The Imperative of Integration

261 Pages·2010·1.563 MB·English

by  Elizabeth Anderson

THE IMPERATIVE OF INTEGRATION
This page intentionally left blank
the imperative of integration
ELIZABETH ANDERSON
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD
Copyright © 2010 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Anderson, Elizabeth.
The imperative of integration / Elizabeth Anderson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-13981-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Equality—United States. 2. Race discrimination—United States. 3. Segregation—
United States. 4. Affirmative action programs—United States.
5. Minorities—United States—Social conditions. 6. United States—Race relations. I. Title.
HN90.S6A64 2010
305.896'073—dc22 2010023222
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Sabon
Printed on acid-free paper. (cid:102)
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
TO RACHEL AND BENJAMIN
This page intentionally left blank
CONTENTS
Preface ix
ONE
Segregation and Social Inequality 1
TWO
Racial Segregation and Material Inequality in the United States 23
THREE
Segregation, Racial Stigma, and Discrimination 44
FOUR
Racial Segregation Today: A Normative Assessment 67
FIVE
Democratic Ideals and Segregation 89
SIX
The Imperative of Integration 112
SEVEN
Understanding Affirmative Action 135
EIGHT
The Folly and Incoherence of Color Blindness 155
NINE
The Ordeal and Promise of Integration 180
Notes193
Index 239
This page intentionally left blank
PREFACE
I
n 1988 I needed to move from Ann Arbor to the Detroit area to spare
my partner, a sleep-deprived medical resident at Detroit’s Henry Ford
Hospital, a significant commute to work. As I searched for housing in the
metropolitan area, I discovered some surprisingly sharp residential pat-
terns. In the lovely community of Oak Park, just north of Detroit, blocks
of carefully tended middle-class homes with impeccable lawns were di-
vided between all-black neighborhoods to the south and all-white, largely
Jewish neighborhoods to the north. In Southfield, I examined some apart-
ments and homes for rent north of 10 Mile Road, two miles north of the
Detroit border. Prospective landlords assured me, a white woman then in
her late twenties, that I had no reason to worry about renting there since
“we’re holding the line against blacks at 10 Mile Road.” One of them
then showed me a home with a pile of cockroaches in the kitchen. Land-
lords in the Detroit metropolitan area appeared confident that whites
would rather live with cockroaches as housemates than with blacks as
neighbors.
We decided to rent a house in South Rosedale Park, a stable working/
middle-class Detroit neighborhood with beautiful 1920s brick homes.
The tree-lined streets were divided by grassy strips adorned with flowers
planted each spring by the residents as a communal activity. We were wel-
comed to this effort by our friendly homeowning neighbors. Our neigh-
borhood, which was about 80 percent black, was a model of cordial race
relations.
Matters were different in my place of employment, the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor. At the time a rash of racially hostile incidents
targeting black, Latino, Native American, and Asian students was rais-
ing alarms across campus. One case involved flyers posted on campus
that depicted a lynching along with the statement, “Niggers ought to be
hanging from trees.” Although such overtly racist incidents got the most
publicity, they did not constitute either the dominant or, in terms of ag-
gregate effects, the most damaging mode of undesirable racial interac-
tions on campus. More pervasive, insidious, and cumulatively damaging
were subtler patterns of racial discomfort, alienation, and ignorant and
cloddish interaction, such as classroom dynamics in which white students
focused on problems and grievances peculiar to them, ignored what black