Unit 4a Minority Politics in the United States

Hypersegregation

Segregation in all aspects of life.

• Researchers create an index of dissimilarity comparing black and white communities

• All U.S. cities have dissimilarity scores

  • There is evidence of hypersegregation in American cities

  • If there is dissimilarity and separation of these communities, that means there is often a fundamental inequality in living quality and services.

Effects of Urban Unrest

Urban unrest means an infusion of money into cities

• Conflict over spending

• A lot of spending is therapy, doesn’t actually fix the systemic racism

Effects of Protests of the 1960s → Political Participation in the 1970s and beyond

The voting didn’t actually change anything

• Sometimes the system is rigged

Causes of why racism doomed urban programs

• Racism in the spending, structural

• Or from citizen response

Urban areas needed help - significance of evidence of need for help

Social problems are magnified in urban areas

• everyone is so close together and population density

How the government responded to urban problems (generally)

• Government notices problems, creates commissions and task forces

  • Study the problem: better understanding

  • Might make recommendations, but it’s the government’s job to solve them

  • After the studies were completed, the federal government makes a program, or the state/local level make programs.

Experience of Reactions to Urban Programs

New Programs brought hope, high expectations

• Consequences don’t live up to the expectations

  • Then there is backlash, which is often racist

Political parties developed racial strategies

• Democrats won the cities, appealed to Black voters

  • especially important after Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965

• Republicans appealed to Black voters earlier, but abandoned that strategy to win more white voters

• Current gerrymandering issues echo this strategy

  • Alabama - SCOTUS 2023: 5-4 decision affirmed that the state must create a second district where Black voters have the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice

  • Louisiana - SCOTUS 2026: 6-3 ended of a lot of the standards that stopped discrimination from Voting Rights Act of 1965

Voting is getting harder.

People are making it harder.

Variables that affect Black electoral success in cities

Form of Representation

• District favors minorities, at-large favors white

• Redistricting: at federal, but also local level: gerrymandering

Socioeconomic development

• Active minority parties

Percentage of the total population

Model Cities Program Overview

Model Cities Program (Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966)

• Passed under LBJ

“The Congress hereby declares that improving the quality of life is the most critical domestic problem facing the United States”

• Language sets expectations (really high expectations: for everyone, everywhere)

Practical Challenges

• Money is spread too thin across too many cities

• because the legislation needed to pass: representatives want money for their districts, some not even urban.

  • Politics broke the program before it even started

Failure.

Rainbow Coalitions (between different groups) and struggles

• Blacks and lower-income whites

  • issue: racism

• Blacks and Hispanics

  • issue: feelings of dissimilarity, enclave mindset

• Ideological differences between groups

  • Coalitions must have a clear and shared objective

Biases that might disadvantage minority groups (especially in forming coalitions)

Internal aspects of minority communities

• Figurative walls built up, dissimilarity

Governmental “Reforms”

• These programs don’t succeed. Distrust of Government

Difficulty in establishing political coalitions between groups