Long Time Coming

Racial Inequality In The Nonmetropolitan South, 1940-1990

Mark A Fossett, Therese Seibert

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780429723704
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Labour & Industrial Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The authors investigate trends in racial inequality in occupational attainment in rural areas of the South since 1940. Drawing on data from the six censuses spanning the last five decades, they examine how inequality varies across local areas and how it has changed over time in different local areas. While modest reductions in inequality have been observed in recent decades, the authors document that racial inequality in rural areas of the South persists at very high levels to the present day.Guided by structural-demographic theory, the authors investigate the connections between inequality and important changes taking place in the economic and social structures of rural communities of the South. They conclude that inequality is linked, sometimes in unexpected ways, with economic growth, urbanization and the decline of agricultural employment, the movement of women into the labor force, increasing minority educational attainment, and changes in racial demography. The authors investigate trends in racial inequality in occupational attainment in rural areas of the South since 1940. Drawing on data from the six censuses spanning the last five decades, they examine how inequality varies across local areas and how it has changed over time in different local areas. While modest reductions in inequality have been observed in recent decades, the authors document that racial inequality in rural areas of the South persists at very high levels to the present day.Guided by structural-demographic theory, the authors investigate the connections between inequality and important changes taking place in the economic and social structures of rural communities of the South. They conclude that inequality is linked, sometimes in unexpected ways, with economic growth, urbanization and the decline of agricultural employment, the movement of women into the labor force, increasing minority educational attainment, and changes in racial demography.

1 Introduction

Racial inequality is one of the most striking features of the American stratification system. That this remains so as the twentieth century draws to a close is surprising and sobering given the sweeping political and social changes that have taken place over the past three decades. It has now been more than thirty years since landmark Civil Rights and Voting Rights legislation was enacted into law in the mid-1960s. These acts and subsequent related legislation, executive orders, and court decisions ended state-supported segregation and formally prohibited discrimination in voting, public accommodations, housing, education, and employment. Also at this time the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was established to promote equality of opportunity in education, employment, and housing and was later empowered to require remedial actions if employers were found guilty of discrimination (Burstein 1994; Rose 1989). In conjunction with executive orders and court decisions it fostered implementation of policies of “affirmative action” aimed at redressing inequalities of the past. As these changes in the legal sphere were taking place, remarkable changes in racial attitudes also were occurring. Levels of racial prejudice openly expressed by Whites fell dramatically and expressed support for equality of opportunity irrespective of race increased significantly (Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo 1985). Had sociologists and other social scientists of the 1950s been informed that these social changes were about to transpire, they could not have been faulted for predicting that racial inequality would be well on its way to being a thing of the past by the close of the century.

Of course this is not the case; racial inequality endures. To be sure, a few long-term trends suggesting movement toward equality can be noted for select groups (e.g., the young and highly educated) and for a few indicators (e.g., the representation of minorities among elected officials). But, in general, broad population-level comparisons between Whites and Blacks in areas such as health, housing, education, employment, occupation, and income continue to reveal extensive inequality.¹ When the present and the readily foreseeable future are viewed through the lens of the hopes and expectations raised by social and political changes in the 1960s, one thing is abundantly clear — equality has been a long time coming.

In retrospect it is obvious that racial inequality is a much more intractable social problem than the lay public, policy makers, and social scientists generally perceived a generation ago. Despite this fact, the problem of racial inequality is not a priority issue in public opinion and national policy debate. Concern on the part of Whites has diminished in the past two decades. Indeed, many Whites perceive that racial inequality has been greatly reduced; and more than a few express the belief that racial inequality is a thing of the past and that racial minorities may even be advantaged in the labor market, the educational system, and other arenas of socioeconomic competition. Given this, White support for policies aimed at addressing racial discrimination and racial inequality has faltered. Previously implemented policies have been subject to reexamination, critique, revision, and occasional dismantling and no new policy initiatives have been offered in their place.

Many factors have shaped the trend of declining concern among Whites regarding issues of racial discrimination and racial inequality. The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was successful in garnering broad support among Whites for racial equality regarding civil and political rights. Once these rights were secured, however, White support for goals of promoting racial equality began to erode in the late 1960s.² This coincided with a shift in the rhetoric and emphasis of Black political leaders from a focus on goals of obtaining political and civil rights to a focus on goals of redressing long-standing social and economic inequalities. This shift ultimately had important consequences because it represented a change toward seeking equality in the distribution of goods that were perceived by Whites as being “zero-sum” in nature.

Many Whites, especially Whites in the South, viewed the extension of voting and other civil rights to Blacks as a threat to the existing social order. However, the achievement of equality in political and civil rights for African Americans did not in any absolute sense diminish the political and civil rights of Whites. Equality was attained by creating “more” of this good rather than by redistributing the existing stock. White “losses” associated with this were thus limited to changes in relative advantage; that is, Whites’ advantages over Blacks were substantially eliminated but Whites continued to enjoy the same legal rights and protections they had enjoyed previously.

In decided contrast, efforts to promote and secure greater racial equality in areas such as housing, higher education, employment, health care services, jobs, and income had potential consequences for socioeconomic outcomes which were fundamentally zero-sum in nature. That is, these outcomes involved goods which could not be quickly expanded in the short run as political rights had been. Not surprisingly, Whites, working-class Whites in particular but middle class Whites as well, perceived policies aimed at promoting rapid reductions in racial inequality as threatening to their socioeconomic position. These fears were not groundless; movement toward equality on zero-sum goods requires redistribution of the existing stock and necessarily entails absolute as well as relative losses for advantaged groups.

That Whites would initially be cautious and lukewarm in their enthusiasm for policies aimed at reducing racial inequalities and then later become increasingly resistant and opposed to such policies is hardly surprising. This is the expected reaction for an advantaged group. It also is not surprising that, over time, appeals by Black political leaders to values and moral principles became less effective in enlisting the support of Whites. It is always an open question as to whether moral arguments can carry the day when the distribution of zero-sum, material goods is at stake. In addition, however, the increasing ineffectiveness of Black leaders’ appeals to higher values and moral principles can be traced not only to the fact that the appeals involved goals which contradicted Whites’ material interests but also to the fact that Black political leaders were not successful in legitimating their post-Civil Rights goals as consistent with core values of American society embraced by Whites.

Earlier phases of the Civil Rights movement stressed principles of equality of opportunity and inclusion based on citizenship and individual merit. These ideals were broadly endorsed by Whites, in word at least if not always in deed. More significantly, they were codified into law. Equally importantly, the rhetoric of the movement emphasized reformist goals of assimilation and inclusion into the broader society and gained support among Whites by highlighting dramatic inconsistencies between stated principles and reality in American society. In a manner predicted by Myrdal (1944), White resistance to extending voting and other civil rights to Blacks was thus undercut by the fact that the Civil Rights movement was legitimated in terms of values and ideals which were generally accepted and held in high regard by Whites. This was not the case when the objectives of the movement shifted from equality of opportunity to equality of outcomes.

Whites have not accepted the goal of equal outcomes, especially group outcomes, as legitimate. To the contrary, studies of public opinion suggest that Whites view such goals as contradicting accepted principles of individualism and equal opportunity.³ Thus, there has not been a moral dilemma in the minds of Whites regarding racial inequality in socioeconomic outcomes. One reason for this is that a clear majority of Whites attribute Black socioeconomic disadvantages in significant part to personal characteristics such as lack of ability and/or motivation (Kluegel 1990). Older Whites are more likely than younger Whites to emphasize lack of ability rather than lack of motivation, but persons who accept either of these “individualistic” explanations for Black disadvantage are less likely to support policies promoting racial economic equality (Kluegel 1990). Thus, declines in “traditional prejudice” among Whites which result as younger White cohorts with replace older White cohorts does not imply that Whites will be more supportive of policies to promote equality (Kluegel 1990). Indeed, younger Whites sometimes feel that discrimination, especially in its more virulent forms, is largely a thing of the past. They are also likely to believe that they did not participate in and have not personally benefited from discrimination in earlier eras and thus share no responsibility for either past discrimination or present day inequality.

Moral appeals proved to be relatively unsuccessful in persuading Whites to support goals of racial equality for another reason — namely, changes in the rhetoric of Black political activists. Rhetoric which had earlier stressed reform and inclusion of African Americans as full participants in American society began to increasingly emphasize explicitly pluralistic and nationalistic goals which many Whites categorically rejected. Equally significantly, rhetoric which had earlier emphasized philosophies of nonviolence and strategies of civil disobedience began to increasingly include more assertive slogans such as “Black Power” and phrases such as “by any means necessary” which were perceived by Whites as ominous and which added to their emerging concerns about the implications of racial equality for socioeconomic redistribution. Widespread civil disturbances in the urban ghettos of major cities across the country in the late 1960s crystallized these concerns on the part of Whites and heralded the emergence of White working-class backlash and status anxiety as a potent political force in American politics.

Changing macroeconomic fortunes further served to diminish White receptiveness to goals of promoting racial equality. Middle and working class White families experienced significant and relatively steady growth in real wages and material living conditions in the 1950s and 1960s. These gains were substantial from the vantage point of intra-generational comparisons and were even more dramatic when contrasted with material living conditions of previous generations. Under these conditions, issues of political inclusion and racial justice could be more easily advanced in public policy debates. If material standards of living are improving very rapidly, redistribution of material goods (e.g., good housing, quality health care, education, etc.) can occur even as everyone, Whites included, experiences significant absolute and relative improvements in comparisons within and across generations.

In contrast, the 1970s and 1980s were decades in which increases in real wages and incomes for working and middle class Whites were modest at best, stagnant and even declining at worst (Levy 1987; Levy 1995). Improvements in family income were realized primarily through the emergence of the two-earner family as a norm. This economic reality combined with other ongoing social and economic changes (e.g., economic restructuring, the rapid movement of women into the labor force, a resurgence in immigration, globalization of economic competition, etc.) to fuel concerns on the part of Whites that their social and economic position was precarious and uncertain if not actually eroding. It is not surprising that in this context working and middle class Whites became increasingly skeptical and resentful of redistributive policies such as affirmative action, racial preferences, set asides, and quotas.

In the 1980s and 1990s yet another factor was added to the mix and served to lessen the priority given to issues of racial equality in national policy. It is that increasing numbers of White workers and voters have little direct personal knowledge of an earlier time when racism was overt and when race discrimination and segregation were explicitly embodied in laws enforced by the state. Recent generations of Whites have come of age at a time when equality of opportunity, not segregation, was the formal law of the land and plainly spoken race prejudice and racist ideology had retreated from mainstream public debate. An increasingly large fraction of Whites in the labor force had not even reached first grade in the early 1960s when television brought nightly images of police dogs and firehoses being turned on lawful protesters calling for the end of state supported segregation. They have never heard prominent politicians and elected officials openly espouse racist, segregationist ideology for public consumption or seen them stand in front of institutions of publicly funded higher education to physically block desegregation efforts. As a result, it is more difficult for them to understand and acknowledge, much less accept, minority concerns about prejudice and racial discrimination.

Because recent generations of Whites have never directly participated in the overt and state-supported systems of racial segregation and exclusion that were largely dismantled in the 1950s and 1960s, they are likely to view widespread racial discrimination as a thing of the past. They take it for granted that systems of formal segregation and discrimination ended with civil rights and equal opportunity legislation and also tend to believe that informal discrimination flowing from individual prejudice and racism has largely disappeared as a result of dramatic cultural change in racial attitudes. Since they are inclined to see discrimination and involuntary segregation as historical in nature, younger generations of Whites are loath to accept the notion that they may have benefited even indirectly from racial discrimination. Indeed, a significant and increasing fraction express the belief that racial status today works to the advantage of, not the disadvantage of, Blacks and other racial minorities. Many Whites who believe this also see affirmative action and related policies as unfair and contrary to the spirit of equal opportunity. Many even argue that these policies may have perverse negative consequences for minorities.⁴

Recent generations of Whites are unlikely to understand enduring racial inequality as a reflection of discrimination and differential opportunities. They are more likely to instead attribute contemporary racial inequality to perceived “deficiencies” in African American families, communities, and culture. They are unlikely to identify structural factors as the primary explanations of enduring inequality and increasingly are likely to point to the unintended negative consequences of the welfare state and affirmative action policies as a factor. Consequently, to the extent that younger White cohorts see racial inequality as a policy concern at all, they tend to assign it a low priority and are likely to view government policies aimed at promoting equality as part of the problem itself not a potential tool to be adopted as part of a possible solution.

Social science research has also played a role in reducing the priority given to issues of racial inequality in national policy debates. Many influential studies conducted in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s reported substantial, steady, and seemingly inexorable declines in racial inequality in education, occupation, and income (Fox and Fame 1973; Hare 1965; Johnson and Sell 1976; Palmore and Whittington 1970; Siegel 1965; Smith and Welch 1984). These and other studies suggested that social and economic opportunities for African Americans were slowly but surely expanding. Optimistic assessments of these trends raised the hypothesis that these trends represented the beginning of the end of racial stratification in America; that after centuries of exclusion African Americans were finally being drawn into a process of inclusion and assimilation similar to those observed previously for voluntary immigrant groups (Neidert and Farley 1985). The implications of such interpretations for policy are clear; further action and concern are largely unnecessary; inequality will gradually wither away without intervention. The only point of debate is whether the pace of change was acceptable or not.

Unfortunately, these hopeful notions proved to be premature and overly optimistic. Subsequent analyses have shown that movement toward racial inequality has not occurred across the board, but has instead been limited to only some socioeconomic outcomes. Thus, every encouraging trend that can be documented is matched with another that is less encouraging. For example, segregation of Whites and Blacks in primary and secondary schools remains exceptionally high with only minimal change, if any, suggested by trends in the recent past (Farley and Allen 1986; National Research Council 1989)...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Determinants of Racial Inequality in Nonmetropolitan Areas
• 3 Measurement Issues
• 4 Trends in Inequality
• 5 Cross-Sectional Analyses
• 6 Longitudinal Analyses
• 7 Overview and Discussion
• Appendix A: Measuring Inequality
• Appendix B: Measuring Inequality with Census Occupation Data
• Appendix C: Measures
• References
• Index
• About the Book and Authors