitimizing segregation is also problematic.
While it's true the legacy of racism does exist, people come form all over the world, from all races and walks of life and do just fine.
The legacy of racism exists, but I suggest is vastly overstated in most scenarios.
Frankly, I think the issue is really acute in super high-crime/high-poverty areas, without which, America by the numbers might be a very different place.
One thing I've come to really see clearly recently, perhaps a decade or so ago -- whenever it seems like a city is "shaped weirdly," or "hmm, that's odd, why is this neighborhood here or this road there?" 99% of the time you can trace it back to racism being a big factor.
If you like/ are interested in this, I highly recommend looking at Dan Kerr's Derelict Paradise[1]. While it's centered in on Cleveland, Ohio, the book describes a history that applies to many American cities from the early industrial period to the present. He reports on how homelessness came to be-- it didn't always exist in major cities at the scale it does now, but housing law coupled with developers and other private interests have transformed cities in the name of development in baffling ways.
I'm tempted to give examples from the book, but he says it better. Definitely worth the read.
> He reports on how homelessness came to be-- it didn't always exist in major cities at the scale it does now,
I disagree - Compare with the Hoovervilles of the 1930s
The only difference is now we have a more sophisticated police/surveillance/carceral system so we stop people from building little mini slums on the side of highways and in parks.
He talks about the 1930s a lot (the picture on the cover is actually from a Hooverville)! He starts off earlier, definitely worth digging into. Even as things have changed, he focuses a lot on the policy and development patterns that have either perpetuated or created the conditions of modern homelessness as well as the impact that has on actual economic development in the area.
He's also got some great talks on YT that get into the content of the book a little: https://youtu.be/qwvhxfNDpSQ
> The great African American poet, novelist, playwright, Langston Hughes, wrote in his autobiography that he lived in an integrated downtown Cleveland neighborhood; in high school his best friend was Polish and he dated a Jewish girl—it was an integrated school in an integrated neighborhood. But the Public Works Administration cleared part of it to build separate projects, one for whites, one for African Americans, creating segregation where it hadn’t existed.
34 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 79.7 ms ] threadDe facto private segregation is largely the result of integrated public schools and busing. As schools integrated, parents perceived that educational outcomes were declining, and they fled to the burbs. This drove up prices and largely kept black families out. This continues to this day in many metros where the young start their adult lives “in the city,” and once their kids start reaching school age, head to suburbia.
One of the largest indicators of educational attainment is family wealth, and guess where much of that wealth comes from? Housing.
What you’re describing is a symptom of the larger problems brought on by racist policies this book describes in detail.
While racially restrictive covenants and deeds certainly were a thing, at the time these subdivisions were created, the primary goal was to keep riffraff out. In many (most?) of these communities, the idea that blacks would be moving in was about as big of a concern as Eskimos. The notion that 1/2 acre lot with 100ft setback ordinances were racially motivated is silly.
Also, these "perceptions" are shaped by racism, of course.
In the urban area where the other side of my family is from, it's broken up into Little Italy, Greek Town, China Town, Jewish Market etc..
Whether that era was better or not I won't or can't say - but it certainly was more richly diverse than the McDonald's and Starbucks drinkers of today.
Also it should be noted that even without regressive and overt kinds of racism (rooted in slavery), segregation will have happened anyhow.
I think framing systems purely in 'Black ex-slaves' vs. 'The Others', presumably White is a bit misleading. Italians and Greeks in NYC probably were not even considered 'white' during that era. It's much more nuanced. There are vast numbers of very poor people of all groups who have been 'serfs' since the dawn of time, who have never had any status, and similar segregational policies will have been applied to them as well.
Though I'm looking forward to learning more from sources such as this book.
> even without regressive and overt kinds of racism (rooted in slavery), segregation will have happened anyhow.
You really do not have the evidence to make a claim like that.
> similar segregational policies will have been applied to them as well.
Not in the 1970s they didn't.
People who discuss categories such as "white" are not making the claim that "race is all that matters for determining one's circumstance, class does not matter at all." This claim is a strawman that very few people actually believe.
But without race, you can't explain stuff like realtors discriminating against black homeowners in 50% of interactions [0]. Even the poor from Appalachia could pose as home buyers and get the "white" service experience from the realtor.
[0]: https://projects.newsday.com/long-island/real-estate-agents-...
As to your hypothetical—that may be true but is also mostly irrelevant. It’s pretty uncontroversial among people who study these disparities that economic and other differences between subgroups is caused by structural issues, not prejudice. That’s why, for example, incomes for second-generation Nigerian Americans exceeds those of third+ generation whites even when adjusted for age and education: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23780231211001....
And as to your larger point, that’s true in theory but not in practice. In practice, one division dominates the others. In the current political environment, race is given the highest emphasis. Thus as a “person of color” I fall into the “oppressed” camp (despite being from a wealthy family back home) while my wife’s family falls into the “oppressor” camp (despite being poor the entire time since they came here 350 years ago).
And what do you suppose much of those structural issues are rooted in here in the U.S.? Housing makes a very substantial portion of family wealth, which is the biggest indicator of educational attainment.
That explains a little—Black people whose parents were redlined into neighborhoods with low property values will inherit a lot less on average than white people. But that only explains so much—few immigrants will ever inherit property in America yet nearly every immigrant group has similar or higher income mobility compared to white Americans: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/135/2/711/5687353.
Hispanic immigrants, who typically come here at the bottom of the totem pole, reach near parity with whites within three generations. Vietnamese came here as refugees and attained parity with whites within a generation. The only groups which aren’t converging with whites is Black people and Indians (native Americans).
But to circle back to my point, we’re glossing over something important—the “median white income” is illusory! Italian Americans lapped Appalachian Americans despite coming here later and suffering much more discrimination.
If you want to understand what causes structural economic disparities you’re doing yourself a disservice by white American communities that exhibit similar structural and generation economic disparities. Why are Appalachians poor? Why are coastal Oregonians poor?
I suggest mindset/culture/behaviour is actually more predictive than 'how much inheritance' people get form their parents home ownership.
Your mindset/culture/behavior suggestion isn't backed up by a study, however, family wealth is https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5993612/
"family wealth may have become even more important to support direct investments in educational opportunity—in the form of good neighborhoods, secondary schools, and colleges"
One need not inherit anything from their parents to reap the benefits of family wealth.
My point is that communities that trap people in generational poverty aren’t unique to inner city Black neighborhoods. There are many white people who aren’t just poor, but who are in communities with generational poverty, and where that poverty lines up with ethnic groups.
My further point is that different structurally impoverished communities may have similar mechanics. Appalachian Americans weren’t redlined into where they live, but those communities seem to be just as hostile to upward mobility as inner city Baltimore.
https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/8316884002
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/19/homes/black-homeowner-home-ap...
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/12/09/business/black-homeowners...
What explains those gaps? One possibility is persistent anti-Black animus. That doesn’t explain why Nigerian immigrants enjoy similar income mobility to whites with comparable education levels. It also doesn’t explain why gaps remain static even as prejudiced attitudes decrease.
There must be some explanation, such as higher order effects from housing segregation, to explain the persistent disparities. My point is simply that Black and indigenous people aren’t the only ones who have faced structural disparities that aren’t closing—so do some white ethnic subgroups. The reasons why these groups came to live in these communities in the first place may be unique, but the characteristics of these communities that make them poverty traps likely are not.
As an example: In Boston, the average net household wealth of a white family is $200,000. The average net household wealth of a balck family is $5 (no typo).
Your examples are just wildly off-base if you are trying to paint them as a "typical" example.
I think perhaps the smarter way to look at this: If not for the unifying force of "whiteness," you probably would have much stronger and more serious distinctions between those groups you mentioned; I could easily envision something like "Oh, the Irish folks shouldn't be on the Italian side of town at night," today.
But that is practically nonexistent, at least here in the US, and the reason should be relatively obvious by now.
Even if we could magically make racism disappear today, we would still have to deal with the legacy of racism. It affects everything from where people are today to the future they can build for their children. Take something as simple as wealth. It affects where people can afford to live, and those with children and the means will typically choose to live where they have access to better schools.
We should also remember that these ethnic communities are not simply cute little bastions of cultural diversity or places where immigrants choose to settle to live among their own people. In some cases, those who live there had very little choice in where to settle. In some cases, they were told where to settle. Even if they were given a choice where to live and these ethnic communities emerged because it's where land was available when they arrived, we have to remember that immigration policies are frequently based upon race. Consider the prairie provinces of Canada, where there are various communities that have strong cultural ties. Many of those communities exist because particular peoples were allowed in at the end of the 19th century. Other communities never existed, since those peoples were not allowed in. We also need to remember that the diversity within a race is also meaningful. Think of it this way: we have Little Italy and Greek Town, but not Little Europe, since European cultures are distinct in our eyes. On the other hand, China Town arose since it is distinct from European culture yet it fails to consider the cultural diversity within China. If you're black, both cultural diversity and culture are typically overlooked altogether. A Little Ethiopia may sneak in here or there, but the acknowledgement of culture is usually overlooked all together.
My apology for the rant, but I believe that the claims of racism are both historically valid and legitimate in the present. While monocultures are distressing, legitimizing segregation is also problematic.
The legacy of racism exists, but I suggest is vastly overstated in most scenarios.
Frankly, I think the issue is really acute in super high-crime/high-poverty areas, without which, America by the numbers might be a very different place.
75% of the time, the answer is “because black people lived over there.” It’s wild.
I'm tempted to give examples from the book, but he says it better. Definitely worth the read.
[1] https://www.umasspress.com/9781558498495/derelict-paradise/
I disagree - Compare with the Hoovervilles of the 1930s
The only difference is now we have a more sophisticated police/surveillance/carceral system so we stop people from building little mini slums on the side of highways and in parks.
He's also got some great talks on YT that get into the content of the book a little: https://youtu.be/qwvhxfNDpSQ
> The great African American poet, novelist, playwright, Langston Hughes, wrote in his autobiography that he lived in an integrated downtown Cleveland neighborhood; in high school his best friend was Polish and he dated a Jewish girl—it was an integrated school in an integrated neighborhood. But the Public Works Administration cleared part of it to build separate projects, one for whites, one for African Americans, creating segregation where it hadn’t existed.