ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, November 17, 1996 TAG: 9611190025
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN V. MOESER
MAYBE WE only take notice when something is in flames. This past summer's church burnings recall to mind the burning churches and inner cities of the 1960s. They provoke us to ask how much progress toward racial unity and equality our nation has made in the past 30 years. Back then, in the face of racial unrest engulfing many of our largest cities, President Johnson's Kerner Commission warned that we were "moving toward two societies, one black, one white - separate and unequal." Today, disturbing evidence indicates that we have failed to heed that warning.
Essentially, we live in separate cities, as Christopher Silver and I discovered in our recent study of Richmond, Atlanta and Memphis, where population patterns are becoming more racially pronounced. For the most part, blacks and whites reside in separate neighborhoods, attend separate schools and worship in separate sanctuaries.
Suburbanization rates are often used to measure upward mobility and, by that measure, African-Americans would appear to be becoming increasingly part of the American mainstream.
Suburbanization trends, however, can be misleading. While the rate of black suburbanization has increased substantially, from 22 percent of all blacks living in the suburbs in 1980 to just over 30 percent in 1994, the fact is that the vast majority of black suburbanites are moving to older suburbs just across the city line. Many of these suburbs are deteriorating physically and experiencing the same kind of "white flight" as did the central cities themselves after World War II.
In short, though the black population is spreading out, it still remains largely separate from the white population.
The class problem compounds the race problem. Notwithstanding the enormous gains that the African-American middle class has made since the civil-rights movement, the fact remains that, as a group, black adult workers earn about 20 percent less than whites and, in corporate services (the fastest growing sector of the economy), the gap increases to more than 33 percent.
Even in poverty there are racial distinctions. Though there are larger numbers of poor whites than poor blacks, blacks are over three times more likely to be poor than whites. Moreover, poor blacks are poorer than poor whites. The income of African-American families living at the bottom fifth of the economic scale represented only 44 percent of the income of the bottom fifth of white families.
Given the separateness of our society, it is no wonder that blacks and whites have such widely divergent perceptions and experiences - as most graphically illustrated by the response to the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial.
We're headed for disaster if we do not address the racial separation of our society. First, we have to get serious about establishing black-white dialogue, because interracial communication provides the foundation for reconciliation. Such dialogue must be sustained by the active participation of each new generation.
Second, our public policy must begin addressing the inherent segregation in our current housing, employment and public-transportation arrangements. Large concentrations of unemployed people in the central city, most of whom are black, are separated from the jobs exploding in the suburbs. The separation is made worse by the lack of public transportation to the suburbs and the lack of housing in the newer suburbs for those of low to moderate income.
Third, we must build strong schools, neighborhood associations, civic organizations, nonprofit agencies and religious institutions throughout our metropolitan areas but particularly in our central cities, because they all play such an important role in maintaining the social fabric of our communities. These institutions constitute the social infrastructure of the city. Failing to make substantial investments in the social infrastructure will have far wider consequences than failure to repair streets and sewers.
Martin Luther King Jr. once observed, "People hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don't know each other. They don't know each other because they are separated."
Unless we contend with our separation through interracial dialogue, public policy and support for our local social institutions, we will be contending with it through crisis and conflict.
John V. Moeser, a professor of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University, is co-author of "The Separate City: Black Communities of the Urban South, 1940-1968."
- Virginia Forum
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