Spirituality, Social Justice, Spatial Racism and Civil Rights

1
Spirituality, Social Justice, Spatial Racism and
Civil Rights

• Professor john powell
• March 19, 2004

2
Presentation Overview

• Spirituality and Social Justice
• Race and Racism
• What is Sprawl/Fragmentation? Why is it
  important?
• Historical overview
• Current Trends
• How do we evaluate social justice projects?
• How do we meaningfully frame an equity agenda?
• Regionalism
• Conclusion

3
Spirituality and Social Justice

• We usually focus on how spirituality inspires
  social justice work, but not on how working for
  social justice informs spirituality
• Caring about others suffering not just about
  relieving their suffering, but about ones own
  spiritual development
• Suffering a central concern of both
• Spirituality ??Social Justice

4
Suffering

• 2 kinds
• Existential/ontological (Spiritual Suffering)
• Surplus (Social suffering)

5
Suffering

• Existential/Ontological Suffering
• Transience (First Noble Truth of Buddhism)
• Loys Sense of Lack
• Psychoanalysis (Lacans Lack)
• Inherent in existence
• Surplus/Secular suffering
• The result of social arrangements/structures
• Visited on people unequally

6

• What is the relationship between spiritual
  suffering and social suffering? Individual
  Suffering and Collective Suffering?
• What is the relationship between spirituality and
  social justice?
• What is the greater relationship between the
  secular and the spiritual in our world?
• Questions reflections of each other

7
Spirituality and the Self

• How do postmodern rejections of an isolated or
  unified self and assertions of the multiplicity
  of selves come into play?
• If self is actually constructed within an
  intersubjective space, if there is no personal
  sphere without the social sphere, is it possible
  to have a private, personal relationship with
  God? Or are our yearnings always communal
  yearnings?
• If the social and the personal are constituted in
  relationship to each other, could our unresolved
  ontological suffering create the structures that
  perpetuate social suffering.

8
Personal vs Social

• If spirituality is our efforts to connect to
  something beyond our (unfulfilling) egoistic self
  how does that relate to social justice?
• Could working to relieve social suffering be a
  non-optional part of moving beyond our self?
  Working for social transformation be an integral
  part of engaging deeply with all of our personal
  encounters?
• Addresses the tensions between transcendence
  and immanence
• Must reject structures that that limit our ways
  to embrace love and hope in all out interpersonal
  interaction to come home
• Love calls the ego beyond itself

9
Race and Racism

• Race
• Biological determinism vs social construction
• Constituted through racism
• Race does not exist in an objective sense, it is
  created by/through racism
• Whiteness does not exist outside White
  supremacy
• Racism institutional and personal continually
  reifies whiteness as a category defined by the
  presence of an Other

10
Race and Racism

• We have seen a move away from legal racism and
  personal prejudice to a racial hierarchy that is
  enforced through institutional/structural means
• de jure segregation ? de facto segregation
• inscribed in laws ? inscribed in land

11
Understanding Structural Racism

• Theoretically neutral policies and practices can
  function in racist ways. Laws and institutions
  need not be explicitly racist in order to
  disempower communities of color.
• Racism without racists
• These policies and practices are not neutral
  however, and as a result the burdens are
  distributed unevenly.

12
Race and Racism

• Although racial attitudes and personal prejudice
  is improving steadily, racial disparities persist
  on every level
• Not enough just to recognize these disparities,
  we must understand our assumptions surrounding
  them
• What is the meaning of these disparities in terms
  of a true democracy?

13
Median Household incomes of racial and ethnic
groups (national)
SOURCE LEWIS MUMFORD CENTER 1990, 2000 CENSUS
14

The face of racism looks different today than it
did thirty years ago. Overt racism is easily
condemned, but the sin is often with us in more
subtle formsof spatial racismSpatial racism
refers to patterns of metropolitan development in
which some affluent whites create racially and
economically segregated suburbs or gentrified
areas of cities, leaving the poor -- mainly
African Americans, Hispanics and some newly
arrived immigrants -- isolated in deteriorating
areas of the cities and older suburbs.
Francis Cardinal George, OMI Archbishop of Chicago
15
Spatial Racism The Civil Rights Agenda for the
21st Century
Space is how race plays out in American
society-and the key to solving inequities in
housing, transportation, education, and health
careSprawl is the new face of Jim
Crow. john powell
16
Spatial Racism The Civil Rights Agenda for the
21st Century

• The government plays a central role in the
  arrangement of space and opportunities.
• Not neutral or natural

• Social and racial inequities are geographically
  inscribed
• There is a polarization between the rich and the
  poor that is directly related to the areas in
  which they live.

17
Spatial Racism Not Natural or Neutral

• Civil Rights movement and the urbanization of
  people of color occurred in tandem during
  post-WWII America.
• While very real gains were being made against
  blatant exclusionary practices and a culture of
  discrimination, groundwork was being laid for
  persistent structural racism.
• Blacks moving to cities for opportunities, while
  opportunities leave the cities to the suburbs
• Same pattern beginning to repeat in first-ring
  suburbs today

18

• If a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is
  necessary that properties shall continue to be
  occupied by the same social and racial classes.
  A change in social or racial occupancy generally
  contributes to instability and a decline in
  values.
• Excerpt from the 1947 FHA underwriting manual.

19
Spatial Racism Not Natural or Neutral

• Federal Housing Policies spurred white flight and
  segregation
• Transportation spending favors highways and
  metropolitan expansion
• Court decisions prevent metropolitan school
  desegregation
• School funding is tied to property taxes
• Municipalities subsidize the relocation of
  businesses out of the city
• Zoning laws prevent affordable housing
  development in many suburbs

20
Segregation Today

• Persists at very high levels for
  African-Americans
• At 65 (75 in many major metropolitan areas)
• Improving at an extremely slow pace
• Worst in Northern cities
• Detroit, Milwaukee, New York, Chicago
• Southern cities more likely to be organized on
  county level

21
Sprawl in the United States
Suburban population

• Suburban population doubled
• between 1950 and 1970

1950
1970
Suburbs
Central Cities

• By 2000 the suburbs
• contained over 2/3 of the
• metropolitan population
• Only 1/3 remained in the
• central cities

22

• By pushing good jobs, stable housing, and
  educational opportunities further into the
  suburbs, sprawl creates areas of the central city
  that are locked off from access to meaningful
  opportunities.

23
US increasingly fragmented

• In 1950, 60 of Americas metropolitan
  residents lived in just
• 193 jurisdictions.

• By 1990 almost 70 of the metropolitan population
  lived in 9,600 suburban jurisdictions, indicating
  the shift to a more fragmented regional structure.

24
Fragmentation

• Regions are now governed by an average of 90
  local
• governments.
•  
• It is the control that matters for equity
•  
• Zoning
• Planning
• Taxation
• Education
• Public Services

As many cities are moving quickly towards
becoming majority-minority areas, those same
cities are seeing their political decision making
capacities become less and less
25
Political fragmentation correlates to greater
sprawl.
Change in Density 1982-1997
Greater Fragmentation
More Sprawl
Less Sprawl
Source William Fulton, et. al. Who Sprawls
Most? How Growth Patterns Differ Across the
U.S. Brookings, July 2001.
26

• SPRAWL
• FRAGMENTATION
• CONCENTRATED POVERTY
• CONCENTRATED WEALTH

27
Fragmentation, Segregation,and the Tax Base

• People of color in segregated areas of the region
  tend to own homes with lower values.
• Municipalities rely on the tax base to provide
  essential services, often including public
  education, and the tax base is tied to home
  values.
• These municipalities struggle to provide for a
  higher need population.

28
Fragmentation and Jobs

• A 2001 Brookings Institution study found a
  significant relationship between fragmentation
  and job decentralization in the 100 largest metro
  areas.
• Job decentralization harms access to employment
  for residents of the central city and inner-ring
  suburbs.
• See Job Sprawl Employment Location in U.S.
  Metropolitan Areas (2001) (Brookings
  Institution).

29
Transportation and Jobs

• Jobs have moved away from the labor pool in many
  metropolitan areas, making connecting job-seekers
  with jobs a challenge.
• 58 of all welfare participants in the nation
  live in central cities.
• 70 of all new jobs are in the suburbs.
• 40 of all suburban jobs cannot be reached by
  public transportation.

30
Educational Inequity

• Resources available are tied to property values.
• Racial segregation in schools strongly
  corresponds to economic isolation in schools.
• The more fragmented the region is, the more
  racially segregated are the public schools,
  according to research by David Rusk.

31
Educational Inequity

• In 86 of states, school districts with the
  greatest numbers of poor children have less money
  to spend per pupil than districts with the fewest
  poor children.
• There is a large gap between the resources
  available to districts with a majority of
  students of color and districts with a student
  population a majority of white students.

32
Understanding the Distinctions between Sprawl and
Fragmentation

• Sprawl refers to outward, unmanaged growth that
  pulls resources away
• Fragmentation is the proliferation of local
  governments equipped with local control
• Local control and exclusion are particularly
  devastating to the regional racial and economic
  equity agenda
• Fighting the consequences of one does not
  necessarily cure the consequences of the other
  and increasing levels of fragmentation undermines
  democracy

33
Regional Variations in Spatial Racism

• Different areas of the country are dealing with
  unique challenges and opportunities based on
  current political practices, historical
  foundations of segregation, uncontrolled vs
  controlled sprawl, greater/less degrees of
  fragmentation, etc.

34
(No Transcript)
35
(No Transcript)
36
Racial/Ethnic Characteristics of High Poverty
Neighborhoods

• Over 3.1 million African Americans lived in High
  Poverty Neighborhoods in 2000
• Hispanics and African Americans made up almost
  70 of people living in high poverty
  neighborhoods in 2000

Source Stunning Progress, Hidden Problems The
Dramatic Decline of Concentrated Poverty in the
1990s. The Brookings Institute (2003)
37
Median Net Worth by Race/Ethnicity in 2000

• In 2000, the median net worth for Non-Hispanic
  White households was 10.5 times the value for
  African American households

Source Net Worth and Asset Ownership
1998-2000. Household Economic Studies. U.S.
Census Bureau (2003)
38
Regional Variations in Equity

• Northeast Midwestern U.S. (Rust Belt)
• Declining urban centers, overall population loss
  (population redistribution to suburban/rural
  areas).
• Highly fragmented local government structures.
• Very high degree of segregation.

39
The Northeast and Midwest

• Baltimore, MD Concentrated poverty and
  segregation.
• Milwaukee, WI Governmental fragmentation,
  segregation and income disparities.
• Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, MI Segregation and
  disparities in educational resources.

40

• Concentrated Poverty in the Baltimore Region
• The accompanying map illustrates the high
  concentration of African Americans in Poverty
  (displayed in red) in the Baltimore region
• The map on the following slide indicates that low
  income housing tax credit projects are further
  concentrating impoverished residents in these
  areas

41
African American Population Distribution and Low
Income Housing Tax Credit Projects in the
Baltimore Area (Dark Colors Highest
Distribution) (Blue Dots LITC projects)
42

• Milwaukee, WI Governmental Fragmentation,
  Segregation and Income Disparities
• The Milwaukee region has one of the most
  fragmented local government structures.
• Over 20 local government units operate in
  Milwaukee County alone.
• Milwaukee is also one of the most segregated
  places in the nation. (82 of Milwaukees African
  American residents would need to relocate to
  fully integrate the region.)
• Milwaukees segregated inner city neighborhoods
  are economically depressed.
• Median household income for Milwaukees central
  city neighborhood were 60 of the regional median
  household income in 2000.

Source Lewis Mumford Center, http//www.albany.ed
u/mumford/
43
African American Population Distribution in the
Milwaukee Area in 2000 (Dark Colors Highest
Distribution)
44
Non-White Hispanic Population Distribution in the
Milwaukee Area in 2000 (Dark Colors Highest
Distribution)
45
Median Household Income in the Milwaukee Area in
2000 (Dark Colors Highest Incomes)
46
The Rust Belt

• Most Rust Belt regions share Milwaukees
  problems.
• The Detroit consolidated metropolitan area has
  over 300 local land use authorities
• The Cincinnati metropolitan region has over 340
  government jurisdictions

47

• Battle Creek, MI Segregation and Educational
  Equity
• Segregation in the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo
  area in Michigan has resulted in African American
  students being forced into poorer school
  districts with fewer resources.
• In Battle Creek, MI the Battle Creek school
  district has the largest proportion of the
  African American population
• The following figures indicate that poverty rates
  are highest and growth the slowest in the Battle
  Creek school district

48

Source National Center for Education Statistics
49

50

51
Regional Variations in Equity

• The Southern U.S.
• Rapid population growth in certain areas
• Issues of rural poverty, high African American
  land ownership in rural areas (but stagnating
  assets), little wealth or growth.
• School segregation not as severe as in the East
  and Midwest
• Issues of residential segregation and impacts of
  sprawl still a problem.

52
The South High Degree of Racial Ethnic Rural
Poverty

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture has found
  rural minority populations much more likely to be
  living in areas of concentrated poverty than
  rural whites.
• One half of poor rural African Americans and
  Native Americans are found in high poverty rural
  areas, 1/3 of all poor rural Hispanics are found
  in areas of high poverty.
• In contrast, only 1/8 of poor rural non-Hispanic
  Whites live in high poverty rural areas.
• (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic
  Research Services)

53
The South High Degree of Racial Ethnic Rural
Poverty

• The following map indicates rural areas of high
  poverty for African Americans, Native Americans
  and Hispanic populations
• High poverty African American rural areas are
  concentrated in the south from Louisiana to North
  Carolina (area in blue).
• 39 of African Americans living in these rural
  counties were in poverty in 1999, almost twice
  the rate of poverty for African Americans in
  southern metropolitan areas.
• (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic
  Research Services)

54
High Rural Poverty by Race in America 1999
55
Atlanta, Georgia Growth Sprawl

• Population growth and segregation.
• An average of 69,000 residents moved to the
  Atlanta region per year during the 1990 to 1996
  and Atlantas urban area increased by 47 in this
  6 year period
• Atlantas African American residents remain
  segregated in the Atlanta region.
• Nearly 1/3 of Atlanta regions people of color
  reside in the City of Atlanta, while only 6.3 of
  the regions white residents reside in the city.

Source Sprawl Atlanta, Social Equity Dimensions
of Uneven Growth and Development (1999),
Environmental Justice Resource Center, Clark
Atlanta University
56
Atlanta, Georgia Growth Sprawl

• Housing challenges are greater for African
  Americans in the Atlanta region.
• African Americans are twice as likely experience
  discrimination in Atlantas suburban housing
  market than in the City of Atlanta.
• Employment and Poverty Changes
• Atlantas northern suburbs contain more than 50
  of the regions jobs, while the citys share of
  regional employment declined by 25.
• Over 84 of Atlantas poor live in high poverty
  areas. Almost ½ of Atlantas poor live in extreme
  high poverty neighborhoods.

Source Sprawl Atlanta, Social Equity Dimensions
of Uneven Growth and Development (1999),
Environmental Justice Resource Center, Clark
Atlanta University
57
Regional Variations in Equity

• The West
• Very rapid growth, growing denser (but still
  problems due to sprawl).
• Rapidly becoming more diverse, but racial
  inequities still persist.

58
The West Growth and Increased Diversity,
Racial/Ethnic Disparities Persist

• California
• Inequity is still prevalent in many California
  regions.
• Despite the unique differences of California (and
  other western states), indications of regional
  racial inequity and the impacts of sprawl are
  evident.

59
California Poverty Segregation

• Poverty rates are 2 to 3 times as high for
  African Americans and Non-white Latinos in
  Californias ten largest cities (U.S. Census
  Bureau)
• Less residential segregation than in the Midwest
  and Northeast
• Concentrations of poor African American and
  Latino residents in core urban areas persists

60
California Affordable Housing

• Housing affordability crisis for racial and
  ethnic groups.
• The Brookings Institute found housing
  affordability for L.A.s working poor to be one
  of the primary threats to the L.A. region,
  finding the region faces a serious housing
  crisis
• From Sprawl hits the wall Confronting the
  Realities of Metropolitan LosAngeles (2001)
  http//www.brookings.edu/dybdocroot/es/urban/la/co
  lor.htm

61
Poverty Race by Race/Ethnicity in 2000 for
Largest California Cities Poverty is 2 to 3
times as high for African Americans and Latinos
in Californias Major Cities
Source Census 2000, Prepared by Center for
Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity,
Stanford University
62
Residential Dissimilarity Scores for Major CA
Metro Areas 2000 (Scores above 60 are considered
a high degree of segregation)
Source Lewis Mumford Center, http//www.albany.ed
u/mumford/
63
California of Households by Race/Ethnicity,
Paying More than 30 of Income for Rent in 2000
Source U.S. Census Bureau
Housing Affordability Issues are Impacting
African Americans and Latinos more than
Non-Latino Whites in California
64
Regional Variations in Equity

• Canada
• Spatial element to Canadian diversity.
• Minority populations found in Ontario and British
  Columbia
• In 2001, the largest concentration of minority
  residents were in Toronto (36.8 of population
  minority) and Vancouver (36.9 of population
  minority) (2001 Canadian Census)
• Best structural arrangements to address issues,
  easier to promote a regional solution.
• Fewer issues related to locally based funding,
  fiscal inequities dealt with through a more
  national approach
• Toronto Region Advocates working to eliminate
  structural barriers to regionalism

65
Undermining Democracy

• "Fragmentation ensures the dominance of the
  favored quarter because it atomizes the would-be
  political majority and sets in motion certain
  institutional biases that tend to reify and
  enhance the power of affluent communities.
• Sheryll Cashin

66
Undermining Democracy

• Democracy is larger than electoral politics or
  access to voting it is a process by which people
  have a say in the decision-making processes that
  affect their lives
• How are current electoral practices actually
  incompatible with a true democracy?
• The large disparities along all indicators for
  people of color represent a profound failure of
  democracy (substandard educational access,
  increased exposure to toxic waste, unstable
  housing access, etc)
• Obstacles to democratic participation are
  reinforced by disparities in key life areas

67
Undermining Democracy

• Full and meaningful participation should be
  guaranteed for all citizens of the region, so
  that these disparities are redressed and we can
  strive for a genuine democracy
• What is needed is a model that promotes racial
  equity at the regional level but does not
  sacrifice the political power base, communities,
  and social institutions of people of color

68
Defining Equity

• Equity is not equality or treating each person
  in exactly the same way.
• Equity brings society into balance.
• Equity requires investment in all our human and
  communal resources to maximize our potential as
  individuals, families, communities and a nation.

Ford Foundations Initiative on Race, Equity,
Community Philanthropy in the American South
69
Structural Constraints

• The choices people make are within constraints.
  We cannot look only to the choices that are being
  made, but must also focus on those that are
  available to them.
• Institutional and public arrangements are
  influencing our private choice.
• People are making rational choices given the
  constraints, but are the constraints rational?

70
Reform Within Constraints

• Despite our best concerns and good intentions,
  racial disparities persist at high levels why?
• How do structures influence what we perceive as
  fair? How do they blind us to the true playing
  field
• In regards to metropolitan dynamics, why does
  focusing on individual problems or isolated
  geographic areas not work?
• Leaky Bucket Analogy

71
Challenging the Constraints

• While it is important, it is not enough to
  alleviate individual symptoms. To make lasting
  change we need to get to the root of the greater
  societal ills.
• Including people where they once were excluded is
  a step in the right direction, but it is not
  enough. We need to examine the policies and
  politics which led to their exclusion in the
  first place.
• Keeping the institution as is requires that those
  who are coming in conform. Instead we should give
  them a voice to help reform and shape a new
  institution.
• Work backward Examine what we want to
  accomplish and figure out the institutions that
  are preventing that accomplishment

72
Equity Demands that We Think in Terms of
Opportunity

• Opportunity structures are the resources and
  services that contribute to stability and
  advancement.
• Fair access to opportunity structures is limited
  by segregation, concentration of poverty,
  fragmentation, and sprawl in our regions for
  low-income households and families of color.
• Because opportunity structures exist as a web a
  multi-faceted, equity-centered approach is needed.

73
(No Transcript)
74
Opportunities Lead to Equity

• Parents who have access to affordable housing
  have more money to spend on transportation.
• More money spent on transportation provides them
  with access to a broader range of jobs.
• A better job provides more money, which provides
  their children with better educational
  opportunities.
• Well-fed children with stable housing will do
  better in school.
• Having access to greater educational
  opportunities and doing better in school allows
  these children to achieve regular employment.

75
Opportunity-Based Housing

• Affordable housing must be deliberately and
  intelligently connected to high performing
  school, sustaining employment, necessary
  transportation infrastructure, childcare, and
  institutions that facilitate civic and political
  activity.
• Housing is a component of a larger set of
  interrelated
• structures that are both affected by housing and
  have impacts for the attainment of safe, stable
  housing.

76
Why Regionalism?

• Key social justice concerns are being acted on by
  regional forces, such as fragmentation,
  segregation, and the concentration of poverty.
• Neighborhoods and cities cannot solve social
  justice problems alone, or they will see their
  viability diminish relative to other parts of the
  region.
• It is imperative that communities be at the table
  for a regional approach to redress social justice
  concerns.
• Regional approach does not automatically solve
  problems but does create a framework where a
  solution is possible

77
Regionalism Leads to Equity

• Proponents of regionalism believe that resources
  should be administered at a regional
  rather than a city or federal level.
• Regionalism recognizes that the economy,
  infrastructure (transportation, utilities, etc.)
  and the labor market function on a regional
  level.
• A region usually includes a city and its suburbs.
• Regionalism is recognizes how the spatial
  orientation of todays economy is not longer
  locally focused

• Local Initiatives are NOT enough

78
Regionalism Positive Outcomes

• Tax-Base Sharing Plans (Twin Cities)
• Fair Share Housing Laws (Montgomery County)
• Metropolitan-Wide School Districting
  (Charlotte-Mecklenburg)
• Anti-Sprawl Initiatives (Portland)
• Regional Public Transportation
• (Indiana Interfaith Group)

79
Regionalism Potential Problems

• Regionalism without an explicit racial equity
  component can cause communities of color and
  low-income communities to be further marginalized
  through
• Gentrification,
• A relocation, rather than an elimination, of
  racialized concentrated poverty,
• Exclusion of people of color from planning and
  decision-making,
• Dilution of political power and social fabric.

80
Racial, Spatial, and Regional Equity

• Equity requires us to restructure systems and
  institutions that result in racial disparities.
• Equity requires us to take the particular
  racialization of space into account when
  fashioning remedies.
• Equity requires us to link the creation of
  opportunities to regional solutions that
  explicitly take race into account.

81
Approaching Change

• To bring about change, structural racism needs to
  be approached from a partnership perspective.
• We need transformative thinking to combat
  structural racism. We do not need to increase our
  efforts in directions that have shown little
  success in the past, instead we need to find a
  new approach. This approach should consider the
  structures that are creating and perpetuating the
  inequity, and work to reform them for lasting
  change.

82
Power Analysis

• A power analysis can help identify key pressure
  points, non-traditional allies, and possible
  points of friction and tension
• What is our goal?
• Who shares our concerns?
• What is the best strategy for creating
• change? (grassroots organizing, litigation,
• policy changes, a combination?)
• What are potential obstacles?
• What tensions need to be addressed
• between allies?

83
Faith Based Organizations

• FBOs offer a great opportunity for building
  coalitions because many congregations are already
  diverse racially, economically, politically.

84
FBOs and Unitarian Universalists

• How can congregations decide what groups they
  feel ethically comfortable working with?
• How can UU congregations bring a specific
  structural focus to the table and still maintain
  an attitude of open listening to the diverse
  needs being expressed?
• How are the core UU values deeply beneficial to
  coalition work and working for radical social
  change?

85

• VISIT WWW.KIRWANINSTITUTE.ORG