Word: blacking
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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White resentment over affirmative action has become a powerful undercurrent in race relations. "Whites think most discrimination is ancient history," says sociologist Bob Blauner, the author of a recently published oral history, Black Lives, White Lives. "They see things like affirmative action, and some people even think blacks have an advantage...
...aside from a few well-publicized anecdotal examples, virtually all the evidence contradicts this common white stereotype. Take black male college graduates, likely beneficiaries of affirmative action. In 1984 their average yearly earnings were just 74% of their white counterparts'. Popular misperceptions also exaggerate the rate at which the black middle class is growing. Between 1970 and 1986, the proportion of black families with inflation-adjusted incomes over $35,000 merely increased from...
Sadly, what makes this growth rate seem impressive is the economic difficulties of less affluent black workers. Beginning in the early 1970s, blacks disproportionately bore the brunt of the decline of smokestack America. Since then, not only has there been a widening gap between black and white unemployment rates, but the real incomes of some categories of low-skill black workers have plummeted 20% as well. Small wonder that blacks' per capita income was 57% of whites' in 1984, the same percentage as in 1971. So much for the Reagan-era vision of Morning in America...
Only in terms of the voting booth and the lunch-counter stool is there much truth to support this common white view. As A Common Destiny makes clear, "a considerable amount of remaining black-white inequality is due to continuing discriminatory treatment of blacks. The clearest evidence is in housing...
Since the 1960s, there has been almost no measurable progress in housing integration. In 1980 housing in the 16 metropolitan areas with the largest black populations was rated 80 on a 0-to-100 scale on which 100 meant total segregation. These discriminatory patterns cannot be explained only by black- white economic differences. In New York, Chicago and Detroit, black college graduates are about as likely to live in segregated neighborhoods as black high school dropouts...