Why Your White Neighbors Are Moving

I was browsing the web and came across a study done by Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race. Researchers at the University of Illinois, Chicago and the University of Michigan surveyed a large representative sample of households in Chicago and Detroit. As part of this highly innovative study, every participant was handed a laptop and was asked to view a series of video clips showing different neighborhoods. The set of neighborhoods remained constant. But the video was altered to manipulate their make up, to show either whites populating the neighborhood, or blacks or a mixed-race population.


The study sought to determine was "whether whites are colorblind in their evaluations of neighborhoods or whether racial composition still matters—even when holding constant the quality of the neighborhood." The results clearly show that whites rated the neighborhood much more favorably when whites dominated the make-up. And the more negative the stereotypes a white individual held of African Americans generally, the more likely they were to negatively rate the identical neighborhood with a visible black presence.

I am not surprised by the results, although in many cities gentrification is taking place everyday. St. Louis is a very segregated town and many of the best areas are populated with a majority of white people. The sad thing to me is when black people get a little money they follow the white people. The study found that blacks did judge schools to be of higher quality in mixed-race and all-white neighborhoods. I often wondered if black people could imagine a beautiful, safe and productive all black neighborhood. Would my people still value an all black neighborhood if there were no white folks in site or would it been seen as another ghetto, regardless of class or income.

What aggravates me even further is “white flight”. When too many black people move in a neighborhood white people begin to slowly but surely move out . Yet some of us continue to chase them…hoping to happily co-exist. Personally I would love to live in a productive all black neighborhood. I would love my kids to attend an all black school, with great funding and teachers that care. But I know this can never happen until blacks have a change of mind set, black home ownership increase, and we begin demanding a better education for our kids. Just for the record I am not a segregationist , but I would like to see black people place value in one another. White is not always right ya know.