Why Racial Integration Remains an Imperative

Poverty & Race POVERTY & RACE RESEARCH ACTION COUNCIL PRRAC July/August 2011 Volume 20: Number 4 Why Racial Integration Remains an Imperative by Elizabeth Anderson In 1988, I needed to move from they did not constitute either the domi- ness; or welfare reform; or a deter- Ann Arbor to the Detroit area to spare nant or, in aggregate effect, the most mined effort within minority commu- my partner, a sleep-deprived resident damaging mode of undesirable racial nities to change dysfunctional social at Henry Ford Hospital, a significant interactions on campus. More perva- norms associated with the “culture of commute to work. As I searched for sive, insidious and cumulatively dam- poverty.” As this list demonstrates, housing, I observed stark patterns of aging were subtler patterns of racial avoidance of integration is found racial segregation, openly enforced by discomfort, alienation, and ignorant across the whole American political landlords who assured me, a white and cloddish interaction, such as class- spectrum. The Imperative of Integra- woman then in her late twenties, that room dynamics in which white stu- tion argues that all of these purported I had no reason to worry about rent- dents focused on problems and griev- remedies for racial injustice rest on ing there since “we’re holding the line ances peculiar to them, ignored what the illusion that racial justice can be against blacks at 10 Mile Road.” One black students were saying, or ex- achieved without racial integration. of them showed me a home with a pressed insulting assumptions about Readers of Poverty & Race are fa- pile of cockroaches in the kitchen. them. I wondered whether there was miliar with the deep and pervasive Landlords in the metro area were con- a connection between the extreme resi- racial segregation in the U.S., espe- fident that whites would rather live dential racial segregation in Michigan cially of blacks from whites, which with cockroaches as housemates than and the toxic patterns of interracial was caused and is currently main- with blacks as neighbors. interaction I observed at the univer- tained by public policies such as zon- We decided to rent a house in South sity, where many students were func- ing, massive housing discrimination Rosedale Park, a stable working-class tioning in a multiracial setting for the and white flight, and which generates Detroit neighborhood that was about first time. profound economic inequalities. Seg- 80% black. It was a model of cordial My investigations led me to write regation isolates blacks from access race relations. Matters were different my book, The Imperative of Integra- to job opportunities, retail outlets, and in my place of employment, the Uni- tion, which focuses primarily (but not commercial and professional services. versity of Michigan in Ann Arbor. At exclusively) on black-white segrega- (Please turn to page 2) the time, a rash of racially hostile in- tion. Since the end of concerted ef- cidents targeting black, Latino, Na- forts to enforce Brown v. Board of tive American and Asian students was Education in the 1980s, activists, poli- raising alarms. Although overtly rac- ticians, pundits, scholars and the CONTENTS: ist incidents got the most publicity, American public have advocated non- integrative paths to racial justice. Integration ................ 1 Racial justice, we are told, can be Health Impact Elizabeth Anderson (eandersn@ achieved through multiculturalist cel- Assessment ............. 3 umich.edu) is John Rawls Collegiate ebrations of racial diversity; or equal Asian American et al. Professor of Philosophy and Women’s economic investments in de facto seg- Health Equity ........... 7 Studies at the Univ. of Michigan, Ann regated schools and neighborhoods; Model Neighborhood Arbor. She prepared this précis from or a focus on poverty rather than race; Health Center ......... 13 her 2010 book, The Imperative of In- or more rigorous enforcement of anti- Resources ................ 19 tegration (Princeton Univ. Press). discrimination law; or color-blind- Poverty & Race Research Action Council • 1200 18th Street NW • Suite 200 • Washington, DC 20036 202/906-8023 • FAX: 202/842-2885 • E-mail: [email protected] • www.prrac.org Recycled Paper (INTEGRATION: Continued from page 1) uting material goods across space. those with whom one associates, in- More fundamentally, segregation con- duces self-segregated groups to draw It deprives them of access to public sists of the whole range of social prac- invidious comparisons between them- goods, including decent public schools tices that groups with privileged ac- selves and the groups from which they and adequate law enforcement, while cess to important goods use to close are isolated. They create worldviews subjecting them to higher tax burdens, ranks to maintain their privileges. This that are impervious to counterevidence concentrated poverty, urban blight, includes role segregation, where dif- held by members of out-groups with pollution and crime. This depresses ferent groups interact, but on terms whom they have little contact. They housing values and impedes blacks’ of domination and subordination. tend to view extreme and deviant be- ability to accumulate financial and Everyone knows that who you haviors of out-group members, such human capital. If the effects of segre- know is as important as what you as violent crimes, as representative of gation were confined to such material know in getting access to opportuni- the out-group. Role segregation also outcomes, we could imagine that some ties. This idea captures the social capi- creates stereotypes that reinforce out- combination of non-integrative left- tal effects of racial segregation. In seg- group disadvantage. People’s stereo- liberal remedies—color-blind anti- types of who is suited to privileged poverty programs, economic invest- Avoidance of integra- positions incorporate the social iden- ment in disadvantaged neighborhoods, tion is found across the tities of those who already occupy vigorous enforcement of anti-discrimi- whole American politi- them. Occupation of dominant posi- nation law, and multiculturalist rem- tions also tends to make people prone edies to remaining discrimination— cal spectrum. to stereotype their subordinates, be- could overcome racial inequality. cause dominant players can afford to regated societies, news about and re- be ignorant of the ways their subordi- Non-Integrationist ferrals to educational and job oppor- nates deviate from stereotype. tunities preferentially circulate within Popular understandings of racial Remedies Are the groups that already predominate stigma and how it works lead people Insufficient in a given institution, keeping disad- to drastically underestimate its extent vantaged groups off or at the back of and harmful effects. We imagine ra- Such non-integrationist remedies the queue. Cultural capital also mat- cially stigmatizing ideas as con- are insufficient because they fail to ters: Even when the gatekeepers to sciously located in the minds of ex- address the full range of effects of important opportunities do not inten- treme racists. Think of the KKK mem- segregation on group inequality. The tionally practice racial discrimination, ber who claims that blacks are bio- Imperative of Integration documents they often select applicants by their logically inferior and threatening three additional effects that can only “fit” with the informal, unspoken and to whites, proclaims his hatred of be undone through integration: social/ untaught norms of speech, bodily them, and discriminates against them cultural capital inequality, racial stig- comportment, dress, personal style out of sheer prejudice. Most Ameri- matization, and anti-democratic ef- and cultural interests that already pre- cans despise such extremists, disavow fects. These effects recognize that seg- vail in an institution. Mutually isolated explicitly racist ideas, and sincerely regation isn’t only geographic, and so communities tend to drift apart cul- think of themselves as not racist. Most can’t be undone simply by redistrib- turally, and thereby undermine dis- say that racial discrimination is wrong. advantaged groups’ accumulation of It is tempting to conclude that nega- Poverty and Race (ISSN 1075- the cultural capital needed for ad- tive images of blacks are no longer a 3591) is published six times a year by vancement. Integration is needed to potent force in American life. the Poverty & Race Research Action remedy these inequalities. Tempting, but wrong. While the Council, 1200 18th Street NW, Suite Segregation also stigmatizes the old racist images of black biological 200, Washington, DC 20036, 202/906- disadvantaged. When social groups inferiority may have faded, they have 8023, fax: 202/842-2885, E-mail: [email protected]. Chester Hartman, diverge in material and social advan- been replaced by new ones. Now Editor. Subscriptions are $25/year, tages, people form corresponding many whites tend to see blacks as $45/two years. Foreign postage extra. group stereotypes and tell stories to choosing badly, as undermining them- Articles, article suggestions, letters and explain these differences. These sto- selves with culturally dysfunctional general comments are welcome, as are ries add insult to injury, because norms of single parenthood, welfare notices of publications, conferences, job openings, etc. for our Resources people tend to attribute a group’s dis- dependency, criminality, and poor Section. Articles generally may be re- advantages to supposedly intrinsic

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