Self-segregation

The racial integration of American institutions was an important part of the 1960s Civil Rights movement. However, many neighborhoods, schools, and social and religious organizations continued to be segregated even after laws enforcing segregation disappeared. Some observers have maintained that this is largely a result of self-segregation by minority group members, sparking debates over the extent and desirability of self-segregation.

Racial segregation by law, also known as de jure segregation, was common in the United States until the Civil Rights movement. Since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the integration of American institutions has been a major goal for many governmental organizations and concerned citizens. However, the end of segregation by law did not produce the end of actual segregation. In their influential book American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (1993), sociologists Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton offered evidence that American neighborhoods were becoming more racially segregated over the course of the twentieth century. The National School Boards Association reported in 1989 that a majority of Black American schoolchildren were attending racially segregated schools. Even after integration, many Americans socialized primarily within their own racial groups.

Given this continuing racial separation, the issue of self-segregation became a topic of debate on several points. First, observers disagreed as to what extent continuing segregation was a product of self-segregation rather than of continuing racial discrimination. Second, it was often unclear whether minority group members are more likely than White individuals to avoid social contact with outsiders. Third, some commentators argued that self-segregation is undesirable and destructive for minority group members and for American society in general, while others held that voluntary segregation was often be beneficial for specific reasons such as cultural support structures.

In American Apartheid, Massey and Denton pointed to residentially segregated neighborhoods as evidence of continuing systematic discrimination in American housing as evidence of ongoing discrimination despite the Fair Housing Act. However, sociologist Orlando Patterson responded that Black Americans tended to live in majority Black neighborhoods as a matter of choice. Because school districts are based on residential areas, if Patterson was correct, segregated schools, as well as segregated neighborhoods, would be largely a product of voluntary self-segregation.

Some of those who object to the continuing segregation of American society have criticized minority group members for clustering in their own neighborhoods or friendship groups. However, according to a study of college students by University of Michigan scholar Sylvia Hurtado, White students are more likely than Black Americans, Mexican Americans, or Asian Americans to voluntarily segregate themselves. Therefore, minority self-segregation may be a response to a real or perceived lack of complete acceptance by White individuals. When minority members do engage in self-segregation, they often do so in order to overcome disadvantages. In her book Blacks in College (1984), for example, Jacqueline Fleming reported that Black Americans in majority Black colleges showed more academic progress and higher graduation rates than Black Americans in majority White colleges. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, experts noted that America was subtly and slowly self-segregating. Massey's Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System (2007) documents this process.

In the 2020s, research continued to show that residential and educational segregation persists in US cities, often driven by economic disparities and structural inequities rather than purely voluntary choices. Studies highlighted that while some minority communities voluntarily cluster for cultural and social support, systemic factors such as housing affordability, school zoning, and racial discrimination remain central to understanding ongoing segregation.

Bibliography

Anderson, Elizabeth. The Imperative of Integration. Princeton UP, 2010.

Carr, James H., and Nandinee K. Kutty. Segregation: The Rising Costs for America. Routledge, 2008.

Chang, Alvin. "White America Is Quietly Self-Segregating." Vox, 31 July 2018, www.vox.com/2017/1/18/14296126/white-segregated-suburb-neighborhood-cartoon. Accessed 2 Nov. 2024.

Chetty, Raj, et al. “The Long-Term Impacts of Neighborhood Segregation on Economic Opportunity and Social Mobility in the United States.” American Economic Review, vol. 112, no. 10, 2022, pp. 3187–221.

Fleming, Jacqueline. Blacks in College. Jossey, 1984.

Loevy, Robert D. The Civil Rights Act of 1964: The Passage of the Law That Ended Racial Segregation. State U of New York P, 1997.

Schroeder, Oliver, and David T. Smith. De Facto Segregation and Civil Rights: Struggle for Legal and Social Equality. Hein, 1965.