Localism, Self-Interest, and the Tyranny of the Favored Quarter: Addressing the Barriers to New Regionalism

This article argues that our nation\u27s ideological commitment to decentralized local governance has helped to create the phenomenon of the favored quarter. Localism, or the ideological commitment to local governance, has helped to produce fragmented metropolitan regions stratified by race and income. This fragmentation produces a collective action problem or regional prisoner\u27s dilemma that is well-known in the local governance literature

Privatized Communities and the Secession of the Successful : Democracy and Fairness Beyond the Gate

In this essay, I will reflect on how common interest developments, and their privatized spaces, are contributing to a broader phenomenon of civic secession, primarily by affluent property owners. In particular, I will analyze the way in which CIDs may affect electoral politics and the allocation of public resources by federal and state government. The chief threat of CIDs is that they exacerbate inequality in America while also exacerbating the challenges of governing. By giving the private property owner a formal context in which to feel justified in her view that she is doing her part simply by paying her way for services, it will be increasingly difficult in the twenty-first century to establish a mandate for governmental policy, whether federal, state, or local, that requires shared sacrifice. Because most CIDs are extremely homogenous in terms of race and class, it will be particularly difficult to build a consensus for public policies that are perceived as benefiting racial and economic groups that are underrepresented in the CID, property-holding class

Middle-Class Black Suburbs and the State of Integration: A Post-Integrationist Vision for Metropolitan America

Despite the gradual move towards integration in the United States, segregated communities, divided along socio-economic and racial lines, continue to exist, and indeed have taken on new forms. Given the choice between racial segregation and integration as minority members of a community, some middle-class African Americans have chosen to create their own communities, thus forming the modern day middle-class black suburb. Now, majority African-American suburbs rest adjacent to majority-white suburbs, but the segregated communities share little but the town line. In this Article, Professor Cashin addresses the timely and difficult question of whether the middle-class black suburb is a new utopia, or merely a separate, but unequal community. In weighing the benefits of the middle-class black suburb, she raises the even larger issue of whether the advantages of not feeling outnumbered by the white community are worth the costs of segregation. After tracing the development of the black suburbanization movement, and outlining various theories regarding its inception, Professor Cashin articulates the costs of separatism, paying particular attention to the higher crime rates, lower school funding and greater poverty levels prevalent within these African-American enclaves. Recognizing the benefits of these separate communities, including the opportunity for African-American political power and a renewed sense of spirit and culture, Professor Cashin nonetheless argues that systematic market forces, and societal biases engender unavoidable, negative externalities that may cloud any anticipated advantages. Professor Cashin concludes that the persistence of African-American segregation, spurred by discriminatory real estate practices, a unilateral desire of all races to live as a majority in a community, and fiscal zoning is a reality, whose driving factors must be challenged and defeated before the elusive dream of residential integration can come into being. Finally, Professor Cashin contends that it is only through honesty regarding the existing state of unequal affairs, increased enforcement of antidiscrimination laws, and the development of bridges between communities in the form of geographical and political regionalism, that equality can advance and take its place as a social norm in the twenty-first century

Shall We Overcome? Post-Racialism and Inclusion in the 21st Century

The subject of post-racialism has been rather topical since Barack Obama was elected President. I greatly appreciate this opportunity to reflect on the extent to which Americans have, or have not, transcended race. The topic interests me tremendously because for many years I have been an advocate for race and class integration, which I addressed at length in my book The Failures of Integration. In The Failures, my main argument for pursuing meaningful integration is that a nation premised on race and class separation renders the American Dream of residential choice leading to upward mobility impossibly expensive and out of reach for many people. Everyone is harmed in a nation of separate, racialized mobility tracks. Unfortunately, several current federal policies encourage rather than discourage racial segregation

Democracy, Race, and Multiculturalism in the Twenty-First Century: Will the Voting Rights Act Ever be Obsolete?

Part I of this essay begins one hundred years before the passage of the Act, with Reconstruction. I briefly canvas the interracial alliances of the Reconstruction and Redemption periods, underscoring that American democracy has been most responsive to the masses, including working class whites, when interracial alliances between whites and blacks commanded majority power. I then recount how a politics of white supremacy animated and perpetuated racial schisms between blacks and whites for a century in the South. Part II describes how the Act came to be passed, emphasizing the role of protest and coalition politics in its enactment, and the dramatic impact of the Act in fostering active participation by communities of color in American politics. Part III explores the opportunities and challenges presented by growing diversity of the electorate, underscoring the modem manifestations of historic racial divides in American politics. There is a continued, albeit less pronounced, strain of race loyalty in voting patterns that we have not yet vanquished

To Be Muslim or “Muslim-Looking” in America: A Comparative Exploration of Racial and Religious Prejudice in the 21st Century

This Essay begins with a confession. In taking implicit association tests ( IATs ) designed to measure my unconscious attitude toward two particular demographic groups, I discovered that I, an African-American, harbored a slight automatic preference for Europeans over blacks and for other people over Arab-Muslims. Both of these results were contrary to my professed or conscious assertions of neutrality. Why would a pro-integration scholar who seeks to promote cross-racial understanding and inclusion exhibit such implicit biases? And why is it that a majority of others who take these tests register similar implicit biases? The point of my confession is to underscore the fact of widespread unconscious bias. Unfortunately, a large body of evidence from experimental psychology demonstrates such bias on the part of whites and minorities against racial minorities, especially African-Americans. This is in contrast to a dramatic reduction in explicit or reported bias against blacks. Indeed, there is much evidence to support the conclusion that a nondiscriminatory or colorblind identity is... important to most white Americans

Civil Rights for the Twenty-First Century: Lessons from Justice Thurgood Marshall\u27s Race-Transcending Jurisprudence

This Essay pays tribute to justice Thurgood Marshall\u27s race-transcending vision of universal human dignity, and explores the importance of building cross-racial alliances to modern civil rights advocacy. justice Marshall\u27s role as a Race Man is evident in much of his jurisprudence, where he fought for years to promote equal opportunity and equal justice. As an advocate for all marginalized people, justice Marshall viewed equal justice as transcending race, and this Essay suggests that the multi-racial coalition that supported President Obama aligns with Marshall\u27s vision. The Essay evaluates the civil rights movement through the lens of Justice Marshall\u27s equality analysis, and calls for a multiracial coalition that transcends identity boundaries

Integration as a Means of Restoring Democracy and Opportunity

This paper was originally presented at A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality, a national symposium hosted by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies in April 2017. The symposium examined how patterns of residential segregation by income and race in the United States are changing and the consequences of residential segregation for individuals and society, and sought to identify the most promising strategies for fostering more inclusive communities in the years to come. This paper was presented as part of Panel 1 at the symposium, entitled “Defining Objectives and the Rationale for Action.

Civil Rights in the New Decade: The Geography of Opportunity

It is truly an honor and a privilege to have been invited to return to my home state of Alabama to talk about the civil rights agenda in the new decade. Lest you think that I lack the appropriate credentials to speak on this issue, I will tell you that I did go to jail for the cause. At the age of four months, I was taken by my mother, Joan Carpenter Cashin, to a sit-in at a lunch counter in Huntsville, Alabama. When my mother was arrested, she insisted on taking me with her to jail. I am very proud of the role that she and my father, Dr. John Cashin, played in helping to bring about the desegregation of public accommodations in Huntsville, two full years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. I am also proud to be an Alabamian. I am proud of the role that my state played in the civil rights movement of the twentieth century. It is most appropriate that here, in the place where the Second Reconstruction was fought and bled for, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the Cumberland School of Law are attempting to chart the course for the civil rights movement in the new century

Getting the Politics Right on a National Gautreaux Program

Alex Polikoff has provided an important national service in identifying the black ghetto as a singular, nation-threatening challenge that is also eminently redressable. His essay resonated greatly with me when I read it. After three years of working in the Clinton White House on urban policy and five years of writing academic articles about race and class segregation in America, I came to virtually the same conclusion about the costs and consequences of the black ghetto