Talk:Racial segregation in the United States

Why South Africa?

This is about Segregation in the US. Why are there random comparisons to South Africa? I mean, maybe there might be a short mention of apartheid, but South African segregation really has no place in an article about the US.

= Who said racial?!

Why does "Segregation in the United States" default to "Racial Segregation in the United States"?

Considering the the most serious segregation between people in the United States is between poor males and the middle classes, this is a very serious error.

Segregation can be on the basis of many factors. Why are people so hysterical about black people?! Segregation's "sister word" is Inequality, not racism.

And this is not 1640. This is 2008!!! The only reason black people were victimized in the first place is because they were poor. Perhaps also because they were foreign. It is because they were poor that black people were victimized. Therefor, poor white people today are still at least as |80.65.242.154]] (talk) 15:04, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the issue is quite that simple.

For one thing, slavery exists in many places and times, and not always as it does in the United States. For instance, in many South American countries, races are on something of a sliding scale, with more of one race better than another--racism exists, but there isn't a simple black/white dichotomy. A classic puzzle is in the Andes, where a large percentage of people speak Quechua--an Indian tongue, and have Native American blood--but if they appear fairly white or are social leaders, often would refer to themselves as of Spanish blood.

So, a better question would be, how did American dichotomous racism develop?

From my memory of the relevant historical literature, there are three historical schools concerned with the "origins" debate--that is, where American racism came from. The "Handlin school," represented primarily by Oscar and Mary Handlin, argues that as the economic system of American slavery developed--starting with indentured servants from England, (occasionally) Indian slaves, and blacks--African slaves eventually became predominant. Increasingly, Colonial Americans made the mental connection, black=slave, and racism was born. The Degler School, represented by Carl N. Degler, suggests that people are naturally predisposed to dislike or distrust people who are not like them, and he supports his opinion by citing negative views Europeans held of Africans before slavery. A final view would be Winthrop Jordan's--the "Jordan School"--who suggested that with the development of an imagined community of Colonial Americans, Colonists realized that in order to restrict black rights, any mixing of races (miscegenation) would break down the logic of such legal divisions and black codes, or at least expose the problems in it. (As evidence, Jordan tells the story of Gideon Gibson, a mulatto who was married to a white woman, and owned seven slaves of his own.) Hence, as the Colonial era waned, Colonists began trying to restrict mixed race marriages, and ensure that mixed race children would be counted as black, thus not threatening the racial hierarchy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jim37hike (talk • contribs) 20:36, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Segregation

I think that segregation is cruel and I am glad that it is over in the U.S. - Mimi (A Wikipedia fan)

On the contrary, segregation has almost never been worse and you are profoundly retarded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.65.242.154 (talk) 14:38, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

It would, perhaps, be insightful to include the arguments for racial segregation in this article. There is currently little information given about why segregation laws were instituted and defended. This article is not even handed in telling both sides of the story, only that there is segregation and a struggle to overcome it. I speak as one curious about what the other side of the argument was. The argument should be set forth in earnest, not as a straw-man, even though, and because, it is obviously unpopular today. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.169.227.78 (talk) 22:26, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

First Sentence

The first sentence ("Racial segregation in the United States is the history of racial segregation, of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, education, employment, and transportation—along racial lines") is so awkward. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.167.58.15 (talk) 13:11, 22 April 2007 (UTC).

Proposed merge with Racial segregation

I saw the two pages shouldn't be merged. Axeman89 22:07, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Should Be Merged

a assume this is about Racial segregation#United States? What exactly is the proposal? Certainly this article is too large to merge into Racial segregation. Certainly Racial segregation should have a section on the United States. So a real merger is out of the question.

Is there any information at Racial segregation#United States that is not also here? If so, it should certainly be added to this article. At that point, if someone wants to shrink Racial segregation#United States somewhat, that becomes an internal matter in editing Racial segregation.

Is there anyone who sees taking a differerent approach to this? Saying it "should be merged" isn't really much use, unless you want to make a case (which I doubt could be made) that this page should not exist at all. - Jmabel | Talk 00:11, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

This article needs quite a bit of work but should not be merged with the more general article. The focus on the United States has a very special history that should not be submerged. Skywriter 08:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this article requires a lot of work. I also agree that it should NOT be merged with the USA section in Racial segregation -- that section should briefly summarize the contents of this article and include a pointer to this article. --Deodar 06:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Seems we have a pretty good consensus against merging. I will remove the notice. Someone beat me to it. - Jmabel | Talk 04:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if the tag was mis-interpreted, but the proposal was not to move all the information from one page to another, but (from what I see), was to move a bunch of the information that was specific to the USA from the general article to the specific article. The subsection "United States (19th-20th century)" is FAR too long for a general article, so I'm going to shorten it and make sure that nothing is lost by moving the less 'overview' info into the main article. (also the merge tag was not properly removed, as the other tag still remained, over 3 months later). Radagast83 05:40, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Some dropped content

I agree that it was right to drop these long quoted passages, but I suspect there is some material there that at least is worth using as a citation for statements we already have, and maybe some content worth paraphrasing and including. The following seems very much to the point "Almost 70 years later, the white family would have a house in the suburbs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the black family would be locked in a public housing tower in a city." - Jmabel | Talk 22:12, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

"Malay Race"

The article assumes that the categorization "Malay race" in anti-miscegenation laws referred to people from Melanesia. This category was actually invented to refer to Filipinos, who began to enter the US after the Philipines became a US colony. Fairlane75 18:21, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Project Talk

It is Mimi again, asking, what do you think of this project here? -Mimi

Cleanup

Is it me, or does this article flow poorly? I don't know enough from an academic or intellectual viewpoint about the issue to really fix it myself. It strikes me that there needs to be a clearly defined section on History to list chronologically the development and high points of the issue. Then there should be a section discussing issues (as there already is for National, Southern and Northern Issues). I'd say that the plainly historically narrative portions should be aligned under history, leaving the Issues sections for issues only. Great start, and intersting topic that more people should be educated on, thoughts on revisions? Andrew 19:51, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, while the internment policies in World War II were egregious, and certianly aimes to segregate people whose origin was from the countries the US was at war with, was it really "segregation" in the same sense as the black-white segregation borne out of chatel slavery in the early United States? Andrew 15:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

New merger discussion

A discussion of a merger of Allegations of American apartheid into this article is taking place at Talk:Allegations of American apartheid. 6SJ7 16:21, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree the articles should be merged.

Contemporay issue

This article needs to be careful to treat both contemporary forms of segregation as well as the history. I've added some material and sources to improve it, but there is still a lot of work to do. futurebird 15:02, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Typical Liberal Nonsense

This article was not written by someone who lives in a predominantly black neighborhood. As a white resident of Bedford-Stuyvesant, one of the primary black neighborhoods of the US, I will be the first to say that racism per se is not the reason for "decentralized" racism. Many people are justifiably afraid of living amongst blacks. Crime is high, most residents have minimal desire to work, and incivility rules the day. I have to endure racist taunts on a regular basis. There is also the unfortunate fact that nowhere in the world is there a black neighborhood that is safe, clean, and modern.

People, and not just whites, don't want to live around blacks because of the way they act, not the way they look. This article seems unable, or unwilling to address that fact. Rather than attempt to project modern liberal thought into the reasons for segregation, I think this article should simply discuss the facts of segregation and not speculate as to how or why it occurred. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.73.69.210 (talk) 20:32, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Haha - yeah, segregation just kind of happened. I think it is important to investigate the causes of segregation, perhaps with more depth than just “white people didn’t want black people around.” —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.112.56.164 (talk) 17:37, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Racial segregation in Britain

Where can I find out about segration in Britain? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.157.162.63 (talk) 18:21, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Unequal Education Revision Necessary

The unequal education section seems to give a rather specific insident in detail of a one "Columbia High School". It is completly unsourced and in dire need of revision. Barbaryan7 21:16, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Racial Segregation of Latinos and Asians is California?

I think this artical consentrates too much on African Americans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.112.56.164 (talk) 17:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Why is Apartheid Article Bigger Than This One?

Why is it that on English Wikipedia the article on Apartheid (racial segregation in South Africa) is bigger than the U.S.'s own article on it segregation? It may be because it's easier to condemn foreign people for what the U.S. has done in the past than it is to write about where the U.S. itself has also made faults in the past. Invmog (talk) 19:35, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

When was this article written?

The article states "Chicago was declared by Martin Luther King Jr. as the most segregated city in the United States, and is only 5 % more integrated than it was in 1970"

The source is a book from 1993, is this serious? 98.212.0.190 (talk) 18:02, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Why this article exists and why it's so large the section on the US in Racial Segregation

Simple: there is no racism in US during the XXth century. Just check the XXth century section in the article about racism: it talks about Japan and Germany. And why is that? Because in two very specific countries (US and South Africa) it wasn't called racism, it was called "racial segregation".

This whole article is a gigantic euphemism, embedded in the collective syntax of US culture.

This article shows better than any I've seen, the "american centrism" in Wikipedia: it's a shame for my beloved encyclopedia that nobody has taken the task of including in it the phrase "racial segregation is a form of racism". There are no references to this very article in the one about racism during the XXth century. This is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, but few do. --Ciroa (talk) 08:02, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Ciroa, I added a link from the main page on racism to racism in the united states, and the racism in the united states page already has a link to Racial_segregation_in_the_United_States. And on the racism page, under the "Inter-Minority Variants" heading, there is a short discussion of minorities & racism in the US, so I also added a link to Racial_segregation_in_the_United_States there. However, I think there is a deeper problem with the 20th century section of the racism page. A discussion of 20th century racism should not only be focused on genocide alone. Racism exists in many forms and guises, and while genocide might be the most noticeable, that clearly isn't the only thing a wiki-reader should learn if they're reading about 20th century racism. And for that matter, while the information on the Japanese push for racial equality and saving Jews from German genocide might be true, why is there no discussion of Japanese, racially-motivated war crimes against the Chinese--i.e., the Rape of Nanking? There's plenty of mud on everybody's boots, so that section probably could be expanded to include more info on racism worldwide. Thoughts? Jim37hike (talk) 09:16, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

internment of ethnic Germans

Why does the sidebar category include Jews, Japanese, and Italian internment but not that of Germans?