group+together+by+race

Why do people tend to group together by race?

 Why do people tend to group together by race? Is it because they do not see the need to integrate with people from other races, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds? Do people of different races sometimes not see eye- to- eye? What is this driving factor of racial separations in the United States of America? There are many reasons for this lack of complete integration in the country that is called a "Melting Pot". Some reasons may be considered more important than others by some people, and some less important. But no matter which reasons seem the most important, there are still many that help contribute to the segregation and racial groups that are around today. Read on to find out more about some of these reasons.

There are many different reasons for racial separations in the United States' modern society. One of these main reasons is that citizens do not see a need to integrate. There was a poll taken in the year 1999 which asked young adults aged 18 through 29 years about if racial separation is acceptable. About half of the participants answered that separation of races is acceptable as long as there are equal opportunities for everyone. This shows us that in these young adults, there is no desperate want for integration. They think nothing of this lack of complete integration in the United States.

The [|American Community Survey] of 2005 in just New York City shows some interesting separation of race. There are more people of certain races, such as White or African American. Some races are less represented, like Vietnamese or Filipino. But there are only an estimated amount of 120 Samoan people in the entire city. Compared to the other races, this is barely represented.  The table below shows the information that was gathered for the city of New York City. The information is from the year 2005 by the 2005 American Community Survey.

This table can also be found [|here.]

This picture below shows the racial separation in the Bronx in New York City from the year 2000. The source of this information is the [|US Census Bureau].



This can also be found at: []

This image below shows the percent of white population in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the year 2000. The information was from the [|Philadelphia City Planning Commission].

This image can also be found at: [].

 Reports from the US Census Bureau from about the year 2000 say that racial segregation in American housing are still alive and well. Their reports also state that the most segregated metropolitan areas are not places you might guess, such as [|Atlanta] (in Georgia) or [|Birmingham] (in Alabama). Instead, the most segregated cities were Detroit, Milwaukee, New York, Newark, and Chicago: all places in the Northeast and Midwest.

Why is this segregation still alive today? Though segregation does not exist in American laws anymore, the beginnings of this segregation are from longer ago. Communities have been accused to have been purposefully engineered to exclude colored people. If we take a trip back to 1976 in Detroit, we can understand some of the roots of public school segregation. Black parents had just recently won a school desegregation case against the state of Michigan. The US Supreme Court then proceeded to block their children from crossing into the suburban schools. The Supreme Court limited this to the Detroit proper. The colored parents were upset about this "solution" to the segregation problem. They claimed that the reason that schools were segregated was the state. The court then proceeded to tell white parents that if they would move to the suburbs, they did not have to send their children to school with the black children. This decision caused about 600,000 whites to leave Detroit for the suburbs.

This pie chart shows the racial composition of Detroit in the year 1970. Notice that it is about 50% white people. This will change when many of the white families move to the suburbs. The source of the information used in the pie chart was from the US Census Bureau.

This pie chart can also be found [|here.]

This pie chart below shows the Racial Concentrations of Detroit about ten years after the previous one. This information was gathered after the case in 1976, because this chart was made from the information gathered by the US Census Bureau in the year 1980. Notice how the percentage of white people that lived there went drastically down, causing the percentage of black people to shoot up. This was all due to the court's decision that if the white families moved to the suburbs, they would not have to send their children to school with the black children. The amount of black people did not increase necessarily, but the number of white people decreased. That caused the total amount of people in the city of Detroit to decrease, and the percentages to change.



This pie chart above can also be found [|here.]

This table below is a table of the population of the city of Detroit, Michigan. The information was gathered from the US Census Bureau when the census was taken in the year 2000.

To see more of this table, click [|here].

Even these occurrences in Detroit were not the beginning of the chain of events. The case in 1976 was preceded by a very famous case, [|Brown versus Board of Education]. There were even cases of public school segregation before that. The chain of challenges of segregation against the public school system started in the year 1849, when the case of Roberts versus the City of Boston occurred. That was the first time that African Americans filed suit against a public school system that segregated races.

As you can see from the table above, the decisions made in 1976 still affect Detroit today. About 82% of the population in the city is still black (as of the census taken by the US Census Bureau in 2000). Only about 12% of the population in Detroit is white. Part of the reason that it is so dominated by African Americans is probably because of the white people moving to the suburbs after hearing the court's decision.

The map below can also be found [|here]. The map above is a map of the [|Boston, Massachusetts area]. The darker the green color, the more colored people there are in that place. Boston is not a place that sticks out in my mind at being separated by race, but it turns out that it actually is quite separated. Boston is a city in the North, so one might make the assumption that it would be very integrated and that colored people would be spread out and that there would be even more people there that are colored. Instead, as you can see, the population is less than 17% colored in most of the areas surrounding Boston.

__What I plan to pursue next: __ I want to find out more about some other specific areas in the country that are affected by racial separation due to events/ actions that occurred a while ago. How does racial separation affect people in other parts of the world? How are people separated by race across the country? What are some more reasons that people give for racial separation that are interesting? I also want to find out more about that one study that was done with young adults (that I got from the database).

AnnBibPlymyer