From another board re: The South

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well I lived in Far Rockaway. All black.  My family moved because the neighborhood was getting too rough and robberies were rampant.  I actually grew up in Long Beach, NY.  A good party, drinking community on the Ocean.  The city is very segregated though.  I lived in the "west end" which was majority Irish with  Italians and Germans.  A christian area basically.  Going east along the ocean you have the Jewish area- Orthodox, reform and hasid who all hate each other:)  On the other side- the bay side you have the hispanic and black community.  We didn't go to the "black area" to hang out and they did not come to our part of town to party.  Then again we beat up a lot more "out of towners" than any race.  Most towns are segregated around these parts is my overall message. Al, look it up on fair data you can probably tell the different neighborhoods by socioecon.  11561.

Long Beach: Blacks heavily concentrated in a small area in the North Central part of the city. Hispanics centred on the same area, but spread out more throught the rest of the city. The Black/Hispanic area has higher poverty rates than the rest of the city and much lower Median HH Income.

Nassau county has a serious segregation problem: Map

[minionofmidas]

Well I lived in Far Rockaway. All black.  My family moved because the neighborhood was getting too rough and robberies were rampant.  I actually grew up in Long Beach, NY.  A good party, drinking community on the Ocean.  The city is very segregated though.  I lived in the "west end" which was majority Irish with  Italians and Germans.  A christian area basically.  Going east along the ocean you have the Jewish area- Orthodox, reform and hasid who all hate each other:)  On the other side- the bay side you have the hispanic and black community.  We didn't go to the "black area" to hang out and they did not come to our part of town to party.  Then again we beat up a lot more "out of towners" than any race.  Most towns are segregated around these parts is my overall message. Al, look it up on fair data you can probably tell the different neighborhoods by socioecon.  11561.

Long Beach: Blacks heavily concentrated in a small area in the North Central part of the city. Hispanics centred on the same area, but spread out more throught the rest of the city. The Black/Hispanic area has higher poverty rates than the rest of the city and much lower Median HH Income.

Nassau county has a serious segregation problem: Map

Yes.
But then, America has a serious segregation problem.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But then, America has a serious segregation problem.

I'm thinking of doing a list of the most segregated counties.

[minionofmidas]

But then, America has a serious segregation problem.

I'm thinking of doing a list of the most segregated counties.

The Census Bureau has conducted a study by MetroAreas.
They say Milwaukee's worst for Blacks, Phoenix is worst for Native Americans, the Bay Area is worst for Asians, and I've forgotten where was worst for Hispanics. Might've been NYC, actually.

Yes, I noticed, no Southern places. Not that that means much. Given the mathematical model they used, you'd probably get much different results if you defined the MetroAreas somewhat differently.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But then, America has a serious segregation problem.

I'm thinking of doing a list of the most segregated counties.

The Census Bureau has conducted a study by MetroAreas.
They say Milwaukee's worst for Blacks, Phoenix is worst for Native Americans, the Bay Area is worst for Asians, and I've forgotten where was worst for Hispanics. Might've been NYC, actually.

Yes, I noticed, no Southern places. Not that that means much. Given the mathematical model they used, you'd probably get much different results if you defined the MetroAreas somewhat differently.

It also depends how you define segregated...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yep, Black area known colloquially as "brown town".  Blacks live by the rairoad tracks and always have. Spanish area has gotten large and I am told that blacks and whites have made common cause in the high school against the hispanics. Joy.  The data misses the fact that there are a large number of hasids who don't go to school in the district and  Catholics who went outside of the district like myself. I find it troubling though that where I grew up is getting gentrified.  Steamfitters, Carpenters, electricians are giving way to Wall Street types enamored with the beach.  I used to live on the next peninsula over Far Rockaway 11691.  Beach 19th street:)  Great maps Al.

Local stuff is always interesting... gentrification in some parts of D.C (for example) has actually made segregation worse, BTW

[dazzleman]

Very interesting discussion about segregation in the north, particularly in the New York City area.

I have long said, as an answer to those who harp on the south, the entire New York area has a deeply entrenched pattern of racial separation.

It is different in the city than in the suburbs.  Those in the rich sections of Manhattan are pretty secure that blacks can't afford to move in, or those that can will be pretty respectable, so they get to assume the liberal pose of deep concern for the poor, while knowing that nobody poor will live anywhere near them.  Also in rich parts of Manhattan, most housing is co-ops rather than rentals, and the boards of these co-ops decide who can live there, and don't have to give the reason why they're rejecting somebody.

In the outer boroughs, there are lower middle class white neighborhoods in close proximity to poor black and hispanic neighborhoods.  These white neighborhoods greatly fear an influx of poor minorities from the surrounding communities because they don't want the crime and mayhem that will come with them if the numbers are large enough.  Many of these neighborhoods are populated by people who have been forced to move from other neighborhoods that became hellholes of crime and violence when poor minorities moved in.  People in these neighborhoods will sometimes resort to tactics of intimidation and violence to keep their neighborhoods white.

Neighborhoods in the city that are integrated on paper are usually not stable, but in transition, either from all-black to predominantly white, in the case of gentrification, or from predominantly white to predominantly minority, if the neighborhood is "going down the toilet" as people say.  The reality is, the arrival of blacks is assumed to herald a descent into hell for the neighborhood, and everybody in New York knows what signs to look for.

In the suburbs, there are almost no truly integreted areas.  The battle in the suburbs are less intense because the nicer areas are so expensive that they present an economic barrier to poorer people coming in.  People in the suburbs can be a little more secure that even if blacks do come into the neighborhood, they will be more successful and respectable, and probably small in number.  Still, when I was selling my house, people in the neighborhood were aghast when a couple of black people, and one Indian couple, looked at the house.

The point of all this is that this problem exists everywhere, and it's just wrong for those of us in the north to single out the south for criticism, as liberals who live in lily-white northern suburbs tend to do.

Forced integration of neighborhoods and schools has failed, and will always fail, because it doesn't take certain realities into accout.  Number one, economic integration is futile.  Upper middle class and wealthy people simply will not live next door to poor people, whatever the races involved.  Even without a racial barrier, this would be a very difficult thing to pull off.  To base a social policy on the expectation that the government can force middle to upper middle class whites to live next to, and send their kids to school with, poor blacks is absurd.  It's just not going to happen.  It wouldn't happen even if you removed the black component.

Number two, people want to live near others that share their lifestyle and values.  On the one hand, we keep emphasizing that blacks are different, have different values, a different culture, etc. and that they have no wish to merge themselves with the greater culture.  With hispanics it's the same thing - they want to maintain their language, their heritage, etc.  The reality is that among other groups, like Italians, Irish, etc, integration or assimilation did not take place until these differences were effectively abandoned.  And it won't with blacks or hispanics either.

I see integration of blacks as a much tougher case than hispanic integration.  Socially, blacks continue to be worse off than just about any other group, and the statistics about poverty, family breakdown, crime and violence are generally known to all.  The leaders of the black community continue to blame other people for their problems rather than acknowledge that only they can solve their problems.  What I see happening, unless there is a radical change, is blacks being bypassed once again, this time by hispanics.  It's happening already.  There are those hispanics who are doing well, and moving to basically white neighborhoods, fitting in, and effectively shedding their minority status.

The problem with those who pushed forced integration is that they thought they could pull it off without ever laying the proper groundwork for it.  They said that integration would lead to education.  The truth is just the opposite.  Blacks will become more integrated when the social, economic and cultural gap with whites is significantly narrowed such that it is no longer perceived that a black presence in a neighborhood will bring significant and negative change to the neighborhood.

[minionofmidas]

Those in the rich sections of Manhattan are pretty secure that blacks can't afford to move in, or those that can will be pretty respectable, so they get to assume the liberal pose of deep concern for the poor, while knowing that nobody poor will live anywhere near them.

Actually, given the standard American definitions of distance, they can be sure lots of poor people will live near them...I get your point though. 

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Like in the Jury System, you mean? Yeah, that kind of rule is going to guarantee racism can continue.

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Careful here...neighborhood instability  causes crime...Poor minority percentage alone doesn't.

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As long as you don't write "because"  

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It's called "crime and mayhem"...

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or Memphis, or CHicago, or...it's this very attitude that creates residential segregation.

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Didn't you just state the opposite? Or are you now talking about America in general, as opposed to just Manhattan and its suburbs?

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If that were true, there simply wouldn't be any rich inner-city neighborhoods left. Mind you, there are fewer of these in the US than anywhere else in the Northwestern World. 

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You can't force them, but you can certainly disencourage them from doing not to, and American seems to be doing the opposite.

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Integration, of course, is done by the majority group (the constant misuse of the term here in Germany is a real eyesore to me) and essentially means considering the minority's cultural differences as irrelevant. Jews have been integrated in the CHristian US in these last few decades, for example.

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Circulus Vitiosus thing, really. NEither can happen whithout the other.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

or Memphis, or CHicago, or...it's this very attitude that creates residential segregation.

It's happend in some parts of the U.K as well (esp. West Midlands)

[dazzleman]

Lewis Trondheim -

Your response is the classic liberal response.  What is missing from this attitude is any recognition of WHY middle class whites move when their neighborhood starts turning black, other than blind racism, which is a gross oversimplification.

And I think we need to end the political correctness in this discussion.  There's no reason to tell me to be "careful" about what I say.  That's the whole problem with this issue - people get terribly upset any time somebody acknowledges the truth.  But guess what - people recognize the truth and act upon it in large numbers, which is why the situation continues.

I think the answer to the problem of racial separation is to narrow the differences between black and white culture, rather than emphasizing the differences, as we have been doing.  We emphasize the differences, set a lower standard of behavior for blacks than for whites, tell whites that they're not allowed to speak about the problems that result, and then say that we must learn to live together.  It's a loser.  If we truly narrow the differences, then racial differences will become insignificant.

Class integration, regardless of race, is never going to happen on a large scale.  Maybe you have it in Europe, but not here.  There's no point in pushing for something that is impossible.  It goes against every deeply ingrained American tradition.

I disagree that integration is done by the majority.  It requires, effectively, minority conformity with majority cultural norms, and that's why it hasn't happened yet.  The majority cannot deem the kind of differences in family structure, crime rate, etc. that currently exist to be insignificant in any case, because these differences are quite significant.  There can't be real integration until these differences are in fact insignificant.  Liberals have deemed them to be insignificant, while exempting themselves from any real contact through convenient economic barriers.  Liberals simply want lower middle class whites (the type they speak of so contemptuously) to bear the brunt of the extreme degredation in quality of life that would result from true, broad integration under current conditions.

I also disagree that the cultural gap cannot narrow without integration.  Those who truly want integration will narrow the gap sufficiently that they become part of the mainstream.  Other ethnic have done this, and it precedes assimilation or integration.  Many blacks and hispanics have in fact done this also.

What I see in your response is the usual liberal double standard - denying or excusing high crime rates among minorities, saying that whites should deem them to be irrelevant (which they're not after you been knocked to the ground and robbed for the third time), that whites aren't allowed to even express concern about these hard facts, and then blaming whites, and only whites, for their response to the issue, after you have removed all their options, and conveniently exempted yourself from the effects of all this.

This is not a simple issue, but the liberal solution has obviously failed miserably, and no amount of smooth liberal double-talk is going to cover that up.

[minionofmidas]

Lewis Trondheim -

Your response is the classic liberal response.  What is missing from this attitude is any recognition of WHY middle class whites move when their neighborhood starts turning black, other than blind racism, which is a gross oversimplification.

No, I wouldn't call it blind racism. Shortsighted is closer to the point...

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Not careful what you say - careful whether what you say is what you think. Your post was constantly veering right along a thin red line there...I hadn't read it to the end yet.

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Emphasizing the differences - or certain of the differences - , of course, is what the White racists do..."Liberals", and Blacks themselves saying, yeah, those are the differences, let's be proud of them, is, to a certain extent, playing the racists' game. Then again, no differences exist isn't exactly a winner either. There are differences, there are (much larger, looking at the whole picture) similarities, and I for one am just fine with that.

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No. No, since it didn't always exist in America, it can't be that deeply ingrained. No, we don't have it here, we're just not quite as bad. And no, it's not impossible. There's serious economic benefits involved in the American form of class segregation, and these are (partly) policy-shaped. That's where you should start. Cheapness of land, for example, is one you can't change. That gigantic continent behind you simply is there. Cheapness of fuel is one you can change. Government-sponsored road construction is one you can change. Having towns in charge of funding their schools - thus providing an additional incentive for young middle-class families to move out of inner cities to where schools are better funded - is one you can change.
Obviously, it would be hard even if the political will to do so existed. Obviously, it does not exist. Not in the Republican Party, not in the more influential parts of the Democratic Party.

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No. That's assimilation. A population group is integrated when nobody has a problem with the fact they're there, not when they're not there anymore except in the genetical sense.

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Question is in how much these are actually cultural differences. 

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Please. Working class Whites. No Political Correctness here. Of course, you're only talking of a certain type of "Liberal", a vocal one, but very much a minority within American "Liberalism".

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Would it, though?

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Where would be the point? And how could they? Cultural gaps are only closed by learning from one another. 

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Yes...to a point...ALthough...there are lots of Black Middle Class areas (and some Hispanic Middle Class areas too, tho' that's less common) so apparently they're still segregated. Of course, middle-class Blacks have cultural differences both with working-class Blacks and with Whites.

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Whites still tend to get mugged by Whites, Blacks by Blacks.

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Sure. Freedom of Expression.

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I haven't. You are the one of us living in a posh suburb. I am the man living in a poor, 50% non-German, inner city neighborhood. And liking it. Of course, I grew up in one.

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Well, Conservative solutions have been used much longer in America, beginning with slavery, and they've certainly been much less successful.
And speaking of double-talk: So Whites are allowed to resort to vandalism, intimidation etc because I've blocked all their other options? That's strange...

[dazzleman]

Some interesting points.

With respect to your comment on short-sightedness, it's easy to take the long view when you know you have the money to move if things go sour.  On the other hand, I understand your point - that the automatic ASSUMPTION that a black presence in the neighborhood will degrade it sometimes leads to the reality more quickly, because panic then sets in and sends the neighborhood on a downward spiral.  This has happened many places.

There is really no political support, even among liberals, for the social engineering that would be necessary to bring about economic integration.  Most people don't want it in any case, so I see no reason to pursue it.

Slavery was not a conservative solution as you say.  Slavery is what created the whole problem to begin with, and is not conservative or liberal.  It was simply an abomination.  The need to view people as inferior based upon a factor that they can't control, like racial or ethnic background, is more a psychological problem than a political issue, and one with which Europeans are quite familiar, with deadlier results than we ever had here.  When I speak of conservative solutions, I speak of bottom-up programs (as opposed to top-down liberal programs) that are designed to put more control over their destiny into the hands of people who are less well-off to help them improve their lot in life.  As an example, school vouchers in areas with failing education could help poor people, many of them black, to escape public schools that are, whether we want to admit it or not, unfixable under current political conditions.

The education problem has little to do with funding.  If that were really the solution, the problem would have been solved a long time ago.  In my state, Hartford schools get so much aid that they spend more per student than most of the richest districts.  Yet those schools are still battle zone hellholes.  Money is not the solution; family structure and parents who instill an interest in education is much more important.  We need to give kids who desire an education a chance to escape the toxic environment that exists in urban schools, and that money alone can't cure.

I never said that sometimes violent tactics whites have used to fight integration are OK.  I simply said that it's highly hypocritical for liberals, who have exempted themselves from integration to begin with, to condemn only whites for violence, while excusing the high levels of crime and violence prevalent in largely black neighborhoods and schools.  Generally, when you attempt to force people to submit to a degredation in their quality of life, in return for nothing, and exempt yourself from this sacrifice in the progress, you can expect to get a less than enthusiastic reaction.  It is also an oversimplification to say that crime doesn't cross racial lines.  It does, and when it does, whites are victimized by blacks at 9x the rate at which blacks are victimized by whites.


Personally, I've never been one of those people who has a fit if somebody black moves into the neighborhood.  I welcome blacks who share a lifestyle and values that are compatible with the type of neighborhood in which I want to live (i.e., crime-free, well-kept homes, friendly, etc.)  So much of what I have said is not necessarily based upon my own thoughts or experiences, but those of the white population in general.

This whole problem was created by slavery and the forced segregation that followed it.  When blacks tried to fit in and become part of the majority, they were violently rejected.  I can't blame them for being reluctant to try again, but I think it's sad to see them playing the opposite side of the same coin as white racists, emphasizing differences rather than stressing similarities.

This is a complex issue that needs input from all sides.  Political correctness has made that impossible.  Recognition of reality is taboo in these cases, but reality is where we must start.  And the reality I can't get past is the 70% black illegitimacy rate.  This is the greatest single barrier at this time to black advancement in the educational and economic sphere.

[minionofmidas]

Some interesting points.

With respect to your comment on short-sightedness, it's easy to take the long view when you know you have the money to move if things go sour.

True. (well, personally I don't have it, but...)

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 Absolutely true.

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Yeah, that was something of a cheap shot. (Although, having people above and below, is conservative, in the conservative sense of the word...)

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Yes.

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Another cheap shot, but a good one. Point taken.

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So the trickle-down theory of economic growth is liberal, while local empowerment is conservative? My, things have changed...

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Yeah, it's not an altogether bad idea...I think the American "Liberal" resistance to the idea is due to the fear that church-run schools are sponsored through the backdoor...my own gripe with it is that, speaking from past experience on this planet, it'd be much better to try and get everybody back into the state school system then to get as many people out of it as possible. But, of course, you're right - there's no political will to do anything like that, Democrats or Republicans.

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You are right...money alone is not going to do much. I got carried away there. "parents who instill an interest in education" are indeed very important - although one aim of a school system must be to reduce its importance - the problem being, next: How to get such parents? If education hasn't helped people in their own life, they'll find it hard to instill an interest in it in their kids even when they try. I'm not saying I have the solutiion, btw.

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I guess you meant "those liberals who have exempted...". A highrise apartment block with security at the door is basically a vertical gated community. Definitely not my cup of tea.

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Obviously. 

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And what percentage of crimes does this constitute?
Quite apart from questions like, who defines what a crime is, etc. And, of course, there's lots of crimes where there is no victim. What percentage of American prisoners have been victimized by the War on Drugs? And isn't their incarceration a crime?

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Good for you.  

(I left some good stuff out here, simply because I didn't have anything to add)

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Same as in Iceland, assuming your figure is correct.

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It is certainly hurtful in the economic sphere, partly due to the tax structure.
It needn't be in the educational sphere...although I can see how it is likely to be (a single parent is likely to have less time for her/his kids, after all).It may be more hurtful for boys than for girls, btw. This is what's happening in Jamaica, another country with low legitimacy (a stupid word, come to think of it) rates. Jamaican boys tend to drop out of school much earlier than their sisters, the assumption being that a man can always feed himself some way.

[bullmoose88]

The only thing I've heard is that North Carolina drivers make Jersey drivers seem like F1 pros.