Customer Reviews

American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the most important book explaining the causes of African-American disadvantage in the U.S. today. Packed with data and argumentation, it documents the devastating impact of residential segregation on African-American socioeconomic prospects. One of the best features of the book is the way it subsumes other prominant explanations of African-American disadvantage--for example, William J. Wilson's spatial-mismatch hypothesis, and "culture of poverty"/"black cultural pathology" theories--within its theoretical framework.

I have looked in to the subject of race relations for quite sometime now. I have taken in to account all the sides from Liberal to Conservative and somehow always felt something was missing. In one short read this book provided me the missing piece that was needed. I may not always agree with the authors' line of thinking but their work is truly groundbreaking even to this day.

This remains, without question, one of the most excellent and insightful assessments of race in America. Whether you are a US citizen or an international visitor to the US this book is fundmental to understanding the hidden dimensions of ongoing racial division. Read it and pass it on in the hope that people will recognise the irrefutable evidence of racial segregation offered by Massey and Denton.

Though I can't say for certain, the earlier book reviewer listed here may not be doing justice to what is a complex and sophisticated sociolgical analysis of race and class in the U.S. This book raises interesting and important issues that are salient to political/social discourse in America for years to come. If just for these reasons alone, this book is worth reading.

I was required to read this book as a freshman in college and I am so glad that I did. Very informative and full of statistical data to back up its claims, this is one of the best books I've ever read on the subject. Any educated or well read person should be able to read this book without any problems.

No understanding of racial dynamics in the United States can be complete without a working knowledge of segregation, and Massey & Denton's exploration of the subject leaves little to be debated. Creatively and expertly researched, the book thoroughly documents the methods and strategies employed by whites in the ongoing battle for wealth and property in the United States. Particularly damning are the chapters on institutional racism, segregation and the links between governmental policy and the disastrous course of racial equality in the 20th century. While I think Massey & Denton leave a little to be desired in their cultural critique and suggestions for improvement, their research is so well presented and argued that even conservative Charles Murray (who authored the exemplar of late 20th century scientific racism, The Bell Curve) recommends the book. Get this book. It will change the way you think about race and wealth in America.

This book is more painful to read than Eichmann in Jerusalem, Germinal, or the pornographic The Rehnquist Choice by John Dean. But everyone should try. The book first describes how white Americans have kept their residential neighborhoods white since about 1920. Initially by simply murdering African-Americans trying to move in. Then with widespread restrictive deed covenants. More recently, with loan institution redlining, and low-income public housing under-funding and ripoffs. Most recently, add, with pervasive real estate agent ruses, misdirection, and discouragement. This history needed telling clearly and succinctly. Subsequently, the book defines "apartheid" rigorously and identifies it in sixteen urban areas in the country, urban areas containing a substantial percentage of all African-Americans. The book then looks at the living conditions of the most isolated, homeless and hopeless, drug-and-violence-obsessed African-Americans, and identifies apartheid as a cause, if not the cause, of these conditions.

John Dean's book says that Nixon in the early 1970's required his three Supreme Court appointees, the most important of whom was Chief Justice William Rehnquist, to be "right" on the race-residential question and, essentially, to look with disfavor on federal efforts to enforce the Fair Housing Act with respect to single-family homes. Consequently, American residential neighborhoods -- already less integrated in 1970 than in 1920 -- are less integrated now than in 1970. Between 1920 and 1970 the racial prejudice of individuals probably could be blamed. In the thirty-five years since Rehnquist commenced to "put his stamp" on the United States Supreme Court, it's been the snowballing insanity of our electoral system and its deformed progenies, based on money and gerrymandering undisturbed by Court rulings, that get the credit.

"American Apartheid" is excellent.

It pulls back the curtain on the real-estate industry's malfeasance vis-a-vis black Americans. And, more importantly, it reveals the systemic collusion of local, state and federal gov't in said matter. All of them acted as "dis"-honest brokers who, for half a century, targeted blacks for ghetto-ization in the form of urban (Indian-like) reservations.

Housing discrimination - A metastatic aspect of racism which has befouled the land for 145 years.

I struggle with this review, because I find the book to contain a lot of useful information, yet there is something deeply off-setting about the hypocrisy of an author who himself owns four houses and alternates which one he chooses to write in, who then proclaims himself as a champion for the rights of the 'underclass'. The general ignorance of his subject matter is appalling. To quote Fred Siegel on behalf of the DLC "he is the disease of which he proclaims himself the cure".

[...]

American Apartheid gives wonderful analysis, statistics, and arguments in the underclass workers defense. It has strong views, which any book should have if it's trying to be heard. But when you read it (if you do) you will be able to come to your own conclusions. Just remember if you've never experienced how it's like to be one in the underclass/working class, it may be hard for you to relate, so keep an open mind.