Michael O. Emerson
Allyn & Gladys Cline Professor of Sociology
Co-Director, Kinder Institute for Urban Research
Rice University

ANALYSIS - November 25, 2011

It’s a riddle, really.  The United States is by many accounts post-racial.  We reassure ourselves that racial groups are no longer kept separate and unequal by our laws, customs, and personal prejudices.  And ever since the last official vestiges of racial discrimination were eschewed from our laws in the 1960s, we have indeed seen amazing changes.

By almost any attitudinal survey measure, prejudice is down substantially and intermarriage rates are up.  We have even elected a black president.  Just a few decades ago, such realities were almost unthinkable.

But then there are those nagging realities, the ones that don’t seem to fit into our self-proclaimed post-racialism.  The Pew Research Center has recently reported that wealth gaps between whites and blacks, and whites and Hispanics, are larger today than they have ever been.[1] In fact, the wealth gap has increased fourfold since the 1980s.[2] We also see that the gap in unemployment rates between racial groups is the same today as it was in 1980, in 1960, and even in 1940.  More unsettling research findings show that for each additional year of education, minority groups do not get the same return in income as whites.  In other words, though education benefits all, it benefits white Americans more.[3] In a “post-racial” society, how could this be possible?

Closer inspection reveals that racial divides persist across an incredible range of measures.  These include health, employment, marriage, occupation, life expectancy, crime, identity, names, educational levels, neighborhood segregation and poverty levels, auto loan rates, socioeconomic mobility, consumerism, respect, expectations, musical preferences, religion, costs paid for products, mortgage types and interest rates, television watching, wealth (e.g., as of 2010, of the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans, 387 are white, 9 Asian, 3 Hispanic, 1 African American, and 0 Native Americans), property values, politics, entrepreneurship rates, respect, self-esteem, and exposure to environmental pollution and hazardous waste.[4]

Therein lays the riddle: How can we be post-racial despite such a dizzying array of racial differences, gaps, divides, and inequalities?  Typical resolutions of this contradiction reference either the legacy of historical racism or the oft-cited “class not race” argument.  According to the former, it takes time for equality of outcomes to occur.  We may not be there yet, but we moving ever closer towards equality.  Unfortunately, the empirical evidence does not support this argument.  Racial progress in many areas halted at about 1980, and in others, the gaps simply continue to increase.

The latter argument—“the issue is class not race”—claims that because we have poor and well-to-do people within all racial groups, what matters is really class difference.  As the argument goes, differences in average wealth across racial groups are in fact caused by persistent class differences; race no longer has a measurable effect.  Again, this dismissal of the issue of race does not hold up to empirical scrutiny.  Class matters to be sure, but so too does race.  Moreover, studies find that minority groups are not able to pass middle or upper-class status on to their children with the same frequency as Anglos.  And the “class not race” argument simply avoids the most pressing question: Why should there be such drastic class differences between racial groups to begin with?

What then is the answer to this American riddle?  I propose that, given the weight of literally thousands of studies on racial differences and realities in the post-civil rights era, we can identify three tendencies that contribute to the new racial inequality: De-coloration, Segregation, and Incarceration.  At the risk of reducing a complex sociological reality to a pithy list of bullet points, I would like to briefly consider each of these broad issues separately so that the contours of our present racial reality could be made clear. Of course, I do not mean to offer a revisionist account of inequality before the civil rights era.  These three trends have emerged precisely out of the context of that shared history, and they only function as they do today because of the realities of racial inequality that we have inherited.  Let me also say that I am not arguing that some rather powerful and well-funded conspirators have outlined a three-step plan for maintaining racial inequality.  Instead it is our own complicated relationships with racial history, the competing negotiations of various social groups, and the struggles for a place in the post-civil rights order that have combined to produce our present state of affairs.

De-colorate

Due  in part to the rhetoric of Civil Rights leaders—such as Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous desire that his children be judged not by the color of their skin but the content of their character—“colorblindness” has become the acceptable paradigm of equality: a literal removal of color from direct consideration in American life.  Today, the vast majority of whites (and increasing numbers of other groups) now echo a certain call to colorblindness.  Colorblindness advocates seeing people as individuals rather than members of a racial group.  But implicit here is the assumption that racial discrimination is no longer a factor limiting individual opportunities.             Before the 1960s and 1970s, relatively few majority-group members advocated a colorblind approach to race relations.  The concept developed as an ideal of the civil rights movement and was embraced only by progressives who advocated for the removal of all racial differences in society.  But after the successes of the civil rights movement, the ideology was co-opted rather rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s by majority group members as a way to oppose affirmative action, quotas, and other forms of “reverse discrimination.”  The essential idea of colorblindness is that racial equality is best achieved by ignoring racial differences.  Therefore, any effort to provide resources to others based on racial categories is wrong, for we must all be seen simply as individuals.  Those advocating colorblindness often say they don’t see color; they simply see people.  This form of colorblindness is advocated for primarily by white Americans, and can be seen as a modern day version of American individualism. But recent research is finding that younger African Americans are now increasingly subscribing to the ideology as well.[5]

In just three decades, this idea that our nation somehow transcends racial difference has triumphed.  It would be difficult to overemphasize the role that this view plays in perpetuating racial inequality today.  No matter how many racial divides are identified by research studies, they can easily be explained away as irrelevant.  Because race is assumed to no longer matter, or to put it more strongly, because we are not allowed to consider race as a factor, we simply do not see persistent racial inequalities. Indeed, we become truly blind to them.

Segregate

In the context of a colorblind society, our high levels of segregation—in neighborhoods, schools, houses of worship, social networks, and the like—are either totally invisible to us, or we write them off as mere in-group preference.  Why are there still black, Hispanic, and white (and increasingly Asian) neighborhoods in every decently-sized city in the nation?  This social fact is either (a) not noticed, (b) explained by the assumption that people simply want to be with people like themselves, or (c) reframed as an issue of class, not race.

Analysis of recent data on neighborhood segregation across the nation’s metropolitan areas suggests an unfortunate consistency with past decades.  Levels of racial segregation may vary slightly but they remain high, especially in places with large minority populations.  Blacks and whites are still the groups most segregated from each other, but across most metro areas, the segregation between whites and Hispanics is increasing. In some metro areas, Hispanic segregation is approaching black/white segregation levels, while Asians are typically as segregated from blacks and Hispanics as whites.

Our schools were desegregated by law with the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, and for many years after, racial segregation declined.  But according to data gathered by the Civil Rights Project, things began to change around 1990.  Since then, schools have become more segregated with each passing year, and we are now approaching the segregation levels of the late 1960s.[6]

But what does this matter?  If segregation truly had no negative impact on racial inequality, perhaps this data wouldn’t be so troubling.  But we know that segregation has deleterious consequences.  For example, when we consider that racial segregation is accompanied by higher poverty rates among blacks and Hispanics (about 3 times more likely to be poor than whites), the dramatic problems of contemporary inequality become clear.  Instead of being distributed equally across metropolitan neighborhoods, poverty is concentrated in minority neighborhoods.  To further complicate the issue, segregation by class varies within different racial groups. If you are poor, it is far better to be white than black or Hispanic.  How so?  If we plot the typical type of neighborhood that poor whites live in, we find the most common type is a non-poor neighborhood, defined as a neighborhood in which less than 20% of the people are poor.  The least likely type of neighborhood for poor whites to live in is a high-poverty neighborhood (where at least 40% of the residents are poor).

We find the exact opposite for poor blacks and Hispanics.  They are most likely to live in high poverty neighborhoods, and least likely to live in non-poor neighborhoods.  Without racial segregation, this imbalance would not be possible.  Only segregation of this kind can explain are witnessing in today’s America: an increasing numbers of minority neighborhoods that have extremely high levels of poverty, no jobs, few stores, sparse services, poor schools, high crime, and lack of hope.  Thus, insofar as our surroundings matter—the quality of the local schools, access to amenities, frequent contact with employed people, educated role models—it is a distinct advantage if you are poor to be white.

The recent recession displayed another consequence of racial segregation in neighborhoods.  Extensive analysis of foreclosure rates from 2008-2010 across the nation’s metro areas has identified a clear pattern: even after accounting for the effect of other factors, a higher the rate of racial segregation in a metro area predicted a higher the rate of foreclosures.  Why should this be?  The researchers found that with high segregation, those making subprime, predatory loans were able to efficiently target minority areas and offer the risky loans there.  Without racial segregation, those making loans were less able to target minority groups and therefore made less predatory loans.[7]

The effects of residential segregation go further.  Since middle class Americans traditionally derive a substantial portion of their wealth from the value of their homes, what happens to their housing values is of intense importance to them.  Racial segregation has the direct consequence of inflating housing values in white neighborhoods and deflating housing values in minority neighborhoods, in part because of the aforementioned role it plays in concentrating advantage and disadvantage in certain neighborhoods along racial lines.  To the degree they can afford to do so, people seek out neighborhoods with more advantages, making demand for white neighborhoods higher than demand for minority neighborhoods.  This increased demand means, other things being equal, increased housing values for white neighborhoods.

One domain in which we might think of segregation as harmless is religion.  But as my colleague Christian Smith and I show in Divided by Faith (2000), the segregation of houses of worship has substantial consequences.  Unequal access to social networks, cultural capital, and financial resources perpetuates racial inequality both directly and indirectly. I hope these examples suggest the compound nature of the effects of segregation.  People of color face difficulties across a variety of sectors, and when multiplied together, the impact of segregation today is truly staggering.

Incarcerate

According to The New Jim Crow, a masterful work by legal scholar Michelle Alexander, our post-civil rights era ushered in a sea change in incarceration rates that has had devastating effects on racial inequality.[8] She traces the narratives of law and order that arose among politicians and others in reaction to the civil rights movement.  Allegedly concerned by the civil disobedience of activists in the 1960’s, a reactionary rhetoric of “being tough on crime” gained traction.  By 1980, this discourse had been formalized into increased penalties and automatic incarceration for certain crimes.

A particularly dramatic example is the War on Drugs, instituted around 1980.  While surveys show that drug usage has not changed much in the past half century, and despite evidence that Americans at the time did not think drugs were a particular problem, the Federal government launched a massive campaign—a literal offensive on drug users and sellers that, with mandatory sentencing for drug possession, has resulted in a huge increase in incarceration rates over the past thirty years.

Since 1980, the number of annual drug arrests has tripled, the number of drug arrests resulting in prison sentences has quadrupled, and there has been an 1100% increase in the number of citizens imprisoned for drug offenses.  There were 300,000 Americans in prison in 1980.  Today, there are 2,300,000, and more than 31 million drug arrests have been made since the war on drugs was declared.  We now imprison more people—by rate and by number—than any other nation in the world, with more than 7 million Americans either behind bars, on probation, or on parole.

Although surveys repeatedly show that the rates of using and selling drugs are highly uniform by racial group (except that white youth seem to use at a higher rate than other groups), the war on drugs has been tragically discriminatory.  More people go to prison now from all racial groups, but among minorities this increase is most dramatic.  Incarceration rates for whites have increased 8-fold since 1983, but incarceration rates for Hispanics and African Americans have increased 22-fold and 26-fold respectively in that same period.  Today, a full one-third of black men under the age of 35 (those brought up in the war on drugs era) will be behind bars, on probation, or parole at some point in their life.  For those who do not graduate high school, the proportion increases to an astounding 7 out of every 10.

The implications of these changes for racial inequality are far-reaching.  If you are convicted of a drug offense or imprisoned, you are not eligible for student loans, you cannot live in public housing, you cannot serve on juries, you cannot vote for at least twelve years, you face severely limited employment opportunities, and you are more likely to be sent back to prison.  In short, being sentenced to prison is being sentenced to more than just prison.  It is a sentence to second class citizenship and a marginalized existence.  Michelle Alexander starkly concludes that, in terms of being able to support a family, there were actually more opportunities for black males during Jim Crow than there are today.

Conclusion

We live, so we suppose, in a post-racial society.  Our nation has purportedly moved beyond old discriminations, yet thousands of studies continue to document racial inequality and division.  How can this be?  Unfortunately, we have bought into the myth that we are now colorblind, and our trust in this de-colored society has allowed us to ignore the vast inequities that persist in America today.  Segregation and incarceration are powerful engines of racial division and inequality, and they continue this work today largely unchallenged. My hope is that, by identifying and articulating the mechanisms by which racial inequality continues to function, they can begin to be properly opposed and critiqued.

Bibliography

Alexander, Michelle. 2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press.

Emerson, Michael O., and Christian Smith. 2000. Divided by Faith.  New York: Oxford University Press.

Emerson, Michael O., and George Yancey. 2010. Transcending Racial Barriers. New York: Oxford University Press.

Gallagher, Charles (ed.). 2009. Rethinking the Color Line: Readings in Race and Ethnicity (4^th Edition). McGraw Hill Publishers.

Orfield, Gary, and Chungmei Lee. 2007. “Historical Reversals, Accelerating Resegregation, and the Need for New Integration Strategies.” The Civil Rights Project Papers, CivilRightsProject.ucla.edu.

Passel, Jeffrey S., Wendy Wang, and Paul Taylor (2010), “Marrying Out: One-in-Seven New US Marriages is Interracial or Interethnic.” Pew Research Center Publications, PewResearch.org.

Rugh, Jacob, and Douglas S. Massey. 2010. “Racial Segregation and the American Foreclosure Crises.” American Sociological Review, 75(5): 629-651.

Schuman, Howard, Charlotte Steeh, Lawrence Bobo, and Maria Krysan. 1997.

Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations, Revised Edition.  Cambridge: Harvard University.

Shapiro, Thomas M., Tatjana Meschede, and Laura Sullivan. 2010. “The Racial Wealth Gap Increases Fourfold.” Institute on Assets and Social Policy, Research and Policy Brief. Brandeis University.

Shelton, Jason. 2011. “Increasing Percentage of Minority Young Accepting Colorblind Perspective.” Working Paper, Dept. of Sociology, University of Texas—Arlington.

Taylor, Paul, Richard Fry, and Rakesh Kochhar (2011), “Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics.” Pew Research Center Publications, PewResearch.org.

[1] Taylor, Fry, and Kochhar (2011), “Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics.”

[2] Shapiro, Meschede, and Sullivan (2010), “The Racial Wealth Gap Increases Fourfold.”

[3] See the data appendices of Gallagher (2009), Rethinking the Color Line.

[4] Emerson and Yancey (2010), Transcending Racial Barriers (chapter 1).

[5] Shelton (2011), “Increasing Percentage of Minority Young Accepting Colorblind Perspective.”

[6] See for example, Orfield and Lee (2007), “Historical Reversals, Accelerating Resegregation, and the Need for New Integration Strategies.”

[7] Rugh and Massey. 2010. “Racial Segregation and the American Foreclosure Crises.”

[8] The data and arguments for this section can all be found in much more developed form in Alexander’s The New Jim Crow (2010) book.