Reminders & Emily's Research on the Black-White Wealth Gap and Resegregation of Education

REMINDERS:

1. I should have your midterm exams back next Tuesday (11/1), and we will go over them in class.
2. Remember that we WILL have class on Tuesday, but there will be NO CLASS on Thursday (11/3). I am giving you Thursday off in compensation for your attendance at the talk by Dr. Peter Caster on TUESDAY (11/1) EVENING AT 7PM IN THE OLIN THEATER.
3. Regarding Dr. Caster's talk, I will post on the blog next Monday a question I'd like you to respond to briefly following his talk.
4. You should plan to wrap up your reading of Dr. Tatum's book next week. As you know, the description of essay II, which I handed out just before the midterm exam yesterday, asks you to comment on something from the last chapter of her book. That essay is due next week FRIDAY (11/4).
5. We are going to make a quick transition to our next book, "The New Jim Crow," by Michelle Alexander. I am considering a family exercise in connection with reading and discussing that book. I'll probably announce something on that next Tuesday. But we will begin talking about "The New Jim Crow" on Tuesday, Nov. 8th.


EMILY'S RESEARCH ON THE BLACK-WHITE WEALTH GAP & SCHOOL RESEGREGATION

Below are the points that Emily brought out in class last Tuesday (10/25).

BLACK-WHITE WEALTH GAP (Remember that this longstanding gap can be traced back to discriminatory housing policies, especially during the suburban housing boom after World War II, among other factors, of course.)

2011 (recent reports) Indicated that White households have 20x more wealth on average than the typical Black family. Also, White households had 18x more than the average Hispanic family. In 1984, White families had 12x more wealth than the average Black family. SO, THE GAP HAS INCREASED IN THE LAST 25 YEARS.

2009 Some specific figures: White -- $113,149; Black -- $5,677; Hispanic -- $6,325 (assets minus debts or net wealth)

SCHOOL RESEGREGATION (I believe these points came from one of the primary sources Dr. Tatum cites in her book: Charles Clotfelter's "After Brown: The Rise and Retreat of School Desegregation" (2004), which is in our library.)

**In 2002, more than 1 in 6 African American children attended a school that was 99-100% minority.
**One possible reason -- charter schools, which white students attend more than minority students.
**Goldsboro High School in Wayne Co., NC. -- 80% of the students are poor, 99% are African American. This is in a town and school district which is 50/50 Black-White. The other five high schools are majority White and without poverty. The NAACP filed a complaint with the school district in Dec. 2010.
**Problem is that different schools receive different funding and supplies (as you also saw in those tables I handed out in class on major cities in the Northeast and Midwest). Non-white students are more likely to be taught by inexperienced teachers. This problem would not exist if classrooms were more racially integrated.

How resegregation came to be:
** White aversion to interracial contact (let me add here, as I believe Emily alluded to in her presentation, that the big fear here is interracial sexual relations. Despite more acceptance of interracial relationships in general, there still is substantial resistance to interracial dating and marriage.)
**Multiple escape routes open to parents wishing to reduce the level of interracial contact in their children's schools: many schools to choose from such as charter or private schools.
**Willingness of state officials (and, I assume, local officials) to minimize interracial contact: building new schools in predominantly White areas; adjusting school attendance boundaries; easiness for Whites to transfer from racially changing schools.
**Hypothesis being that Whites seek to avoid racially mixed schools (which I assume Clotfelter found substantial support for).

Finally, for anyone interested in exploring this further, I would recommend that you check out Jonathan Kozol's book, "Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America" (2005).