Audiobook10 hours
American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass
Written by Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton
Narrated by James Anderson Foster
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
American Apartheid shows how the black ghetto was created by whites during the first half of the twentieth century in order to isolate growing urban black populations. It goes on to show that, despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968, segregation is perpetuated today through an interlocking set of individual actions, institutional practices, and governmental policies. In some urban areas the degree of black segregation is so intense and occurs in so many dimensions simultaneously that it amounts to "hypersegregation."
The authors demonstrate that this systematic segregation of African Americans leads inexorably to the creation of underclass communities during periods of economic downturn. Under conditions of extreme segregation, any increase in the overall rate of black poverty yields a marked increase in the geographic concentration of indigence and the deterioration of social and economic conditions in black communities. As ghetto residents adapt to this increasingly harsh environment under a climate of racial isolation, they evolve attitudes, behaviors, and practices that further marginalize their neighborhoods and undermine their chances of success in mainstream American society. This book is a sober challenge to those who argue that race is of declining significance in the United States today.
The authors demonstrate that this systematic segregation of African Americans leads inexorably to the creation of underclass communities during periods of economic downturn. Under conditions of extreme segregation, any increase in the overall rate of black poverty yields a marked increase in the geographic concentration of indigence and the deterioration of social and economic conditions in black communities. As ghetto residents adapt to this increasingly harsh environment under a climate of racial isolation, they evolve attitudes, behaviors, and practices that further marginalize their neighborhoods and undermine their chances of success in mainstream American society. This book is a sober challenge to those who argue that race is of declining significance in the United States today.
Author
Douglas S. Massey
Douglas S. Massey is the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University and Director of its Office of Population Research.
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Reviews for American Apartheid
Rating: 4.220588235294118 out of 5 stars
4/5
34 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Massey and Denton propose a theory of the American "urban underclass" that is based on premise that residential segregation--the ghetto--is a condition that has been created and perpetuated by white America throughout the 20th century and intensifying since the 1950s. Based exclusively on US Census data, they show that African Americans are by far the most segregated demographic in the US: the richest African Americans are still more segregated than the poorest Hispanics. The consequences of residential segregation are devastating and, Massey and Denton argue, are the precipitating factors in the perpetuation of the urban underclass. They include poorly funded neighborhood schools (which fail to give students exposure to a more diverse racial environment, multiplying the challenge of escaping the cycle perpetuating the ghetto) and isolation from social networks (that are the primary connection to jobs and upward mobility for whites).White flight and black exclusion are the two ways that residential segregation is perpetuated. If exclusion methods like neighborhood associations, real estate agent steering, and threats of violence do not do the job and the black population grows beyond 10% or so, whites leave the neighborhood in droves for the suburbs. When polled, few African Americans say they prefer to live in all black neighborhoods. To the contrary, they overwhelmingly support an even proportion of 50% black and 50% white, supporting the argument that the ghetto is imposed by whites upon blacks.Massey and Denton's hypothesis does not require (though they do mention approvingly) the assumption that black urban culture itself contributes to urban poverty, a view that African American Studies scholars like Robin D.G. Kelly reject. Residential segregation alone can account for the crisis. For this reason, I think it is an issue that deserves more attention than any other facing urban America today, and this book convinced me.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The data-driven argument of this book demonstrates how and why America has a segregated underclass distinctly within the Black population. White people exhibit a preference for primarily white, or "not too Black" neighborhoods, which, combined with multiple cultural and structural forces, create natural tipping points that create irreversible Black ghettos. I've read a lot more economic research and relatively little sociology research. Sociology is often treated as a lighter, less rigorous field within social sciences. This book disproved that perception for me. It sequentially controls for income and skin tone, over time, to show how the segregating forces affect Blacks distinctly more than any other BIPOC or immigrant group. It's also balanced in it's sources, including input and research from the likes of Charles Murray (who provided a cover testimonial).