Dark Ghettos Summary

501 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Integration vs segregation

In the book, Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform, Shelby discusses self-segregation and integration of different neighborhoods. He proposes that blacks prefer to live amongst themselves and segregate themselves due to their cultural ties. Shelby urges the government to not force racial integration on society as whites would not instantly help the less financially advantaged blacks and that “this practice [self segregation] is not incompatible with justice” (67). However, this claim can be questioned because during the New Deal era of the 30’s and 40’s, the government pursued an active role in segregating neighborhoods and demolishing integrated neighborhoods. This revelation brings about an important question: Is self-segregation still “just” even with evidence that the government has actively segregated …show more content…

Despite his acceptance that the government is necessary in order to get rid of ghettos, Shelby rejects the idea of integration and goes off the belief that self-segregation is a natural occurrence due to similar interests and culture by members of the same race. Even with evidence showing that the government purposely segregated groups, the idea of self-segregation isn’t unjust and even without the government, was bound to happen due to clash of interests and beliefs. Past administrations may have been racist and caused more segregation and divisions, but the notion that integration is just and that self-segregation is unjust are not entirely correct. As Shelby mentions in his book, blacks “often have an affinity for one another, and these valuable social ties sometimes express themselves as a desire to live together” (61). Society today is an example of Shelby’s words, as many immigrants, such as Hispanics and Asians, tend to live and mingle with members of the same race. It can be claimed that past

Show More
Related

  • A Review of The Strange Career of Jim Crow

    1075 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...isely. This book has been extremely influential in the world of academia and the thinking on the subject of segregation and race relations in both the North and the South, but more importantly, it has influenced race relations in practice since it was first published. However, Woodward’s work is not all perfect. Although he does present his case thoroughly, he fails to mention the Negroes specifically as often as he might have. He more often relies on actions taken by whites as his main body of evidence, often totally leaving out the actions that may have been taken by the black community as a reaction to the whites’ segregationist policies.

    Read More

  • Grace Elizabeth Hale Making Whiteness Summary

    355 Words  | 1 Pages

    Making Whiteness: the culture of segregation in the south, 1890-1940 is the work of Grace Elizabeth Hale. In her work, she explains the culture of the time between 1890 and 1940. In her book she unravels how the creation of the ‘whiteness’ of white Southerners created the ‘blackness’ identity of southern African Americans. At first read it is difficult to comprehend her use of the term ‘whiteness’, but upon completion of reading her work, notes included, makes sense. She states that racial identities today have been shaped by segregation, “...the Civil War not only freed the slaves, it freed American racism

    Read More

  • C. Vann Woodward's The Strange Career of Jim Crow

    1227 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although some of Woodward’s peripheral ideas may have been amended in varying capacities his central and driving theme, often referred to as the “Woodward Thesis,” still remains intact. This thesis states that racial segregation (also known as Jim Crow) in the South in the rigid and universal form that it had taken by 1954 did not begin right after the end of the Civil War, but instead towards the end of the century, and that before Jim Crow appeared there was a distinct period of experimentation in race relations in the South. Woodward’s seminal his...

    Read More

  • The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward

    1056 Words  | 3 Pages

    Assumptions from the beginning, presumed the Jim Crow laws went hand in hand with slavery. Slavery, though, contained an intimacy between the races that the Jim Crow South did not possess. Woodward used another historian’s quote to illustrate the familiarity of blacks and whites in the South during slavery, “In every city in Dixie,’ writes Wade, ‘blacks and whites lived side by side, sharing the same premises if not equal facilities and living constantly in each other’s presence.” (14) Slavery brought about horrible consequences for blacks, but also showed a white tolerance towards blacks. Woodward explained the effect created from the proximity between white owners and slaves was, “an overlapping of freedom and bondage that menaced the institution of slavery and promoted a familiarity and association between black and white that challenged caste taboos.” (15) The lifestyle between slaves and white owners were familiar, because of the permissiveness of their relationship. His quote displayed how interlocked blacks...

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast A Lesson Before Dying

    1317 Words  | 3 Pages

    Segregation is the act of setting someone apart from other people mainly between the different racial groups without there being a good reason. The African American’s had different privileges than the white people had. They had to do many of their daily activities separated from the white people. In A Lesson Before Dying there were many examples of segregation including that the African American’s had a different courthouse, jail, church, movie theater, Catholic and public school, department stores, bank, dentist, and doctor than the white people. The African American’s stayed downtown and the white people remained uptown. The white people also had nicer and newer building and attractions than the African American’s did. They had newer books and learning tools compared to the African American’s that had books that were falling apart and missing pages and limited amount of supplies for their students. The African American’s were treated as if they were lesser than the white people and they had to hold doors and let them go ahead of them to show that they knew that they were not equal to them and did not have the same rights or privileges as they did just because of their race. In A Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass segregation is shown through both slavery and the free African American’s during this time. It showed that the African American’s were separated from the white people and not

    Read More

  • Historical Methodology

    2024 Words  | 5 Pages

    From the beginning of the book, Woodward argues that prior to Jim Crow, segregation in the Southern states was not as strong as many assume. To support this claim he cites Slavery in the Cities, where author Richard C. Wade provides evidence for segregation while at the same time states that, “‘In every city in Dixie…blacks and whites lived side by side, sharing the same premises if not equal facilities and living constantly in each other’s presence.’”[1] In the rural areas during slavery, African Americans and whites also had a large amount of social interaction, because, as Woodward explains, “control was best maintained by a large degree of physical contact and association.”[2]

    Read More

  • Living In The Ghetto Research Paper

    723 Words  | 2 Pages

    Have you ever lived in the ghetto? If you have then you know the struggle, which is why I am going to write about when I did live in the ghetto. If you lived or live in the ghetto, then you know it sucks, gunshots every night, stray animals everywhere, homeless people, addicts and much more. Those reasons are why I always thank God and appreciate what I have. Over all it is a bad place to live and I feel sorry for people who live there.

    Read More

  • When Affirmative Action Was White Analysis

    1121 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the Origins of Economic Disparities, Douglass Massey recounts how racial violence and vigilantism impacted race-relations during the year of 1919 (Massey 49). To that end, Douglass Massey also describes the political mechanisms and policies instituted to maintain an embedded social and racial hierarchy in the increasingly multicultural North. He writes that “the distinguishing feature of racial segregation in the post-war era is the unprecedented role that government played not only in maintaining the color line, but in reinforcing and strengthening the walls of the ghetto” (Massey 61). Restrictive covenants, instrumentalized by real-estate agents, legally bounded sellers by deeds. Furthermore, these deeds, written in the form of contract law, enumerated which buyers fit the description of potential homeownership. In turn, only these potential residents were deemed eligible to buy a home in their respective all-white communities. If a white homeowner willingly decided to sell their home to an African-American family, they faced harsh repercussions and often-times extra-legal violence and intimidation from their neighbors. Given the economic impact of redlining policies, many white homeowners expressed their internalized thoughts about racial-mixing in their neighborhoods (ex. Levittown, PA and Chicago, IL) and followed unwritten codes of white flight to leave their seemingly “undesirable” neighborhood (Massey 55). Simply put, white homeowner groups produced a code of conduct and stringent deed contracts in which predominately white homeowner associations enforced through local administrative control. In sum, private actors and non-governmental organizations, such as a board of realtors, banks, and brokers, systematically excluded

    Read More

  • Residential Segregation Essay

    1077 Words  | 3 Pages

    From slavery to Jim Crow, the impact of racial discrimination has had a long lasting influence on the lives of African Americans. While inequality is by no means a new concept within the United States, the after effects have continued to have an unmatched impact on the racial disparities in society. Specifically, in the housing market, as residential segregation persists along racial and ethnic lines. Moreover, limiting the resources available to black communities such as homeownership, quality education, and wealth accumulation. Essentially leaving African Americans with an unequal access of resources and greatly affecting their ability to move upward in society due to being segregated in impoverished neighborhoods. Thus, residential segregation plays a significant role in

    Read More

  • Being Biracial-Personal Narrative

    891 Words  | 2 Pages

    I was late for school, and my father had to walk me in to class so that my teacher would know the reason for my tardiness. My dad opened the door to my classroom, and there was a hush of silence. Everyone's eyes were fixed on my father and me. He told the teacher why I was late, gave me a kiss goodbye and left for work. As I sat down at my seat, all of my so-called friends called me names and teased me. The students teased me not because I was late, but because my father was black. They were too young to understand. All of this time, they thought that I was white, because I had fare skin like them, therefore I had to be white. Growing up having a white mother and a black father was tough. To some people, being black and white is a contradiction in itself. People thought that I had to be one or the other, but not both. I thought that I was fine the way I was. But like myself, Shelby Steele was stuck in between two opposite forces of his double bind. He was black and middle class, both having significant roles in his life. "Race, he insisted, blurred class distinctions among blacks. If you were black, you were just black and that was that" (Steele 211).

    Read More

  • Racial Formation Essay

    1303 Words  | 3 Pages

    The United States used racial formation and relied on segregation that was essentially applied to all of their social structures and culture. As we can see, race and the process of racial formation have important political and economic implications. Racial formation concept seeks to connect and give meaning to how race is shaped by social structure and how certain racial categories are given meaning our lives or what they say as “common sense” Omi and Winant seek to further explain their theory through racial

    Read More

  • The Effects Of Single Mothers In The Black Family

    2043 Words  | 5 Pages

    The last major deterrent of the Negro community from a successful societal presence in America is the sad state of segregated housing. About fifty percent of Negro Americans are in the middle class, however many members of that middle class are living right in the ghettos next to the Negro Americans who are in a perpetual state of deterioration. The reason for this confinement is because white families did not accept Negro families living next to them, across them, or even in the same vicinity as them. Negro housing communities are miles away from white communities and were undersized compared to white communities, so even when middle class Negro Americans have the means to leave certain Negro communities, they do not have the power, the are stuck between a white community and a hard place.

    Read More

  • Kathryn Stockett's The Help

    488 Words  | 1 Pages

    The conflict of segregation and inequality between races in the southern U.S. during the 1960s is accurately portrayed in “The Help”. Public segregation played a huge role in the social and racial inequalities involving African Americans. African Americans were excluded from public bathroom, libraries, hotels, restaurants, schools, and were forced to occupy separate sections in vehicles of public transportation. “I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain't a color, disease ain't the Negro side of town. I want to stop that moment from coming – and it

    Read More

  • Essay About Ghettos

    1368 Words  | 3 Pages

    As Rosa Parks said, “As Americans, we still have many challenges to face and many more problems to overcome,”. One of those problems is segregation, which is the action of setting someone/something apart from others. Ghettos have played a major role in helping achieve segregation by separating the minorities from the majority; thus, making it hard for social mobility and equal opportunities for all. Ghettos first started with Jewish people and now have evolved into urban ghettos housing many minorities. This has lead to a rift between certain ethnicities. Not to mention that ghettos are always overcrowded and impoverished, causing the people who live there to fight amongst themselves.

    Read More

  • Life in the Ghettos

    841 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Bodies of men, women, and children lay strewn in great disarray” (Life in the ghettos 4-5). Others lay mortally wounded, crying out for help, moaning with pain, with head wounds or limbs torn from their bodies. The ghettos started in 1939 . During the holocaust, a ghetto was a special section of a city in which Jewish people were forced to live . They Jews in the ghettos were identified by their yellow badges worn. Within the ghetto the lives of the people oscillated in the desperate struggle between survival and death from disease or starvation. There were several families living in one apartment, and the Germans would try to starve them to death. Life in the ghettos was unbearable.

    Read More

More about Dark Ghettos Summary

Open Document