Today, in contemporary American society comprising different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, differences have emerged between cultures and ethnicities. The act of distinguishing oneself from another group of people either culturally, ethnically, socially, or racially defines segregation (Brown, 2020). Furthermore, Yi et al. (2019) insinuate that segregation is a term that reflects the extent to which social groupings are geographically isolated from one another and implicitly socially isolated. This idea is connected to a concern in the degree to which residents of an area share standard social features (Yi et al., 2019). Such qualities have historically been assessed based on ethnic origin or socioeconomic class, while attention in the aggregation of the fortunate has grown (Yi et al., 2019). Segregation creates significant issues since many communities have economic and racial segregation (Yi et al., 2019).
During the Great Migration, many African-Americans fled the Jim Crow Peninsula’s impoverishment and misery in seeking a better life in urban centers. However, they quickly realized that the North had its framework of racial discrimination, most notably in real estate markets (Akbar et al., 2019). Due to a combination of intimidation, malicious attack, and exclusionary real estate techniques, black immigrants were confined mainly to dwellings in established black communities (Akbar et al., 2019). The fictional history stresses whites’ collaboration to preserve the segregation laws, which evolved from furious masses in the initial periods of the Great Migration to the development of elegant community construction (Akbar et al., 2019). These groups were formed to reduce the cost of implementing prohibitions, which were deed restrictions that prohibited the selling of a home to an immigrant community (Akbar et al., 2019). The Great Migration led to the immigration of other groups such as the Hispanic and Latino Americans.
Cities grew at an extraordinary rate throughout the first half of the 20th Century, but African-American migration from South was only one factor contributing to this boom. Immigrants from Europe were more numerous quantitatively, notably before the first National Immigration Act’s (NIA) introduction in 1921 (Shertzer & Walsh, 2019). Consequently, segregation arose in increasing urbanization, contrary to the post-war years, which saw significant suburbanization and demographic losses in cities (Shertzer & Walsh, 2019). Between 1880 and 1930, the proportion of people dwelling in center cities increased from 14% to 33% before plateauing (Shertzer & Walsh, 2019). Three cities expanded due to population growth and the acquisition and industrialization of peripheral areas (Shertzer & Walsh, 2019). Furthermore, between 1900 and 1930, the density of the population of the typical affluent community grew by 68 percent.
Several working-class and lower-middle-class families lost their homes during the Great Depression. They were unable to make their bills on time. As a result, the Public Works Administration created the nation’s first civil government housing (Shertzer & Walsh, 2019). Initially, it was mostly for whites in restricted white complexes, and a few developments for Blacks in isolated African-American complexes were created at some point housing (Shertzer & Walsh, 2019). This method frequently fragmented communities that had not been separated earlier. The Depression provided the impetus for constructing the first citizen social housing (Shertzer & Walsh, 2019). Without that regulation, most of these municipalities would have expanded differently in terms of the residential arrangement. Because of the Great Depression and the Great Migration into the United States of America, the inhabitants, who were white Americans, felt insecure with the influx of different groups within them. This paper aims to analyze the relationship between segregation and other variables such as race, employment, and a criminal record in the United States of America.
Segregation and Race in the United States of America
Segregation that is race based takes various forms in the United States today. Benton (2018) enumerates that the United States of America is among the top leading nations globally with a higher prevalence of racial segregation. Furthermore, Benton (2018) insinuates that Saint Louis is hyper-segregated on a white-black basis, which means that at most 60% of blacks and whites would have to relocate to a new demographic unit to cease discrimination. Particularly, 65% of the Saint Louis neighborhood’s African-American and white population would be displaced, ranking the town as the twenty-first highest segregated in the country. Inside Saint Louis, inequality is predominantly along a south-to-north axis along Delmar Boulevard. Today, racial segregation in the USA is evident in learning institutions, housing markets, the prison industry, and health access (Benton, 2018). Racial segregation is a continuous phenomenon that requires urgency if it is to be done away.
Racial Segregation in Learning Institutions in the United States of America
With the continued immigration of different people into the United States of America, there is expected to be an interaction of different people with different racial backgrounds. The interaction is further extended to learning institutions across all learning levels. Despite the 1954 Brown decision finding that explicit acts of prejudice in learning, notably the doctrine of separate – but – equal, unlawful, in the early twentieth Century, light and dark children in the USA have significantly different academic opportunities (Hahn et al., 2018). For instance, in Alabama, Black children received far limited resources than White children (Hahn et al., 2018).
Inequality in schooling among whites and blacks is evident as expressed by the inability of black students to attend better and performing schools. Hasan and Kumar (2019) insinuate that this inequality in obtaining better schools by black children is attributed to the low-income earnings of their parents. The fast rise in top-income families’ earnings, along with the substantial rising inequality for low and middle residents, has transformed numerous elements of life in communities across the United States. For instance, Hasan and Kumar (2019) discovered that income-based geographical discrimination expanded when income disparity climbed from the 1970s to the 2000s.
When high-income white families clustered regionally, wage and racial discrimination trends increased (Hasan & Kumar, 2019). As a result of this increase in income segregation, the impact on the American populace’s education – a fundamental engine of economic opportunity – has been significant (Hasan & Kumar, 2019). For instance, they discover that discrimination had a major influence on the structure of public schools, with high-income white households disproportionately receiving access to higher-performing schools (Hasan & Kumar, 2019). One consequence of this segmentation is that lower-income black pupils’ educational progress is harmed without access to high-quality schools.
Schooling is an important human capital accumulation that expands future chances for meaningful jobs, discouraging engagement in crime. Therefore, it is commensurate with several studies demonstrating that increased wages lower crime and decades of employment market research demonstrating that education raises pay levels (Lochner, 2020). The human capital development and education should reduce crime if productive capacity increases the optimal rewards to employment far beyond crime (Lochner, 2020). Thus, programs that raise school enrollment should reduce most adult gang activity (Lochner, 2020). However, particular forms of white-collar crimes, such as corruption and forgery, improve with academic knowledge if the talents taught in school are properly rewarded.
Racial Segregation in Housing Markets in the United States of America
Housing is the primary asset for most mainstream households in America and a significant factor in racial wealth inequality. In their study, Akbar et al. (2019) observed that enormous concentration levels of black families residing on nearly all-black blocks grew from 52% in 2010 to 63% at the decade’s end. Additionally, racial transformation plays a significant role in the immigrant experience during this decade (Akbar et al., 2019). Akbar et al. (2019) insinuate that only 4% of black households reside on mainly white blocks in 2019. Therefore, it is evident that racial segregation still exists today in the USA.
The Housing Act of 1949 and the Supreme Court’s decision on the Buchanan v. Warley case have contributed to the continuance of racial segregation in the housing industry in the United States today. Akbar et al. (2019) enumerate that in the early 20th Century, several cities, particularly border cities like Kentucky, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Louisville, passed zoning ordinances. These zoning regulations are meant to prohibit African-Americans from moving onto a block that is majority white. For one thing, many African-Americans cannot afford to reside in wealthy communities during the height of these systems of public discrimination (Martin & Varner, 2017). Large communities established with FHA support, such as Levittown and New York, were required to be entirely white. While whites claim to welcome the inclusion of African-American neighbors, in reality, they ignore communities with more than a few African-American residents and limit their exploration to predominantly white populated neighborhoods (Massey, 2020).
The residences in those areas sold for around $100,000 each in the modern currencies. The resident and housing cost is twice the national wage and are affordable to minorities and whites alike, yet they were exclusively available to employed whites (Martin & Varner, 2017). Those properties will sell for seven to eight times the national average income within a few generations, rendering them unattainable to low African-American earners (Martin & Varner, 2017). Thus, the discrimination that occurred during the construction of the homes established a permanent system that kept African-Americans out as valuation developed (Martin & Varner, 2017). White households benefited from the development of their homes in terms of home equity and wealth (Martin & Varner, 2017). African-Americans who were made to remain in condominiums and were not allowed to purchase a home received none of this praise.
Racial Segregation and Health Access in the United States
Children of African-American women have inherent susceptibility problems during birth due to their well-documented elevated risk of premature birth and higher mortality. This gap is partly because women of color face higher concurrent income poverty rates (Beck et al., 2020). This deficit has raised the likelihood of prematurity and the consequent health problems and cognitive development of infants (Beck et al., 2020). Care quality is an essential and theoretically adjustable element that contributes to differences and is one of the mechanisms through which discrimination, marginalization, and disparity severely impact the effectiveness of very premature newborns.
In two ways, variations in care quality have resulted in ethnic and racial inequities. First, white and minority newborn children get treatment in various NICUs, and NICUs that serve minority newborns predominantly may have physical properties linked with poor care quality (Beck et al., 2020). Furthermore, Beck et al. (2020) suggest that the development of communities or putative therapeutic contribute to lower quality of care among women of color (Beck et al., 2020). Second, the quality of care obtained by preterm newborns in individual NICUs varies by ethnicity and race. Significant and enduring gaps in clinical outcomes and access to healthcare are extensively observed in the United States of America, notably among non-Hispanic African-Americans.
These paths may be determined by organizational and clinical processes rather than structural traits, which disadvantage minority newborns (Beck et al., 2020). Racial segregation in the health sector in the United States is still an ongoing practice in the 21st Century. Income levels in the USA are a major contributing factor in racial health segregation among African-Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, and Mexican Americans. Additionally, Bailey et al. (2017) suggest that neighborhood segregation has been linked to adverse birth outcomes, higher susceptibility to air contaminants, shorter mortality, and a higher likelihood of serious illness. Social inequality significantly impacts treatment access, consumption, and effectiveness at the community, medical system, clinician, and personal level.
During the last two decades, evidence has accumulated showing very low birth weight (VLBW) infants of African Americans being cared for in a small number of healthcare facilities. Minority-serving healthcare institutions have significantly greater neonatal death rates for African-American and white newborns (Beck et al., 2020). Beck et al. (2020) enumerate that recent researches have moved beyond death to include severe newborn morbidity, with similarly conclusive results. Black and Hispanic premature birth babies have much more probable VLBW newborns to be conceived in medical facilities with greater risk neonatal deaths rates (Beck et al., 2020). (Bailey et al., 2017) insinuate that divergent dynamic analysis today in the USA accounts for 40% of the African-America and white difference in very premature birth neonatal death rates. In the USA, healthcare there has been a discovery that African-American infants have low prevalence rates to be delivered at Magnet-designated facilities (Beck et al., 2020). There is an increased risk of death of minorities’ children who most likely are born in non – Magnet healthcare institutions.
Racial Segregation in the Prison Industry in the United States
Segregation has been practiced in American Prisons, but historical sources date it back to the 17th Century. Brown (2020) enumerates that racial segregation persists in contemporary American society. In the prison industry, as defined by Brown (2020), racial segregation is evident in the following scenarios as discussed in the following literature. Situations of segregation can vary significantly in terms of the number of hours spent in the cell, the amount to which intentional activity is permitted, visitation qualification, and the accessibility of literature and other entertainment activities (Brown, 2020). First, considering the amount of time spent in a cell greatly differs between the prison inmates. Brown (2020) enumerates that African-Americans spent long hours in the cells than other inmates from other races. Despite the degree of crime for which an African-American has been incarcerated, from high-degree crimes like homicide to lesser crimes like burglary and theft, their cell hours are more.
Intentional activities that an inmate may be permitted to do, such as participation in various sporting activities, are restricted to African-American inmates. Brown (2020) ascertains that today’s United States of America prison industry has limited the intentional activities of African-American inmates compared to their white counterparts. A majority of the African-American inmates incarcerated in the USA prisons have inadequate access to physical activities, and as a result, most of them have deteriorating health (Brown, 2020). Additionally, visitation qualifications for the African-American inmates are had to attain due to the cumbersome and the extent of difficulty the qualification procedures made for them (Brown, 2020). Thus, this has increased the rate of social exclusion of African-American inmates from their families.
Consequently, accessibility to learning materials and entertainment is proportionately low to African-American inmates compared to other inmates of other racial origins. Brown (2020) enumerates that a greater percentage of African-American inmates in most USA prisons have lower literacy levels than whites. Brown (2020) associates the low literacy levels among African-Americans with limited access to education that leads to criminal activities, hence their higher number in the US prison industry. Therefore, the low literacy levels have further impacted the unavailability to access white-collar jobs even after their release from prisons.
Segregation and a Criminal Record in the United States of America
While most scholar research differentiation emphasizes learning institutions, labor markets, and families as the key households driving disparities, a new organization has surfaced. The new system is critical to selecting and classifying youthful and marginalized men: the criminal justice industry. The increase in the incarceration rate has had a disproportionate effect on African-Americans (Lochner, 2020). Currently, in the USA, there are over 2 million people detained (Lochner, 2020). Additionally, another half a million are acquitted each year, leading to the rapidly growing percentage of men handled via the criminal justice system (Lochner, 2020). Thus, it presents a serious challenge about the repercussions of this enormous organizational involvement. Confinement, particularly, is related to diminished potential career chances and financial prospects, both of which are powerful determinants of rehabilitation (Lochner, 2020). The increase in the inmate population has had a disproportionate effect on minorities. In 2000, the imprisonment rate for African-Americans was approximately 10%, contrasted to slightly over 1% for white Americans of the same age range (Lochner, 2020).
Today’s young African-Americans face a 28 percent lifetime risk of imprisonment, a statistic that jumps to more than 50% for youthful African-American high school dropouts. These massive prison populations result in a sizable and growing community of minority ex-offenders emerging to their neighborhoods in search of employment (Lochner, 2020). The stigma associated with minority status and a criminal background exacerbates these males’ difficulties in achieving economic self-sufficiency (Lochner, 2020). Such changes have the potential to have far-reaching ramifications for expanding racial inequality (Lochner, 2020). Americans have strong and pervasive unfavorable preconceptions of blacks, with one of the most frequently stated current clichés involving thoughts of delinquent and dangerous inclinations (Lochner, 2020). The same assertion is supported by Massey (2020), who elaborates that most whites equate the simple existence of African-Americans to increased incarceration rates, underperforming schools, and reduced housing values regardless of the community’s proper conditions. If managers consider all African Americans as potential violent criminals, they are likely to make fewer distinctions between those with and without formal criminal backgrounds.
Actual substantiation of illegal activity would then supply false alarms while supporting evidence would be ignored. In this context, consequences should be worse for all African-Americans, with less disparity amongst those with and without a history of violence (Lochner, 2020). On the other hand, a criminal background may have a detrimental impact on African Americans if organizations, already suspicious of African-American applicants, are more reluctant to take chances on African Americans with demonstrated violent backgrounds. Furthermore, in the USA today, there is a higher likelihood of a police officer shooting an armed or unarmed African-American than a white (Johnson, 2018). Bailey et al. (2017), in their research on institutionalized racism, found out that there is the continued discrimination of African-Americans in their neighborhoods, linking them to rising incidence of murder and other criminality.
The police industry association of African-Americans with criminal behaviors has had a detrimental effect on the lives of African-Americans. The extension has been observed in the police industry, where racial killings have been witnessed even without proper criminal evidence. Cases in point in point include the killing of Gorge Floyd in 2020 and Tamir Rice (Johnson, 2018). For the case of Tamir Rice, Johnson (2018) enumerates that authorities were alerted after receiving a complaint from a pavilion reporting the presence of a man with a handgun, which was most likely a hoax. Additionally, the caller stated that the individual seemed to be a youngster. The operator reportedly did not convey to the attending cops the intelligence that the pistol did not happen to be actual, and the person seemed to be a minor.
Officers attending spotted an African-American individual seated beneath the pavilion with a dark revolver on the table. The cop noticed the African-American male picking up the weapon and stuffing it into his belt. The cops responded and presumably called many times from inside the moving vehicle for Tamir to come to a halt. As the police exited the car, Tamir went into his waistline and drew the revolver out; the police promptly shot Tamir. According to the police, the suspect seemed to be a young man in his youth (Johnson, 2018). Tamir appeared to be older chronologically. Prosecutors stated that many onlookers observed Tamir with the plastic pistol throughout the day, removing it from his waistband and aiming it at people. Furthermore, in the USA today, there is a higher likelihood of a police officer shooting an armed or unarmed African-American than a white.
Police officers’ explanations for why they are more willing to attack a defenseless or dangerous African-American suspect differ. Cops shoot African-American suspects at a higher rate than other races because of stereotyping due to racial clues (Johnson, 2018). In this situation, African-American suspects are deemed more threatening than other offenders and more likely to be assaulted by police during interactions (Johnson, 2018). Police officers kill young African-American guys at six times than young white males (Johnson, 2018). Additionally, it has been established that cops of any race are equally prone to use lethal force. In shoot-or-don’t-shoot circumstances, officers and non-police respondents pressed the shoot toggle more quickly for African-Americans than for Whites. Johnson (2018) asserts that law enforcement officers exhibit unconscious prejudice and bigotry toward African-Americans, resulting in increased surveillance and arrests relative to White suspects.
The other reason that African-Americans are gunned down or killed by cops at a higher rate than Whites or other races is that African-Americans commit more heinous crimes in the communities where they live. Although African-American account for around 13% of the US demographic, they are more likely to murder law enforcement officers and commit some forms of criminal activity than Whites (Johnson, 2018). Johnson (2018) discovered that nearly 90% of police killings featuring African- American suspects occur in locations where the African-American population outnumbers the white people and in impoverished communities. Environmental influences, such as elevated crime communities, seem to substantially impact determining where law enforcement officers are more presumably to use excessive force or physical force on African-Americans defendants. Additionally, Johnson (2018) argues that there is an assumption that violence is permissible in high-crime communities.
Segregation and Employment in the United States of America
Segregation in the employment sector in the United States of America takes various forms. There have been gender discrimination in the employment sectors in the USA more in tourism sector (Hutchings et al., 2020). Hutchings et al. (2020) enumerate that women make up a vast percentage of the tourism workforce internationally. However, they continue to be disadvantaged in managerial positions and extensively employed informal labor and low-wage professions. According to Hutchings et al. (2020), women in labor, especially in the tourism sector, face gender inequality, labor force, and occupational discrimination. Additionally, they work under family confrontation and other hurdles to jobs and career advancement.
Tourism, which represents over USD 1.4 trillion in export earnings, is an employment industry with various professions. The diversity encompasses part-time, contractual, or needless academic training, providing the potential entry into the work (Hutchings et al., 2020). Tourism employment is also significantly gender-segregated and remains so (Hutchings et al., 2020). While women make up 54% of tourism workers, they receive 14.7 percent less than males and are disadvantaged in tourism management and ministry positions (Hutchings et al., 2020). The female gender is prominently recognized in poor and part-time, informal, and irregular occupations and are more likely to face terrible working circumstances, abuse, victimization, frustration, and sexual assault due to their employment (Hutchings et al., 2020). Nonetheless, Hutchings et al. (2020) stated that tourist employment presents a composite image of autonomy and victimization for women. They indicated that jobs in tourism reinforce women’s economic and sexual oppression through oppressive work conditions, which are particularly prevalent among young, minority groups, and migratory employees.
Employment segregation is also evident in American society through the increasing percentage of immigrants and African-American individuals in the informal employment sector. During the Great Depression and the Great Migration, the influx of immigrants saw many minority groups fill the employment market. One of the factors that led to their immigration into the United States was the search for better job opportunities and improved living standards (Klaesson & Öner., 2020). Therefore, immigrants need to access better living standards, which meant that they were to compete with the whites for the available jobs in the employment sector (Klaesson & Öner., 2020). Today, as Klaesson and Öner (2020) insinuate, more African-Americans have acquired formal education and are better placed to compete with their white counterpart in various top managerial jobs.
As such, segregation based on racial prejudices exists widely in the United States employment sector. Klaesson and Öner (2020) enumerate that most employers in the various American agricultural and manufacturing sectors segregate African-American when it comes to job application. As Klaesson and Öner (2020), most managers associate these minority groups with criminal activities and violence even when the case is not so. Therefore when it comes to employment, racial segregation in employment ventures is evident. Additionally, Klaesson & Öner (2020) insinuate that most managers racially segregate when it comes to the provision of employment because they feel like the immigrants and the minority group would take away what they have worked for so long away from them.
Segregation and employment are also evident, as portrayed in class inequality and social hardship. As Tan et al. (2021) enumerate, the signs of racial oppression in employment are ethnic differences in income inequality and occupation in academic, technological, or management jobs. Inequalities in financial achievements between African-Americans and whites have been linked to various factors, including racial segregation in employment, spatial impediments to jobs, and learning institutional chances (Tan et al., 2021).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the above discussion on the relationship between segregation and race, employment, and a criminal record in the United States of America shows that segregation has detrimental effects on the social and economic lives of the Africa-American and other minority groups in the United States. Racial segregation has seen several minority groups suffer when it comes to accessibility to quality healthcare services. Furthermore, racial segregation has seen minority groups have low access to quality education leading to school dropouts accelerating crime rates. Gender discrimination against women in the USA has seen women rights violated, and as such, their value in society is diminished. Lastly, segregation has seen the whites associate African-Americans with vices even when it is not so. Various human intervention strategies should be incorporated into the United States’ legislation to see segregation brought to an end in all its forms for a harmonious and productive society.
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