Segregation: Has anything really changed?

Throughout, the first couple of Chapter’s in the American Apartheid, Massy and Denton have really went into depth discussing racial segregation, and black ghetto’s in the past 40-50 years. He stated how there was a time of when Whites and Blacks had little to no contact with each other, we were completely separated from each other. But, then things began to turn around, with the civil rights movement and the major changes against racial segregation that were taking place. Everything was starting to look better for blacks and other minorities. But, just as quick as things were changing for the good they went back to changing for the worst again. Massey and Denton also discussed what they titled the construction of the ghettos. Ghettos can be described as places in disarray, they are not what the majority of people would like to live in, or raise a family in. For me imaging what exactly the ghettos were like is rather difficult. I came from a white middle class/upper-middle class neighborhood. 

 

When I was thinking about this an example came into my head that depicted racial segregation and the ghetto in a comedic way. The example is the movie Malibu’s Most Wanted. I’ll say it again this is far from a serious real life example of what segregation and the ghetto is really like. But, it does a fairly good job of showing the difference between an upper class white neighborhood and a black “ghetto” neighborhood. The video links provided below show the differences between the all-white upper class neighborhood and the majority black “ghetto”. In the American Apartheid Massey and Denton stated, “Segregation and poverty have created in the racial ghetto a destructive environment totally unknown to most white Americans” (Massey and Denton p. 4). This statement really goes along with the example portrayed in Malibu’s most wanted. The main character thinks he’s this gangster rapper from the ghetto, but in reality he know nothing about the harshness of the actual ghetto. He lives in Malibu, California his father is an upper-class who’s running for governor.

                   

Massey and Denton also talked about the issue of racial segregation. Today politician’s and law makers act as if there is nothing wrong, they act as if we are a society living in perfect harmony. Meaning that every individual is equal to everyone else. But, the truth is we are still far from that. We still have segregation within cities, there are entire community’s divided from each other. There still are schools which are majority white that continue to thrive, while their counterparts continue to struggle. Still today this day we have very affluent white neighborhoods with an abundance of resources. Yet, a few miles down the road there are African American neighborhoods with the vast majority of the residents living in poverty or on welfare. So tell me has racial segregation really changed? Politicians and law makers sit back and choose not to acknowledge the problem of racial segregation, that doesn’t mean there still isn’t one to this day. Going back 40 or 50 years ago to the 1970’s or 80’s segregation was blatant, everyone knew and acknowledged segregation. However, today our society is in denial about segregation, it still clearly exists, yet we choose to ignore it and push it to the side. To me ignoring the issue will create more of a problem than the problem itself. In order for anything to change or get better our society must admit there still is a problem. But, to be honest I doubt that will ever actually happen. 

Links:
1. https://www.propublica.org/article/segregation-now-the-resegregation-of-americas-schools/#james
2.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLcF84iotVg
3.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaxcC-O3t7s