As Long as They Don't Move Next Door: Segregation and Racial Conflict in American Neighborhoods.

AuthorRubinowitz, Leonard S.

STEPHEN GRANT MEYER, AS LONG AS THEY DON'T MOVE NEXT DOOR: SEGREGATION AND RACIAL CONFLICT IN AMERICAN NEIGHBORHOODS (ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD, 2000) 343 PP.

Dr. Stephen Meyer has chronicled the history of white resistance to housing integration during the first two-thirds of the twentieth century. From the author's perspective, the book is about housing discrimination and segregation--a conflict over residential space that is contested along racial lines between Blacks and whites. It is a story of Blacks seeking to gain access to, and occupy, housing in neighborhoods whites considered to be theirs, and whites' efforts to thwart, prevent, and deter those efforts and to exclude and expel Blacks from those neighborhoods. Meyer discusses discriminatory public and private institutional policies and practices; but his main focus is on "grass roots" racist resistance--individuals acting separately or in groups (sometimes very large ones) to exclude or expel Blacks from "their" neighborhood. (1) He argues that this resistance was persistent and pervasive throughout the period he examines--the first two-thirds of the twentieth century--and in all regions of the country. In fact, during much of that time, racial conflict and violence over housing were more common in the North than in the South. (2)

While he discusses the numerous barriers to Black entry, the most significant contribution to our understanding of this history is his focus on post-entry expulsion tactics by whites, reflecting a widespread unwillingness of whites to have African-Americans living in their midst. He focuses on deep-seated racial prejudice more than the role of racially discriminatory government and institutional policies and practices. (3) This racism was reflected in the intimidation and violence used by whites who "refuse to accept Blacks as neighbors." (4)

Meyer collects an eclectic and extensive body of data--accounts, statistics, and anecdotes from a wide variety of places that cover an extended period of time. (5) In the aggregate, this data presents a persistent and pervasive pattern--a dramatic chapter in the story of America's racial dilemma. In so doing, he seeks to provide a corrective on previous accounts:

[M]ost observers have tended to misjudge the extent, character, and significance of the resistance perpetrated against African American in-migrants. They have focused on the largest housing conflicts--riots in Chicago in 1919 and 1966, Detroit in 1942, and Cicero, Illinois, in 1951. ... [Some] observers ... have claimed that violence occurred only during the initial penetration of a neighborhood, that it happened once and then subsided, and that it "crested during the 1920s," recurring only sporadically thereafter.... Resistance against African Americans moving into white districts occurred more commonly as thousands of small acts of terrorism. And this study [which focuses on the first two-thirds of the century] shows that, rather than cresting in the 1920s, resistance persisted throughout the century, the most vicious and extensive violence occurring in the North during the two decades following World War II. (6) From a different perspective, the book contains an account of widespread criminal conduct, most frequently crimes of violence causing great physical, financial, and psychological harm. These are interracial crimes with white criminals and Black victims. (7) Although he does not characterize it as such, Meyer has written about extensive and very serious criminal activity and the failure, by and large, of the criminal justice system to arrest, prosecute, convict, and punish the perpetrators of these race-based crimes.

As re-conceptualized here, Meyer's work stands at the intersection of two large historic themes in American race relations--white violence against Black people and their property and the manifestations of racism integrated into the criminal justice system. The existence and treatment of housing-related crimes reflect deeply embedded individual and institutional racism--from the perpetrators' motivations to their "justifications" premised on assumptions of racial inferiority; from the victims' initial racial indignities to their long-term injuries; and from the co-conspiratorial or passive response of the police to the rare and minor punishment meted out by the criminal justice system.

Housing-related crimes constitute a relatively unexamined sub-category of the historically common racist practices that we now refer to as hate crimes. (8) Consequently, Meyer's book makes more visible the history of one of the least visible aspects of racial violence and racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. Meyer's book, in combination with other research on housing, race, and violence, shows that the whole historical story of crime, law enforcement, and the criminal justice system in the housing area is infused with racist attitudes, assumptions and actions--a pattern that has been persistent over many decades and pervasive across regions.

As an account of criminal behavior, the book tells of crimes, the perpetrators and their efforts at "justification," as well as the victims and the harms to them and to the society. It also provides glimpses of what appears to be a failed criminal justice system, with a seemingly frequent lack of police protection for Black entrants and the general absence of arrests, prosecution, and punishment of the wrongdoers.

This Essay recasts Meyer's account as a story about crime and punishment--or lack thereof. It begins by identifying the kinds of information that would serve to provide a comprehensive picture of these kinds of crimes during the period Meyer examines--recognizing that his account falls far short of such a complete assessment. It continues with an examination of the crimes that Meyer and others have identified--their location (across regions of the country, locations within metropolitan areas); the time periods (continuity and change over the first two-thirds of the twentieth century); the timing of the crimes relative to move-ins (immediate, escalation and de-escalation over time); and the nature of the offenses (various crimes against persons and property crimes). It then turns to the perpetrators, including individuals, white supremacist organizations, and ad hoc groups, ranging from mobs of hundreds of thousands to single offenders, and their identity, to the extent it is known--by class, gender, age--including men, women, and children. (9)

Following the discussion of perpetrators is an examination of what they and their advocates offered as rhetorical (if not legal) "justifications" for these acts, including "self-defense," defense of property, "necessity" (public health and military metaphors), and "deputization" for "norm enforcement" purposes.

A consideration of the victims reveals characteristics of both the property and the persons affected. Frequently, the attacks were aimed at Black owners of single-family homes. Middle-class status based on education and income offered no protection against racial crimes. ("In spatial relations, race matters more than economic class.") (10) Even wealthy Black celebrities have been victims of these racist crimes. An assessment of the impacts of the crimes on the victims reveals very serious physical (injury and death), financial (property damage, cancellation of insurance, medical expenses, etc.), and psychological (emotional trauma, chilling effect on other moves) harms or injuries. An examination of the action and inaction of the criminal justice system--including local and state police, prosecutors, and elected officials, as well as federal officials--shows a pattern of little law enforcement and even less punishment in these cases. (11)

This Essay also suggests that the housing-related crimes that Meyer describes as continuing into the 1960s persisted through the rest of the century and beyond, and it argues that additional systematic research is needed to identify the nature and extent of this continuing problem. The concluding section includes some anecdotal data about the continuing nature of racial resistance and identifies research that would help in constructing a more complete account of the post-1960s patterns of crime and punishment.

  1. CRIME DATA: IDEAL AND ACTUAL

    A comprehensive picture of racially motivated housing-related crimes during the period Meyer examines--up until the passage of the Federal Fair Housing Act in 1968--would identify the extent to which criminal activity characterized whites' response to Blacks moving into predominantly white neighborhoods and communities. (12) It would show the frequency of such offences--the crimes rates--as well as the probability of criminal resistance to integrationist moves. It would also capture the efforts of law enforcement officials to prevent these crimes and their response, along with that of the criminal justice system, to these crimes.

    Ideally, such an analysis would include all such offenses in the period. (13) For each instance, the discussion would spell out the facts in sufficient detail to make it possible to identify the offenses involved in individual incidents or multiple victimizations. It would identify the numbers, identities, and characteristics of perpetrators--including their gender and age--along with their organizational affiliations, if any. Similarly, it would describe the victims, including their family composition and economic and social circumstances, as well as the nature and extent of the physical, financial, and psychological injuries they suffered.

    Such a portrait of crimes and punishment would also include police initiatives at prevention of these crimes and their efforts to investigate and apprehend and arrest the perpetrators, as well as the record of arrests and initial charges against alleged perpetrators. In cases of arrests, the examination would follow cases through the criminal justice system, including...

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