Race And Place

Equity Issues In Urban America

John W. Frazier, Florence Margai, Eugene Tettey-Fio

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780813340401
• eBook ISBN: 9780429977510
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book addresses the issues in an empirical fashion after examining different sociological and geographic perspectives. It provides a basic understanding of the multi-faceted nature of racial inequalities in urban America, both in a broad context and in separate analyses of housing.

Chapter 1
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Race, Ethnicity,
and Locational Inequalities

Introduction

The dawn of the twenty-first century in the United States is marked by a paradox in race relations and diversity. The nation has become more racially diverse (Armas, 2001), and racial discrimination has been legally prohibited. However, a series of events during the latter half of the twentieth century underscored the deep racial divide and underlying tensions that continue to threaten the nation’s future peace and prosperity. One such event took place shortly after World War II when southern blacks demanded simple freedoms and equal treatment. The nonviolent marches, sit-ins, and bus boycotts signaled the beginning of African Americans’ protests against racial injustices. By 1964 the Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination in employment, and complementary legislation later “guaranteed” fair access to housing and public services. However, a year after this legislation, much of urban America was literally engulfed in the flames of race-based urban uprisings. Shortly after the 1965 “racial riots,” two Americans who championed racial justice and equality, one black and one white, were assassinated. Violence and protests erupted again in subsequent years, notably 1980 in Miami and 1992 in Los Angeles.

The racial conflicts, struggles for civil and economic rights, and governmental responses in the latter half of the twentieth century also brought about some progress toward correcting socioeconomic imbalances among population subgroups. By the year 2000, a significant portion of the current African-American generation had achieved middle-class status, and for the first time in American history, an African-American man, Colin Powell, not only was considered a serious and desirable presidential candidate by white America in the 1990s but was appointed as the first black secretary of state in 2001. At the same time, however, racial polarization was clearly evident in the Rodney King and O. J. Simpson cases—reminders that racial division was deep in the United States. The racial tensions apparent from these cases received nearly the same media attention as the Gulf War, which revealed Colin Powell’s strengths. Further, hate crimes, such as the death in Texas of a black who was dragged behind a pickup truck, reminded us of the racial hate that still raises its ugly head too often. As the black middle class emerged, by the close of the twentieth century, half of all black children were being born into urban poverty at a time when the United States was generating a federal budget surplus. These unmistakable, mixed signals call into doubt the progress of racial issues in America and suggest that W. E. B. Du Bois’s “color line” extends into the twenty-first century as America’s biggest social and moral issue (Du Bois, 1944, p. 23).

Not surprisingly, Americans differ greatly in their views of racial progress and racial equity. This is true for blacks and whites. The presence of Hispanics as the fastest growing American minority adds a new and significant dimension to the “browning of America” and promises among its consequences potential racial conflicts and moral controversy. Most Americans have very little understanding of emerging minority groups, such as the rapidly expanding U.S. Asian population. Many are also unaware of the diversity within this population or its distribution among all socioeconomic classes and employment groups. Racial and ethnic myths abound despite the nation’s increasing diversity.

Amidst these demographic changes, there is a growing national concern that racial and ethnic minorities, particularly in urbanized communities, will face even greater inequalities with respect to housing, access to services and employment opportunities, and exposure to environmental pollution and related public health outcomes. Concerns over the increasing disparities between the population subgroups have received considerable attention in recent years from academics, local and national organizations, governmental agencies, the media, and social and environmental activists. As urban geographer Joe Darden (2002) stated, “It is not just segregation. It is the socioeconomic inequities associated with segregation that are important to address” (also see Darden, 1989). Based on the investigations taking place along these various fronts, it is now evident that there are several facets and dimensions of racial/ethnic inequities. In addition to studies of segregation and discrimination—particularly as they influence education, housing choice, and neighborhood condition—racial justice research now also embraces socioeconomic inequities in environmental quality, health care, housing, and other services. Due to the breadth of these maladies and the vagueness of the term well-being, we use the term inequities in much of our discussions.

Efforts to address these problems revolve around several questions: (1) What exactly constitutes inequalities or inequities among racial and ethnic groups? For example, are environmental inequities the result of deliberate, intentional siting of polluting facilities or merely a spatial coincidence resulting from the historical processes of urbanization and decisionmaking? (2) What causal mechanisms and sequence of events lead to the inequitable distribution of benefits (such as housing or services) and risks (such as environmental hazards)? (3) What actions are being taken at the state and federal levels to remedy the observed and/or perceived imbalances among social groups?

Along with the preceding questions are some basic issues and arguments surrounding racial and ethnic differences. Some question, for example, whether some individuals are truly disadvantaged due to racial discrimination or whether perhaps some fail to make socioeconomic progress simply because they are part of a racial subculture that suffers from certain social and structural weaknesses that are hard to overcome. Also, it has been argued that racism is on the decline and equity is on the rise, as evident from the significant growth of the black middle class in recent years. A corollary is that, given more time and additional education, minorities will continue to rise in status and equity. For example, the Asian American is frequently offered as a role model of success. The implications drawn by proponents of this myth are that Asian Americans form a ubiquitous culture that is more industrious and more willing to sacrifice and places a higher value on education than other cultures. Such arguments suggest superiority of one set of cultural virtues over those of another. There are also counterpoints to these views and to those regarding the growth of the minority middle class. Among them is the contention that minorities of education and experience equal to whites’ receive less pay for the same work and are still ostracized and victimized in the job and housing markets. Consequently, there are inequalities in employment opportunities, socioeconomic status, and housing quality.

Another argument that is frequently provided as a justification for differential success and inequity among ethnic and racial groups is that progress takes time and hard work. Some would argue, for example, that recent Mexican immigrants residing in inner cities are not unlike their twentieth-century European counterparts, who labored long and hard to earn their place in America and opened the road to a better life for their children by their efforts. Such views are strongly countered by those who speak of oppression and exploitation of the poor and disadvantaged.

The primary objective of this book is to address these issues in an empirical fashion after examining different sociological and geographic perspectives in some detail. We hope to provide a basic understanding of the scope and multifaceted nature of racial inequalities in urban America, both in a broad context and in separate analyses of housing, services, and employment differences between groups, as well as in the degree of exposure to environmental problems.

This chapter proceeds by defining useful terms that serve as overriding concepts in the book. First, we clarify the differences between race and ethnicity as two of the most common elements of group identification in the United States. Next, we examine the linkages between race and place. The discussion of place allows us to introduce important concepts, such as Areas of Minority Concentration, and to illustrate race-place connections in urban America. A third concept discussed at length in this chapter is equity, which, as we reveal later, is one of the book’s principal themes. We discuss the different aspects of equity and later, in the empirical chapters, provide concrete examples of locational inequities among the racial/ethnic groups. The chapter ends with a preview of the book’s remaining chapters.

Race and Ethnicity

Social groups are distinguished by a host of characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, national origin, religious background, and sexual orientation. Within the United States, two of the most significant and historical bases for group identification are race and ethnicity. Given the relevance of these two elements in discussing majority-minority relationships and the plight of underrepresented groups in the nation, it is necessary to clarify the meaning of both concepts and describe the context in which they are used in subsequent chapters.

Racial groups are traditionally defined on the basis of the inherent physical and/or biological attributes of a group of people, such as their skin color, facial features, hair color and texture, and other visible physiological features. Although there is a wide range of physical attributes used in different parts of the world, the specific criterion that has been used historically to delineate between racial groups varies from one society to another. In the United States, for example, race has been defined primarily on the basis of three categories of skin color (black, yellow, and white). Up until the most recent U.S. Census, in 2000, when significant changes were made in racial group categorization, Hispanics were forced to declare themselves “black” or “white” on the survey form (Farley, 1977; Glazer, 1999), even though they are often popularly referred to as “Brown.” In other countries, such as Brazil, several categories of skin color are used to differentiate between the racial groups. Some researchers have argued, correctly, that, given the mixed ancestry and interbreeding among population groups, there are no pure races within the genetic pool and therefore the biological distinction of groups is of little relevance today. Groups overlap so much that no single physical attribute remains a statistically exclusive characteristic of any one racial group (Schaefer, 1995; Gonzales, 1996).

Within the United States, one finds an evolving interpretation of race that is associated with American society’s unique historical experiences as well as the changes in the nation’s immigration history. This trend is perhaps best described by Stephen B. Thomas (2001):

The color line is not fixed but ripples through time, finding expression at distinct stages of our development as a nation. As the meaning of race has changed over time, its burdens and privileges have shifted among population groups. At one time in our history, for instance, the Irish and Italians were considered “non-white,” along with other immigrants who were not descendants of the early Anglo-Saxon Protestant settlers [p. 10].

The concept of race in the United States has taken on a socially constructed meaning that transcends the biological distinctions of groups, with implications for how those groups are perceived and treated by others within the larger society. As Schaefer (1995) indicates:

In a modern, complex industrial society, we find little adaptive utility in the presence or absence of prominent chins, epicanthic folds of eyelids or the comparative amount of melanin in the skin. What is important is not that people are genetically different but that they approach each other with dissimilar perspectives. It is in this social setting that race is decisive. Race is significant because people have given it significance [p. 12].

This sociological interpretation of race now takes precedence over the biological meaning and has become firmly entrenched in the American mindset.

Others have argued that, even with the biological and social relevance attributed to race, the concept does not adequately describe or reflect the current diversity of the U.S. population (Oppenheimer, 2001). For example, Asians are typically differentiated from other racial groups because of their regional origin but more so because they share certain physical attributes that are tied to their genetic pool. Yet within the Asian-American community, there are many subgroups with different customs, nationalities, languages, and religious backgrounds. Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, Vietnamese, Hindus, Sikhs, Pakistanis, and many more subgroups comprise the Asian-American community. As such, the use of race as a common denominator for group identification is inadequate. Instead, a group taxonomy of ethnicity provides a more exhaustive categorization of people based on cultural, behavioral, environmental, physical, as well as some biological characteristics that are linked to their heritage. The term ethnicity is thus used to refer to a group of people who share one or more attributes such as language, religion, nationality or regional characteristics, unique customs and practices, and race. Ethnic groups are best identified by a set of internal and homogenous attributes that contribute to group affinity and cohesiveness and reflect how they see themselves (“we-ness”). These commonalities may also contribute to external attributes that make the groups distinct and influence how they are seen by others (“they-ness”) within the larger society (Ringer and Lawless, 1989).

There is an ongoing debate over the appropriateness of using the terms race and ethnicity in the discourse on social inequality in the United States. Some contend that race must be separated from ethnicity, because, as we indicated earlier, race focuses on the biological characteristics of humanity whereas ethnicity addresses the social and cultural aspects. Others have argued even further that the concept of race must be eliminated from the discourse, particularly when dealing with group disparities, and that instead the focus must be on ethnicity as a more appropriate means of group affiliation (Cooper, 1994; Fullilove, 1998). For instance, David Kaplan and Steven Holloway (1998), noting the mixed ancestry and multiple definitions of race, opted to use ethnicity rather than race in their study. They suggested a more inclusive interpretation of ethnicity that made race and ethnicity synonymous, thus redefining groups such as African Americans as ethnic groups:

We thus define ethnicity to include all groups that feel themselves different from others, or are felt to be different by the others, where the difference is based on culture, physical appearance, or ancestry, depending on the context [p. 5].

Throughout this book, however, we will use both concepts in the combined term race/ethnicity to address issues relating to group disparities in the United States. Our decision is based on a number of factors. First, as Gerald Oppenheimer (2001) argues, the substitution of ethnicity for race may have serious social implications since most studies of race bring attention to issues of poverty, segregation, accessibility to health care, distribution of environmental pollutants, and other matters relating to discrimination and prejudice (p. 1057). This view is also supported by Michael Omi (2000), who contends that the elimination of racial categories from data collection efforts, in particular, would hinder all attempts to monitor specific forms of discrimination, such as home mortgage and other financial loan practices, health-care delivery patterns, prison sentencing, and more recently, racial profiling incidences. A second reason for adopting the term race/ethnicity is that it already exists; it is widely used by social scientists, both for descriptive and analytical purposes; and it is now accepted by various academic and professional organizations (Oppenheimer, 2001; G. E. Thomas, 1995; Ringer and Lawless, 1989).

Given this book’s stated objectives, the synonymous use of these concepts is warranted. We, like most in this line of research, support the basic premise that both race and ethnicity are socially created concepts that draw attention to population subgroups within the larger society, affect how those groups are perceived and treated by others, and, more important, serve as objective dimensions for collecting and analyzing data relating racial prejudice and discrimination. Below we discuss the historical and present-day linkages between these concepts and racism in America.

Race, Racism, and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• List of Acronyms
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Race, Ethnicity, and Locational Inequalities: Introduction
• 2 U.S. Minority Population: Settlement Patterns, Dispersion, and Growth Trends
• 3 Sociological Narratives of Racism in America
• 4 Theories of Spatial Relationships in Urban America
• 5 Minority and Nonminority Concentrations: Differentiating Between Race-and-Place-Based Inequalities in Urban America
• 6 Deconstruction of Emerging Racial Mosaics: Equity Issues Where Asian Americans Mix with Other Minorities in Alameda County, California
• 7 Indicators of Environmental Inequities and Threats to Minority Health in Urban America
• 8 Retail Structure, Accessibility, and Inequalities in Areas of Minority Concentration
• 9 Commuting and Locational Access to Employment in Urban America: Ethnic and Racial Disparities in Three Cities
• 10 Racial Inequalities in Urban America: Retrospect and Prospect
• Appendix: Sample Urban Counties Used in the Analysis
• References
• Index