A culture of whiteness: How integration failed in cities, suburbs, and small towns

Abstract

As America's neighborhoods have become more racially diverse in the last half century, are these shared spaces fulfilling the "promise of integration"? In this study, I review the literature on desegregation as it occurs in urban, suburban, and rural places, illuminating how a culture of whiteness works in each of these types of places to reproduce racial domination.The literature on multiethnic urban areas demonstrates how a culture of whiteness reframes gentrification as 'revitalization' and nostalgia, which result in social control and cultural displacement of non-white residents. In suburban places, I draw out the ways a culture of whiteness is expressed as 'niceness' and 'governmentality' , resulting in symbolic exclusion and forced assimilation of people of color. Finally, in rural places, a culture of whiteness uses narratives of 'pollution' and 'parasitism' to understand often low-income migrants of color, which renders them invisible and reproduces their structural disadvantage in the community. Revealing the subtle and obscure mechanisms through which a culture of whiteness reproduces racial domination in diverse places ultimately provides the key to their undoing and opens the door to the promise of integration.

Residential Structural Racism and Prevalence of Chronic Health Conditions

“…We used percentage of neighborhood residents identifying as White as a global measure because structural racism has a differential effect on neighborhoods based on the prevalence of White residents . We used 2017 to 2018 one-year ACS estimates of the prevalence of White residents in each residential neighborhood . We reverse coded estimates in our models so that higher-coded estimates (reflecting fewer White residents) reflected greater structural racism.…”

“…[48][49][50][51][52] We used 2017 to 2018 one-year ACS estimates of the prevalence of White residents in each residential neighborhood. 11,12,20,51,[53][54][55] We reverse coded estimates in our models so that higher-coded estimates (reflecting fewer White residents) reflected greater structural racism.…”

Socially Engaged Art Approaches to CSCW with Young People in Rurban Communities

“…Previous work has identified various dynamics and challenges around identity (Murray et al 2019) and inclusion (Murray et al 2023). Long-term community members can feel alienated by rapid changes in community culture and identity (Sherman 2018(Sherman , 2021Sherman and Schafft 2022), and new community members, Socially Engaged Art Approaches to CSCW with Young People in… particularly those of a different cultural, racial or ethnic background, can be denied full participation in community life (Meagher 2009;Shucksmith 2012;Patten et al 2015;Balfour et al 2018;Walton 2021). Although much research exists on the experience of migrant children navigating changing personal, familial and community identities and circumstances (Mistry and Wu 2010;Rutland et al 2012;Compton-Lilly et al 2017), we found a lack of information on the experience of young people in rurban communities.…”

“…A sudden increase in diversity is a defining rurban sociogeographic characteristic and presents challenges to former rural communities, where a strong sense of community identity can lead to exclusion for those different to the established demographic (Meagher 2009;Thomas et al 2015;Sherman 2018;Murray et al 2019;Walton 2021). New community members bring with them new ways of life that influence and change community identity, and long-term community members find the identity they are so familiar with being challenged and adapted (Murray et al 2023).…”

“…Realising this potential involves addressing the marginalisations and tensions that can arise as previously rural communities expand to accommodate new perspectives, approaches and agendas for rurban community life (Sherman 2006(Sherman , 2018(Sherman , 2021Meagher 2009;Lichter and Brown 2011;Shucksmith 2012;Walton 2021). This requires polyvocal participatory processes that are attuned to issues of power and equality, recognise diverse identities, perspectives and experiences and give space for contradiction and dissent (Murray et al 2023;Stephens 2019).…”