The Failures of Integration: How Race and Class Are Undermining the American Dream [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Sheryll Cashin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2004

Published for the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education: If "separate, but equal" has been illegal for fifty years, why is America more segregated than ever?. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously declared that separate educational facilities for blacks and whites are inherently "unequal" and, as such, violate the 14th Amendment. The landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education , sounded the death knell for legal segregation, but fifty years later, de facto segregation in America thrives. And Sheryll Cashin believes that it is getting worse. The Failures of Integration is a provocative look at how segregation by race and class is ruining American democracy. Only a small minority of the affluent are truly living the American Dream, complete with attractive, job-rich suburbs, reasonably low taxes, good public schools, and little violent crime. For the remaining majority of Americans, segregation comes with stratospheric costs. In a society that sets up "winner" and "loser" communities and schools defined by race and class, racial minorities in particular are locked out of the "winner" column. African-Americans bear the heaviest burden. Cashin argues that we n

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In another of a spate of Brown v. Board of Education 50th anniversary books this season, this compelling book, beyond a lament about Brown's unfulfilled promise, argues that integrated, multi-class communities are the only fair solution. Cashin, a law professor at Georgetown, reminds us that our enduring segregation is the product of private and public choices, such as exclusionary zoning, federal mortgage insurance and urban redevelopment (which created hyper-segregation in public housing). Cashin sees inevitable costs to middle-class black separatism: African-Americans in suburbia are usually steered to enclaves in the opposite direction of economic growth; when they hit critical mass, whites flee, poorer blacks move in, schools decline and commercial and retail investors steer clear. For whites, the search for suburban privilege also has its costs: higher prices for housing, suburban sprawl and the more intangible incapacity to relate to the "other." High-poverty schools lack both models for success and activist parents, and also breed an oppositional culture—all a prelude to the extraordinary rate of black men in the criminal justice system. Cashin argues that civil rights groups should focus more on attacking housing discrimination and segregation. She also advocates other policies: break up the ghettos (such as via programs that give suburban housing vouchers to those in public housing), offer incentives for ownership in high-poverty neighborhoods, require new developments to have low-income housing and expand school choice and cross-jurisdictional choice. Cashin argues powerfully that such integration is crucial to build democracy and diminish racial barriers: "[T]he rest of society should stop fearing us and ordering themselves in a way that is designed to avoid us where we exist in numbers."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The landmark Brown v. Board of Education has not led to integrated education for black children, because our nation's housing patterns are stubbornly segregated along class and race lines. Because this state of affairs is not written into law, it appears to be "normal." But Cashin, a law professor, challenges this assumption, asserting that racially segregated housing, and the resultant segregated schools, is an outgrowth of government and social policies that can and should be reversed. Severely demarcated communities of winners and losers exact a high price for society overall, with the rising cost of ameliorating the results of hypersegregation. Cashin acknowledges the difficulty of getting higher income Americans to recognize the enlightened self-interest in more integrated housing, but she offers several strategies for breaking down barriers in housing patterns. This work supports the objectives of an American ideal that has been long lost in our current world. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• ISBN-10: 158648124X
• ASIN: B00076F0HU
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,275,341 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, May 24, 2004

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Peter Durward Harris "Pete the music fan" (Leicester England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Failures Of Integration: How Race and Class Are Undermining the American Dream (Hardcover)

Some of you may wonder why I, being a white Brit with conservative political beliefs, should be interested in a book about racial issues in America. It's quite simple, really - Britain, like America, is a multi-racial society in which the different races sometimes have difficulty relating to each other and this is a good way to understand some of what black people think of whites and how the differences can be overcome. While there are differences between Britain and America, there are also plenty of similarities. I do not agree with everything here but I never expected to. To be honest, the book is far better -and more constructive - than I dared hope.

Sheryll Cashin, the author, is clearly a highly intelligent lady who has done a lot of research for this book. She presents her case well and it is, at times, uncomfortable reading for white readers, just as I expected, though it is also clear that she recognizes that progress needs the co-operation of the white community, so she is careful in her use of language. Furthermore, she acknowledges that black people have some of the same faults. In this way, she can reasonably hope to win support for her case from at least some white people. She presents a lot of facts as well as opinions presented as facts.

One of the opinions that are presented as fact is fundamental to her philosophy. This is a forecast that the white majority will disappear this century in America and that by 2100 whites will only make up forty percent of the population - still the largest ethnic group but not a majority. This forecast may prove to be accurate but it may not. By persistently stating it as a fact rather than a forecast, Sheryll damages her case slightly.

Sheryll mainly focuses on housing although schools are also given a fair bit of coverage. She scarcely mentions business or cultural situations. Furthermore, she only looks at what is happening in America. It would have been useful to compare the American experience with what is happening in Europe, where there is also a white majority, and with Africa, where there is a black majority.

Sheryll complains that white people like to live in areas that are predominately white, yet acknowledges that black people like to live in areas that are predominately black. She wants us all to live amongst each other - no white areas, no black areas (actually, she concedes that a few enclaves might be OK, even useful) - but explains why she won't be an integration pioneer (her term for a black person going to live in a white area). All this explains why areas that somehow manage to become mixed generally don't stay mixed - eventually one race becomes a minority and moves out unless there is a strong sense of community.

Sheryll does, however, draw one clear distinction, claiming that black people are accustomed to (and therefore comfortable) being a minority among whites, yet white people are uncomfortable being in a minority among blacks. This may well be true (at least for some whites), but this is where research in Africa would have been useful - it would have revealed whether it is a white problem or a majority race problem. I will say that the only time I was in a white minority was on a training course. It lasted several weeks but although I was surprised at first (it was a new experience for me), I quickly got used to it and I never had any problems with any of the black people I met there - indeed, some of them were wonderful.

Sheryll's wish for all areas to be mixed (which she concedes is a Utopian ideal) might be attainable in the long term but she acknowledges that it could not be imposed - it must be achieved by persuasion. My instinct is that this will be easier to achieve by focusing on schools and work first. If whites and blacks get used to each other in these aspects of life, then eventually they will be happier to live amongst each other. This may take a couple of generations or more. Sheryll is clearly of the opinion that housing is central and points to local action in various places that have yielded results.

However, what makes Sheryll's solution completely unworkable is that she wants to break down all class barriers, inextricably linking class, wealth and race. She does not like the concept of people living in the best area they can afford, thus creating exclusive areas that are thereby out of the range of most people. Unfortunately for Sheryll, this type of segregation has existed from the earliest days of civilization as we recognize it, even in single-race communities, and I can't see that it's never going to change. Linking class issues with race issues undermines her case totally.

Despite my misgivings, this book is compulsive reading and everybody can learn a lot from it. If your political beliefs are similar to Sheryll's, you may yearn for her proposed solution, but even if you're a white conservative like me, it is useful to get a glimpse of the black perspective on racial issues.

Regardless of your racial group or political beliefs, I have no hesitation in recommending this book.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Describing the Costs of "Voluntary" Segregation, July 4, 2004

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 110,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Failures Of Integration: How Race and Class Are Undermining the American Dream (Hardcover)

You don't need to read this book to know that the United States remains a highly segregated nation, especially its African-American citizens. What will probably shock you is to learn how hard it is to find a neighborhood where the population is reasonably integrated. Professor Cashin lives in such a neighborhood and helps the rest of to see what we are missing in our not very integrated neighborhoods.

Naturally, I expected the book to outline the problems that African-Americans face as a result such as poorer educations, fewer job opportunities, more exposure to crime and few cultural choices. And of course the book correctly spells out those problems. The book also describes that there are economic burdens for even middle class African-Americans because their neighborhoods are often close to poor African-American neighborhoods . . . and the costs spill over. There is a remarkable discussion of Washington, D.C. and its suburbs that makes all of these details tangible.

What makes this a remarkable book that adds new fuel to the debate in favor of integration is that Professor Cashin makes a compelling argument that those who are not African-Americans are paying a high economic price for living apart. These costs include higher real estate prices, longer commutes, higher prices for basic goods and services and higher taxes to pay for the social ills that follow from African-American poverty. In addition, families pay a higher cost by having parents and children be apart for more hours in the day.

Professor Cashin points out that a central flaw in the way we all live our lives is to seek out the very best neighborhoods to raise our children in . . . a natural instinct among all parents. In pursuing that instinct, we often fail to look at the alternatives such as living in a good neighborhood where our cost of living will be 1/3 less so that one parent doesn't have to work. We also miss the chance for our children to become better prepared for the multicultural world that lies ahead.

Professor Cashin has done her homework, and she makes a number of novel suggestions for how to overcome our bias towards living in segregated communities.

The only weakness I found in the work was her extreme emphasis on parents and their young children. The last time I looked, fewer than 10 percent of all U.S. households had two parents and children under 18 in them. Clearly, looking out for children isn't the only reason people live in segregated areas. I think part of the missing argument is how much more profitable it is to prepare for retirement by owning a home in a sought-after community.

But I know lots of people who want to move into more interesting areas after their children are grown. They would seem like good candidates to look into the benefits of living in integrated neighborhoods.

School funding is a national shame. That problem needs to be overcome. All children need to have the chance to develop their talents in safe schools and neighborhoods. We are making a huge mistake if we don't fix this problem.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a social analysis of the highest importance, August 29, 2005

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Ralph Dumain - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Failures Of Integration: How Race and Class Are Undermining the American Dream (Paperback)

I had the experience of seeing Prof. Cashin summarize her book in person. I found her approach very shrewd. First, she reviewed her own options and rationale for choosing where to buy a house in Washington. Then she cited studies on people's racial preference in housing patterns. Then she moved from subjective attitudes to "objective" political-economic realities and the policies behind them. She outlined a ratings system ranking the quality and hence real estate value of types of neighborhoods from the very top to the very bottom, which do not reflect the subjective whims of homebuyers but the value set by business. At the top are exclusively white, affluent neighborhoods. The key issue here is not the affluence, but the fact that the desirability of a well-off neighborhood is indicated by its (white) racial homogeneity. She segued to the cost of segregation to whites. Their upward mobility is also affected by this hierarchy, because the "desirable" all-white neighborhoods become so expensive that most middle class whites can't afford them and are thereby relegated to a lower social status. The prescription is policy that supports safe, desirable neighborhoods with mixed race and income levels, of which there are some model examples. Whites will also materially benefit from not having to live in a situation where every move they make is dominated by fear of blacks. Cashin emphasized her book's title's claims that there have been failures to achieve the stated goal of integration, not that integration is a failure. She is pro-integration, and is concerned about the practical measures to make it a reality and not merely pay lip service to the ideal. "Integration" should not be considered an old-fashioned word from the early '60s.

To some extent the nature of the audience response was split by race. The blacks tended to emphasize the artificiality of racial separation, how little sense it makes, and how odd America's de facto racial segregation seems from outside the United States and how alike all Americans seem to foreigners. The whites, most of whom were well-meaning and very anxious to redress the problem, had different sorts of comments and questions. Cashin clearly dissociated herself from appeals to white guilt either promoted or criticized by certain white people in the room, emphasizing that she did not play blame games either in her talk nor in her book.

I commended Cashin for her approach, beginning with the subtitle of her book (race and class) and proceeding from the subjective and objective sides of residential patterns, which ultimately determine so much. I argued that the mass media and popular culture and everyday interaction send mixed messages: on the one hand popular culture encourages integration; on the other, it too often rigidly reinforces stereotypes. People are much more accepting these days of one another at the workplace and in casual interactions in public, but then they go home to separate neighborhoods and don't socialize with one other outside of work. And then there is the true test of integration: intermarriage, and the reactions of one's relatives to interracial couplings. This society is full of contradictions. There is a failure of imagination: no one has the foresight to grasp the implications of integration, which, if the barriers between people were removed once and for all, would radically alter _everyone's_ conception of identity. My comments--especially my phrase "failure of imagination"--really moved Prof. Cashin and several audience members. And if you care about this society's future, make this book a top priority.