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"It
(segregation) set up patterns of thinking and behavior among
whites and minorities that still can make a difference about
where a person lives, where a person works or -- most
devastating in the long run -- how little is expected of young
minority students," Norman Lockman, associate editor of the
News-Journal, wrote in the foreword to the survey report.
Findings
reached in what Antoine Allen, president of the league,
described as "the first comprehensive report concerning
the status of people of color in Delaware" include:
• The
state and New Castle County 'minority' population is growing
faster than the overall population, with the sharpest growth
having occurred in the decade of the 1990s. The 2000 U.S. census
counted 150,666, or 20.2% of the total population of the state,
up from 60,688, or 13.8%, in 1960. Two-thirds now live in New
Castle County with the predominant portion of that in
Wilmington.
In the
most recent tally, 15,151, or 4.8%, listed themselves as
Hispanic. There are no figures from 1960, but census data showed
an increase from 4,161 in 1980, the first year in which the
ethnic designation was used.
•
Household income in the African-American community averaged 60%
of that in white households -- $27,763 compared to $45,961. The
average Hispanic household fared somewhat better, with income of
$28,705.
The study used 1990 data to produce that comparison.
According to David Rudder, one of the authors of the report, the
12-year-old data was used because the Census Bureau has not yet
released 2000 files. Comparable updated information will be
available in December, he said.
•
Performance of African-American and Hispanic students, as
measured by the state's annual student assessment testing, has
been "well below the sate average" with nearly 40% not having
achieved 'passing' scores.
•
Residential segregation continues despite an increase to 65% in
2000 from 35% in 1990 in the portion of Delawareans who
live in what can be considered integrated neighborhoods.
Wilmington, however, has become "more segregated" due to an
increase in its African-American population to 41,646 from
37,446 and a decline in white population to 25,811 from 30,134
in the 1990s decade.
Moreover, the study found that "even when family incomes are
essentially the same, the level of African-American home
ownership is significantly lower than that of similarly situated
whites."
•
Minority-owned businesses are "under represented" in every
category except the service industry.
•
African-Americans and Hispanics, on the other hand, are "over
represented" in the prison population.
The
study was conducted by Leland Ware, the Louis L. Redding
professor of law at the University of Delaware; Theodore Davis,
associate professor in the university's political science
department; and Rudder, a doctorate candidate in the
university's School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy. Their
report is entitled 'The Pace of Progress'.
The
report is especially critical of the educational establishment,
charging that African-American children for the most part were
consigned to segregated and inferior schools until the federal
court desegregation ruling in 1978, a generation after the U.S.
Supreme Court struck down such segregation. Even after
desegregation, "to some observers, the schools in Delaware had
evolved from the fiction of separate-but-equal to the reality of
together-and-unequal," it said.
It
blames that on "the soft bigotry of low expectations" among
white teachers regarding black students' potential. It found "an
undisputed correlation between race [and] discipline and
academic performance."
The
state Neighborhood Schools Act is cited as likely to acerbate
the situation by creating a situation where schools in
Wilmington have essentially all black and Hispanic students, the
report said. It also suggests that the state testing program,
with consequences such as lower-level high school diplomas, may
violate federal law and U.S. Department of Education rules.
"Very
rapidly, the number of people, white or black or brown, who
perpetuated or suffered Jim Crowism in the United States is
dwindling. ... It is not uncommon to hear contemporary white
Americans say, without thinking, that people of color now have
all the same opportunities -- or more -- that they enjoy.
Therefore, it is no excuse to blame others for their continued
failures. That, of course, is conveniently blind to the lasting
effects of systemic racial discrimination," Lockman wrote in his
foreword.
"The
statistics in this report may not surprise readers, but they
should dismay them."
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