The Color of Law A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (z-lib.org).epub

above it. Notwithstanding the government’s official poverty line, most of us
would consider families to be poor if they had incomes that were below
twice that line, $42,000 for a family of three. The federal government itself
considers schoolchildren whose family incomes are nearly twice (185
percent) the poverty line to be too poor to pay for their own lunches without
a subsidy. Families like theirs are also unable to move to middle-class
neighborhoods, either by saving for down payments or by renting apartments
at market rates. So Sharkey is reasonable when he considers such
neighborhoods to be “poor.”
He finds that young African Americans (from thirteen to twenty-eight
years old) are now ten times as likely to live in poor neighborhoods as young
whites—66 percent of African Americans, compared to 6 percent of whites.
He finds that 67 percent of African American families hailing from the
poorest quarter of neighborhoods a generation ago continue to live in such
neighborhoods today. But only 40 percent of white families who lived in the
poorest quarter of neighborhoods a generation ago still do so.
Forty-eight percent of African American families, at all income levels,
have lived in poor neighborhoods over at least two generations, compared to
7 percent of white families. If a child grows up in a poor neighborhood,
moving up and out to a middle-class area is typical for whites but an
aberration for African Americans. Neighborhood poverty is thus more
multigenerational for African Americans and more episodic for whites.
The consequences of being exposed to neighborhood poverty are greater
than the consequences of being poor itself. Children who grow up in poor
neighborhoods have few adult role models who have been educationally and
occupationally successful. Their ability to do well in school is compromised
from stress that can result from exposure to violence. They have few, if any,
summer job opportunities. Libraries and bookstores are less accessible.
There are fewer primary care physicians. Fresh food is harder to get.
Airborne pollutants are more present, leading to greater school absence from
respiratory illness. The concentration of many disadvantaged children in the
same classroom deprives each child of the special attention needed to be
successful. All these challenges are added to those from which poor children
suffer in any neighborhood—instability and stress resulting from parental
unemployment, fewer literacy experiences when parents are poorly
educated, more overcrowded living arrangements that offer few quiet