Note: If we compare the race in the United States to a patchwork robe made of many pieces of cloth, the African American community is undoubtedly the most eye-catching black patch among them. The history of African Americans can be traced back to the African slave trade, so they were discriminated against in the United States, a country based on slavery, and were subjected to various harsh treatment and even oppression over the long years that followed, including ethnic segregation.
Ethnic isolation in metropolitan areas has always been a chronic disease in American society, but few people are willing to face the past. Today, it seems that the false idea that urban zoning planning with race as standard is formed by “de facto” segregation, is the result of personal bias, income differences or the actions of private institutions such as banks and real estate companies. In his book "The Color of Law", Richard Rostein detailed the way in which the federal government used public policies to deliberately strengthen racial residence isolation without any concealment. It irrefutably confirmed that the discriminatory residence model in the United States that has continued to this day is precisely caused by "legal" apartheid, and exposes its huge damage to economic and educational equity and judicial justice.
In the decade after this book was published, Richard also received many questions and criticisms, such as: Why did the apartheid policy of predecessors need to pay for later generations, or did Americans need to pay for later immigrants? Why force us to racial integration? Should blacks first look at their crime rate before demanding racial integration and make such requests after they have made it? Is it not that the real reason why African Americans cannot escape the settlement is that there are too many single mothers who are powerless or unwilling to properly raise their children? Isn’t this something that blacks themselves haven’t handled?
To address these sharp and even mean but to some extent understand why they come from, Richard Rostein added a question and answer at the end of the book. Based on facts and data, he not only reveals to us the deeper racial discrimination and policy bias behind the various stereotypes of American society, but perhaps for every self-knowing or unaware racial discriminator in other societies, these answers also point directly to their ignorance and selfishness.
When all this happened, I was not born yet. When my family came to this country, segregation had already existed. It is not our business to impose apartheid on African Americans. Why do we have to make sacrifices and correct them now?
Sherrilyn Ifffil, chairman of the National Association for Colored Advancement, once answered a similar question, saying: "In 1776, your ancestors were not here, but you also ate burgers on July 4, right?" What she wanted to express was that our ancestors fought for our freedom, sometimes even gave their lives for it, and we did not make the same sacrifice, but we also benefited from it. When we become Americans, we accept not only the privileges that citizenship brings us for free, but also the responsibility it gives us to correct mistakes that are not made by us. Our administration has caused segregation in the African-American community and now it must be remedyed by our administration, whether we or our ancestors are involved or not.
It is normal for people to want to live with people with the same historical and cultural background as theirs. Some communities are basically Jewish, Italian, or Chinese. We African Americans want to have our own community, too. Why do you force us to racial integration?
I can't think of any policy that "forces" African Americans to racial integration, but we can provide reward mechanisms that encourage them to do so. Subsidies should be provided to low-income Americans, otherwise they will not be able to leave the inner city settlement. Middle-class African Americans who now live in lower middle-class apartheid communities should also be incentivized to move to racially integrated communities. However, it is quite reasonable to think about why we have to put in such great effort to persuade people to follow a policy that no one seems to like, whether black or white.
Note: If we compare the race in the United States to a patchwork robe made of many pieces of cloth, the African American community is undoubtedly the most eye-catching black patch among them. The history of African Americans can be traced back to the African slave trade, so they were discriminated against in the United States, a country based on slavery, and were subjected to various harsh treatment and even oppression over the long years that followed, including ethnic segregation.
Ethnic isolation in metropolitan areas has always been a chronic disease in American society, but few people are willing to face the past. Today, it seems that the false idea that urban zoning planning with race as standard is formed by “de facto” segregation, is the result of personal bias, income differences or the actions of private institutions such as banks and real estate companies. In his book "The Color of Law", Richard Rostein detailed the way in which the federal government used public policies to deliberately strengthen racial residence isolation without any concealment. It irrefutably confirmed that the discriminatory residence model in the United States that has continued to this day is precisely caused by "legal" apartheid, and exposes its huge damage to economic and educational equity and judicial justice.
In the decade after this book was published, Richard also received many questions and criticisms, such as: Why did the apartheid policy of predecessors need to pay for later generations, or did Americans need to pay for later immigrants? Why force us to racial integration? Should blacks first look at their crime rate before demanding racial integration and make such requests after they have made it? Is it not that the real reason why African Americans cannot escape the settlement is that there are too many single mothers who are powerless or unwilling to properly raise their children? Isn’t this something that blacks themselves haven’t handled?
To address these sharp and even mean but to some extent understand why they come from, Richard Rostein added a question and answer at the end of the book. Based on facts and data, he not only reveals to us the deeper racial discrimination and policy bias behind the various stereotypes of American society, but perhaps for every self-knowing or unaware racial discriminator in other societies, these answers also point directly to their ignorance and selfishness.
When all this happened, I was not born yet. When my family came to this country, segregation had already existed. It is not our business to impose apartheid on African Americans. Why do we have to make sacrifices and correct them now?
Sherrilyn Ifffil, chairman of the National Association for Colored Advancement, once answered a similar question, saying: "In 1776, your ancestors were not here, but you also ate burgers on July 4, right?" What she wanted to express was that our ancestors fought for our freedom, sometimes even gave their lives for it, and we did not make the same sacrifice, but we also benefited from it. When we become Americans, we accept not only the privileges that citizenship brings us for free, but also the responsibility it gives us to correct mistakes that are not made by us. Our administration has caused segregation in the African-American community and now it must be remedyed by our administration, whether we or our ancestors are involved or not.
It is normal for people to want to live with people with the same historical and cultural background as theirs. Some communities are basically Jewish, Italian, or Chinese. We African Americans want to have our own community, too. Why do you force us to racial integration?
I can't think of any policy that "forces" African Americans to racial integration, but we can provide reward mechanisms that encourage them to do so. Subsidies should be provided to low-income Americans, otherwise they will not be able to leave the inner city settlement. Middle-class African Americans who now live in lower middle-class apartheid communities should also be incentivized to move to racially integrated communities. However, it is quite reasonable to think about why we have to put in such great effort to persuade people to follow a policy that no one seems to like, whether black or white.
survey shows that most African Americans prefer racially inclusive communities, as do whites. However, African Americans define racially integrated communities as 20% to 50% of residents are African American communities, while whites define this as they dominate—only 10% of residents are African American communities. If more than 10% of African Americans appear in a community, whites often start moving away, and soon blacks in that community will account for an overwhelming majority. If the efforts to racial integration have such consequences, it would be better if such efforts were not done.
However, it is not enough to target 10% of African Americans as a convergence target, because in our major metropolitan areas, there is more than that proportion of African Americans. In the Atlanta area, African-Americans make up 32% of the population, Chicago is 17%, Detroit is 23%, and New York-New Jersey-Connecticut is 15%. If we say that in a stable racial integration community, the proportion of African Americans should be 10% of their average in the metropolitan area, then once the proportion of blacks in a suburban residential area exceeds 10%, whites will have to leave, and stable racial integration will never be possible. If we only try to integrate racially in places where we cannot see or hardly see African Americans, it may not work.
African Americans themselves do not want to integrate, this view is just a white whimsical idea. Thousands of African Americans bravely moved into previously dominated white communities, risking hostility and even violence. This history has led to other African Americans hesitation in their efforts to close the gap with others. Today, when African Americans move into predominantly white communities, they are still likely to be stopped by police on their way home, and the surveillance they are being taken when shopping in retail stores is extremely strict. Teachers will think that their students are not capable enough and are not qualified to take challenging courses. In racially integrated schools, African-American students are often severely punished for minor violations, and schools usually turn a blind eye to the same violation if it occurs to white students.
The interracial hostility of the white community is well known, and if we feel that most African Americans prefer to choose apartheid unless the white community welcomes them, there is some truth to the idea that this is true. African-American escape from segregation cannot be regarded as a free choice until the white community welcomes African-Americans. In predominantly white areas, reforms to police law enforcement and school academic and discipline policies are crucial, and they also have certain incentives to African Americans to take risks and believe that these reforms are true.
But motivation alone is not enough. To build a racially integrated society, African Americans must also take greater risks. A partner at a well-known law firm once explained to me why she opposed my racial integration initiative: "I am a middle-class African-American working woman, I want to live where I feel comfortable, I hope the beauty salons there know how to trim my hair, I hope it's not too far from the church I often go to, I hope there can be kale in supermarkets there."
No wealthy suburban residential area can achieve full racial integration overnight. So, if my lawyer friend now moved into a pure white community, she couldn’t find the barber, church and supermarket she wanted. However, once the community begins to integrate, beauty salons that specialize in African-American hairstyles will appear, and supermarkets will also start selling leafy green vegetables. At first she might have to go back to her former community to worship, which is the price to pay for the benefit of integration, for herself, for her children and for our country.
Nowadays, many white middle-class communities have shopping access to traditional kosher food, Italian food and Asian food in supermarkets, although Jews, Italians and Asians account for only a minority in this area. However, when the first members of these nations came here, there must be no such products in the supermarket. Someone must be a pioneer. The law firm partner I communicated with may not want to be a pioneer, and if she doesn't want to, she doesn't have to do it.However, to solve the economic, social and political problems that have been long-standing due to "legal" segregation, someone must take the lead in action. If I choose to stay, we shouldn't force anyone to leave the apartheid community, but the government has established many incentives to persuade people to abandon harmful behavior: we impose heavy taxes on cigarettes, we subsidize staff who voluntarily deposit money in their own pension accounts, and if commuters ride-sharing, we build fast lanes for them. Therefore, we also want to inspire families who choose to settle in ethnically integrated areas and support them in settlement there. African Americans can give up these rewards and continue to choose segregation, but the government should make efforts to make different choices easier.
If we can truly achieve racial integration, if all the "signs and events" of slavery can be completely eradicated, then some communities can certainly have a higher proportion of African Americans than average, just as some communities have Jewish, Italian, Chinese, or other ethnic populations above average. However, compared with the typical apartheid model in cities and suburban residential areas, the situation in metropolitan areas will be qualitatively different.
Shouldn’t black people take more responsibility for their success? The crime rate in the black community is high, so whites oppose convergence because they don’t want African Americans to bring crime into the white community. Even when there is a job to do, young people will join gangs and sell drugs. Shouldn’t we consider the issue of racial integration after the culture in black settlements has changed?
Of course, everyone – black, white, and others – should take greater responsibility for their own success. African Americans are no exception, and white Americans are no exception.
After reaching the above consensus, let’s take a look at the facts.
Most young African Americans are indeed taking responsibility for their own success, and many work “double their efforts” to succeed. This sense of responsibility and additional effort tends to pay off—but this reward is less than the reward whites get from responsibility and effort. In 2014, among young (25-29 years old) adult African Americans, 21% of men and 24% of women received college education. The completion rate of high school academics exceeds 90%. This suggests that the focus issue of antisocial behavior in a few African Americans is an overly convenient excuse to evade action to integrate most people.
"The War of Drugs", which includes the mass detention of young men and adolescent boys living in low-income African-American communities, began in the 1970s. Based on current trends, up to one-third of African Americans born now will stay in prison for a period of time during their lifetime, mainly due to non-violent crimes. With this in mind, it is surprising that African-Americans have such high college graduation rates.
Michelle Alexander mentioned in her important book The New Jim Crow that young African men are less likely to smoke or sell drugs than young white men, but they are more likely to be arrested for smoking or selling drugs; once arrested, they are more likely to be sentenced; once sentenced, they are more likely to be sentenced to a long-term prison sentence. African-American car drivers are no more likely to change lanes without turning on the lights than white drivers, but when they do this, they are more likely to be stopped by the police, and once they are stopped, they are more likely to be punished, including being imprisoned for not paying a fine. The Justice Department’s investigation into police enforcement in Ferguson, Missouri, found that it is more common for African Americans to be stopped by police than whites, but among those stopped and searched, more whites carry banned drugs than African Americans. If police want to increase the probability of drug discovery, conducting a "cross-check" operation in white communities may be better than in black communities.
throws non-violent criminals in residential areas into prison, which will affect more than one generation. The absence of one parent will have an adverse impact on the child's early development and academic performance.Once a young person is imprisoned, even if the sentence is short (many people have not short sentences), he may be in the position of second-class residents throughout his life: he has no right to vote and will be kicked out of the public housing and is not qualified to receive food stamps. Their family relationship, even if it is not irreversible, will be damaged. Most companies won't hire them. They cannot find legal jobs and will be imprisoned again when they try to make a living with the underground economy.
We should not overemphasize the extent to which behavioral changes will defeat the environment in the settlement area, and our society in a broader sense is responsible for it. Lead poisoning is an example. Nationally, African-American children have twice the blood lead levels than white children, which is very dangerous and irreversible. The difference in blood lead levels should be attributed primarily to living in a dilapidated community for a long time, with lead-containing paint peeling off the walls and lead-containing pipes sending water to homes and schools. When the developing brain absorbs lead (which hinders the necessary calcium absorption), children's self-control will decrease. Lead poisoning indicates risky behavior in adolescence, while early adulthood will lead to more violence and crime. For example, because Flint, Michigan used lead-contaminated water systems in 2014 and 2015, we can reasonably predict that crime rates will rise when children in this city (mostly African Americans) enter puberty or early adulthood.
Of course, things are much easier to do if every African American refuses to take an opposing, alienated attitude. However, reforms to the political and economic system that facilitate this attitude are crucial to each of us. No one can wait for the other party to take the initiative.
Is it not that there are too many single mothers who are powerless or unwilling to properly raise their children? Should we encourage them to have children after marriage so that they can fulfill their responsibilities of raising them more properly?
The government policy of separating this country first targets dual-working families with children from African-American working class and middle-class people. The thousands of African Americans who were subjected to violence under police protection when moving into their houses were not single mothers with children. Single parents become a reason to reject racial integration, which is an idea that only comes out after the fact and an excuse for inaction.
The fertility rate of African-American women is declining. Compared with adults, the fertility rate of young girls is declining much faster. Education in contraception is more in place, which helps delay the first pregnancy. The school plan allows girls to have more expectations for their careers and can also play the same role. But women of any race will not push the time for voluntary childbirth unlimited, and their goal of raising children will not be suppressed by moral preaching or schooling. The high rate of single parents in residential areas is mainly due to the lack of marriage partners in young adult women. Young black men are detained or unemployed. This phenomenon is the root cause of this phenomenon.
We may regard marriage as a romantic commitment, but it is also an economic system. The total income of two-parent families is often higher and can be used for the support and education of their children. A recent survey found that 78% of women who are unmarried in all races but want to get married want to find a spouse with a stable income; this condition is more important than having the same religious beliefs, a consistent concept in raising children, an equal education or a member of the same race. If young men in a community have high unemployment rates (or just doing some low-income jobs), their children’s mothers have no motivation to marry. Now, among African Americans who have never been married between the ages of 25 and 34, the ratio of working men to women is 51:100. Among white, Asian, Spanish and other groups, the number of men with jobs is roughly the same as that of women. Unless the number of men with jobs and no criminal record in the African American community can increase, it is unlikely that we can succeed if we want to reduce the number of women with children but are unable to raise them well.
The proportion of single-parent white women is increasing, but they usually have the conditions to hire others to help and can raise their own children.Moreover, a large percentage of white and black “single” mothers are living with their children’s fathers: among whites, marriage rates have declined at a rate that has exceeded the retention rate of full-parent families.
There is a strange aspect of white racial paranoia - white women are more willing to get married to black partners than white men, which worsens the problem. Among African-American men who got married in 2010, 24% of the spouses were not African-American, but only 9% of African-American women who got married in the same year were not African-American men. This unique racial and ethnic imbalance has been around since the early 20th century, when interracial marriages were rarer than they are now. The detention and unemployment rates among young African-American men are already higher, and coupled with the gender differences in interracial marriages, the proportion of single mothers among African-Americans will obviously remain high.
We have well-designed educational programs designed to teach low-income African mothers better educational skills, but Congress’ financial support for these programs is only maintained within the scope of symbolic experiments. It would be a bit ironic if we say we have to wait until African women do better as mothers to support their integration into the middle-class community and then not provide the support they want and need. And we don’t have the right to wait until all low-income, uneducated moms learn perfect educational skills before taking action and removing segregation in the metropolitan areas. Middle-class whites are not perfect in caring for their children, but if their children want to succeed, it is enough for mothers to be half as black mothers.
The excerpt of this article is excerpted from the book "The Color of Law", which is abridged from the original text and is published with authorization from the publisher.
However, to solve the economic, social and political problems that have been long-standing due to "legal" segregation, someone must take the lead in action. If I choose to stay, we shouldn't force anyone to leave the apartheid community, but the government has established many incentives to persuade people to abandon harmful behavior: we impose heavy taxes on cigarettes, we subsidize staff who voluntarily deposit money in their own pension accounts, and if commuters ride-sharing, we build fast lanes for them. Therefore, we also want to inspire families who choose to settle in ethnically integrated areas and support them in settlement there. African Americans can give up these rewards and continue to choose segregation, but the government should make efforts to make different choices easier.If we can truly achieve racial integration, if all the "signs and events" of slavery can be completely eradicated, then some communities can certainly have a higher proportion of African Americans than average, just as some communities have Jewish, Italian, Chinese, or other ethnic populations above average. However, compared with the typical apartheid model in cities and suburban residential areas, the situation in metropolitan areas will be qualitatively different.
Shouldn’t black people take more responsibility for their success? The crime rate in the black community is high, so whites oppose convergence because they don’t want African Americans to bring crime into the white community. Even when there is a job to do, young people will join gangs and sell drugs. Shouldn’t we consider the issue of racial integration after the culture in black settlements has changed?
Of course, everyone – black, white, and others – should take greater responsibility for their own success. African Americans are no exception, and white Americans are no exception.
After reaching the above consensus, let’s take a look at the facts.
Most young African Americans are indeed taking responsibility for their own success, and many work “double their efforts” to succeed. This sense of responsibility and additional effort tends to pay off—but this reward is less than the reward whites get from responsibility and effort. In 2014, among young (25-29 years old) adult African Americans, 21% of men and 24% of women received college education. The completion rate of high school academics exceeds 90%. This suggests that the focus issue of antisocial behavior in a few African Americans is an overly convenient excuse to evade action to integrate most people.
"The War of Drugs", which includes the mass detention of young men and adolescent boys living in low-income African-American communities, began in the 1970s. Based on current trends, up to one-third of African Americans born now will stay in prison for a period of time during their lifetime, mainly due to non-violent crimes. With this in mind, it is surprising that African-Americans have such high college graduation rates.
Michelle Alexander mentioned in her important book The New Jim Crow that young African men are less likely to smoke or sell drugs than young white men, but they are more likely to be arrested for smoking or selling drugs; once arrested, they are more likely to be sentenced; once sentenced, they are more likely to be sentenced to a long-term prison sentence. African-American car drivers are no more likely to change lanes without turning on the lights than white drivers, but when they do this, they are more likely to be stopped by the police, and once they are stopped, they are more likely to be punished, including being imprisoned for not paying a fine. The Justice Department’s investigation into police enforcement in Ferguson, Missouri, found that it is more common for African Americans to be stopped by police than whites, but among those stopped and searched, more whites carry banned drugs than African Americans. If police want to increase the probability of drug discovery, conducting a "cross-check" operation in white communities may be better than in black communities.
throws non-violent criminals in residential areas into prison, which will affect more than one generation. The absence of one parent will have an adverse impact on the child's early development and academic performance.Once a young person is imprisoned, even if the sentence is short (many people have not short sentences), he may be in the position of second-class residents throughout his life: he has no right to vote and will be kicked out of the public housing and is not qualified to receive food stamps. Their family relationship, even if it is not irreversible, will be damaged. Most companies won't hire them. They cannot find legal jobs and will be imprisoned again when they try to make a living with the underground economy.
We should not overemphasize the extent to which behavioral changes will defeat the environment in the settlement area, and our society in a broader sense is responsible for it. Lead poisoning is an example. Nationally, African-American children have twice the blood lead levels than white children, which is very dangerous and irreversible. The difference in blood lead levels should be attributed primarily to living in a dilapidated community for a long time, with lead-containing paint peeling off the walls and lead-containing pipes sending water to homes and schools. When the developing brain absorbs lead (which hinders the necessary calcium absorption), children's self-control will decrease. Lead poisoning indicates risky behavior in adolescence, while early adulthood will lead to more violence and crime. For example, because Flint, Michigan used lead-contaminated water systems in 2014 and 2015, we can reasonably predict that crime rates will rise when children in this city (mostly African Americans) enter puberty or early adulthood.
Of course, things are much easier to do if every African American refuses to take an opposing, alienated attitude. However, reforms to the political and economic system that facilitate this attitude are crucial to each of us. No one can wait for the other party to take the initiative.
Is it not that there are too many single mothers who are powerless or unwilling to properly raise their children? Should we encourage them to have children after marriage so that they can fulfill their responsibilities of raising them more properly?
The government policy of separating this country first targets dual-working families with children from African-American working class and middle-class people. The thousands of African Americans who were subjected to violence under police protection when moving into their houses were not single mothers with children. Single parents become a reason to reject racial integration, which is an idea that only comes out after the fact and an excuse for inaction.
The fertility rate of African-American women is declining. Compared with adults, the fertility rate of young girls is declining much faster. Education in contraception is more in place, which helps delay the first pregnancy. The school plan allows girls to have more expectations for their careers and can also play the same role. But women of any race will not push the time for voluntary childbirth unlimited, and their goal of raising children will not be suppressed by moral preaching or schooling. The high rate of single parents in residential areas is mainly due to the lack of marriage partners in young adult women. Young black men are detained or unemployed. This phenomenon is the root cause of this phenomenon.
We may regard marriage as a romantic commitment, but it is also an economic system. The total income of two-parent families is often higher and can be used for the support and education of their children. A recent survey found that 78% of women who are unmarried in all races but want to get married want to find a spouse with a stable income; this condition is more important than having the same religious beliefs, a consistent concept in raising children, an equal education or a member of the same race. If young men in a community have high unemployment rates (or just doing some low-income jobs), their children’s mothers have no motivation to marry. Now, among African Americans who have never been married between the ages of 25 and 34, the ratio of working men to women is 51:100. Among white, Asian, Spanish and other groups, the number of men with jobs is roughly the same as that of women. Unless the number of men with jobs and no criminal record in the African American community can increase, it is unlikely that we can succeed if we want to reduce the number of women with children but are unable to raise them well.
The proportion of single-parent white women is increasing, but they usually have the conditions to hire others to help and can raise their own children.Moreover, a large percentage of white and black “single” mothers are living with their children’s fathers: among whites, marriage rates have declined at a rate that has exceeded the retention rate of full-parent families.
There is a strange aspect of white racial paranoia - white women are more willing to get married to black partners than white men, which worsens the problem. Among African-American men who got married in 2010, 24% of the spouses were not African-American, but only 9% of African-American women who got married in the same year were not African-American men. This unique racial and ethnic imbalance has been around since the early 20th century, when interracial marriages were rarer than they are now. The detention and unemployment rates among young African-American men are already higher, and coupled with the gender differences in interracial marriages, the proportion of single mothers among African-Americans will obviously remain high.
We have well-designed educational programs designed to teach low-income African mothers better educational skills, but Congress’ financial support for these programs is only maintained within the scope of symbolic experiments. It would be a bit ironic if we say we have to wait until African women do better as mothers to support their integration into the middle-class community and then not provide the support they want and need. And we don’t have the right to wait until all low-income, uneducated moms learn perfect educational skills before taking action and removing segregation in the metropolitan areas. Middle-class whites are not perfect in caring for their children, but if their children want to succeed, it is enough for mothers to be half as black mothers.
The excerpt of this article is excerpted from the book "The Color of Law", which is abridged from the original text and is published with authorization from the publisher.
