Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-nxk7g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-14T07:42:05.889Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Forceful Federalism against American Racial Inequality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2017

Abstract

Why, many Americans rightly ask, can material racial inequality and widespread segregation still persist 50 years after the enactment of key civil rights legislation and eight years after the election of an African American to the nation’s highest office? Many from outside the US pose similar questions about modern America. The explanation, I argue, lies with inconsistent and fluctuating levels of federal engagement to building material racial equality. National engagement fluctuates because it is energetically resisted and challenged by opponents of racial progress. This vulnerability to disruption is exposed by varying strategies of resistance, some fiscal, some violent, some judicial, some desultory and some combining violent protest against change with local electoral triumphs for anti-reformers. Public resistance to employing national resources to reduce inequality encouraged a de-racialization strategy amongst many African American candidates for elected office who opt to de-emphasize issues of racial inequality in campaigns and in office. Whatever the means, the effect is uniform: the slowing down or outright death of federal civil rights activism.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Desmond King is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of American Government at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. Contact email: desmond.king@nuffield.ox.ac.uk.

References

References

Amenta, E., Caren, N., Chiarello, E. and Su, Y. (2010), ‘The Political Consequences of Social Movements’, Annual Review of Sociology, 36: 287307.Google Scholar
Anderson, C. (2016), White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Order (New York: Bloomsbury).Google Scholar
Berman, A. (2015), Give Us the Ballot (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux).Google Scholar
Bogira, S. (2011), ‘Separate, Unequal and Ignored’, Chicago Reader, 10 February.Google Scholar
Bonastia, C. (2012), Southern Stalemate: Five Years without Public Education in Prince Edward County, Virginia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Campbell, A.L. (2012), ‘Policy Makes Mass Politics’, Annual Review of Political Science, 15: 333351.Google Scholar
Campbell, M. and Schoenfeld, H. (2013), ‘The Transformation of America’s Penal Order: A Historical Political Sociology of Punishment’, American Journal of Sociology, 118: 13751423.Google Scholar
Charles, C.Z. (2001), ‘Processes of Racial Residential Segregation’, in A. O’Connor, C. Tilly and L.D. Bobo (eds), Urban Inequality: Evidence from Four Cities (New York: Russell Sage Foundation): 217271.Google Scholar
Clayton, J. (2012), ‘Affirmative Action in Action: Overhaul of the Fire Department of New York Hiring Practices’, Observer, 30 October.Google Scholar
Clotfelter, C.T. (2004), After Brown: The Rise and Retreat of School Desegregation (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Coates, T.-N. (2014), ‘The Case for Reparations’, Atlantic Monthly, June.Google Scholar
Coleman, K. (2011), ‘New York City Fire Department to Get Court Monitor in Discrimination Case’, NPR, 7 October, www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/10/07/141154592/new-york-city-fire-department-to-get-court-monitor-in-discrimination-case.Google Scholar
Davis, G.J. (2015), ‘What Woodrow Wilson Cost My Grandfather’, New York Times, 24 November.Google Scholar
Desmond, M. (2016), Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (New York: Crown).Google Scholar
Dimick, J., Ruhter, J., Sarrazin, M.V. and Birkmeyer, J.D. (2013), ‘Black Patients More Likely than Whites to Undergo Surgery at Low-Quality Hospitals in Segregated Regions’, Health Affairs, 32: 10461053.Google Scholar
Dobbin, F. (2009), Inventing Equal Opportunity (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Dudziak, M. (2000), Cold War Civil Rights (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Ellen, I.G. (2007), ‘How Integrated Did We Become during the 1990s?’, in J. Goering (ed.), Fragile Rights within Cities: Government, Housing, and Fairness (Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield): 123–42.Google Scholar
Fields, B.J. (1990), ‘Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America’, New Left Review, 181: 95118.Google Scholar
Fortner, M.J. (2015), Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Francis, M.M. (2014), Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State (New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Frymer, P. (2003), ‘Acting When Elected Officials Won’t: Federal Courts and Civil Rights Enforcement in U.S. Labor Unions, 1935–85’, American Political Science Review, 97: 483499.Google Scholar
Frymer, P. (2005), ‘Racism Revised: Courts, Labor Law and the Institutional Construction of Racial Animus’, American Political Science Review, 99: 373387.Google Scholar
Garland, D. (2010), Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Gerstle, G. (2015), Liberty and Coercion (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Gillespie, A. (2012), The New Black Politician (New York: New York University Press).Google Scholar
Gillion, D.Q. (2016), Governing with Words: The Political Dialogue on Race, Public Policy and Inequality in America (New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Glaeser, E. and Vigdor, J. (2012), ‘The End of the Segregated Century: Racial Separation in America’s Neighborhoods 1890–2010’, Manhattan Institute Civic Report 66 (Washington, DC).Google Scholar
Goering, J.M. (1986) (ed.), Housing Desegregation and Federal Policy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press).Google Scholar
Gottschalk, M. (2006), The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America (New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Gottschalk, M. (2014), Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Greer, C. (2013), Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration and the Pursuit of the American Dream (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Harris, F.C. (2012), The Price of the Ticket (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Harris, F.C. (2014), ‘Will Ferguson be a Moment or a Movement?’, Washington Post, 22 August.Google Scholar
Hochschild, J. (1999), ‘You Win Some, You Lose Some …: Explaining the Pattern of Success and Failure in the Second Reconstruction’, in M. Keller and R.S. Melnick (eds), Taking Stock: American Government in the Twentieth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press): 4563.Google Scholar
Hutchings, V.L. (2009), ‘Change or More of the Same? Evaluating Racial Attitudes in the Obama Era’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 73: 917942.Google Scholar
Iceland, J., Weinberg, D.H. and Steinmetz, E. (2002), Racial and Ethnic Residential Segregation in the United States: 1980–2000 (Washington DC: US Census Bureau).Google Scholar
Jacobs, L.R. and King, D. (2016), Fed Power: How Finance Wins (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Johnson, K.S. (2015), ‘The Color Line and the State: Race and American Political Development’, in R. Valelly, S. Mettler and R. Lieberman (eds), The Oxford Handbook of American Political Development (New York: Oxford University Press): 121158.Google Scholar
Jones, J. and Schmitt, J. (2014), A College Degree is No Guarantee (Washington, DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research).Google Scholar
Kain, J.F. (1986), ‘The Influence of Race and Income on Racial Segregation and Housing Policy’, in J.M. Goering (ed.), Housing Desegregation and Federal Policy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press): 2342.Google Scholar
Kato, D. (2015), Liberalizing Lynching (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
King, D. (2007), Separate and Unequal: African Americans and the US Federal Government (New York: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, D. and Lieberman, R.C. (2009), ‘Ironies of State Building: Comparative Perspective on the American State’, World Politics, 61: 547588.Google Scholar
King, D. and Smith, R.M. (2011), Still a House Divided (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
King, D. and Smith, R.M. (2014), ‘Without Regard to Race: Critical Ideational Developments in Modern American Politics’, Journal of Politics, 76: 958971.Google Scholar
King, M.L. Jr (1965), ‘Let Justice Roll Down’, The Nation, June.Google Scholar
Lacey, N. and Soskice, D. (2015), ‘Crime, Punishment and Segregation in the United States: The Paradox of Local Democracy’, Punishment and Society, 17: 454481.Google Scholar
Logan, J.R. and Stults, B.J. (2011), ‘The Persistence of Segregation in the Metropolis: New Findings from the 2010 Census’, census brief prepared for Project US2010.Google Scholar
Mazumder, B. (2014), ‘Black-White Differences in Intergovernmental Economic Mobility in the United States’, Economic Perspectives, 1Q: 110.Google Scholar
McAdam, D. (1982), Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
McAdam, D. (2009), ‘The US Civil Rights Movement: Power from Below and Above, 1945–70’, in A. Roberts and T. Garton Ash (eds), Civil Resistance and Power Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press): 5874.Google Scholar
McCarty, N. (2015), ‘Polarization and American Political Development’, in R. Valelly, S. Mettler and R. Lieberman (eds), The Oxford Handbook of American Political Development (New York: Oxford University Press): 240260.Google Scholar
Miller, L.L. (2014), ‘The (Dys)Functions of American Federalism’, Tulsa Law Review, 49: 266278.Google Scholar
Miller, L.L. (2016), The Myth of Mob Rule: Violent Crime and Democratic Politics (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Morgan, K. and Campbell, A.L. (2012), The Delegated Welfare State (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Morris, A.D. (1984), The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (New York: Free Press).Google Scholar
Murakawa, N. (2014), The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
National Urban League (2014), One Nation Underemployed: Jobs Rebuild America (Washington, DC: National Urban League).Google Scholar
Parks, R. (1992), My Story (New York: Dial Books).Google Scholar
Patashnik, E.M. and Zelizer, J.E. (2013), ‘The Struggle to Remake Politics: Liberal Reform and the Limits of Policy Feedback in the Contemporary American State’, Perspectives on Politics, 11: 10711087.Google Scholar
Payne, C.M. (2007), I’ve Got the Light of Freedom (Berkeley: University of California Press).Google Scholar
Peterson, P. (1981), City Limits (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Pew Research Center (2012), Trends in American Values 1987–2012 (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center), www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/06-04-12 Values Release.pdf.Google Scholar
Pinderhughes, D. (2014) (ed.), Uneven Roads: An Introduction to US Racial and Ethnic Politics (Washington, DC: Sage CQ Press).Google Scholar
Piven, F.F. (2006), Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America (Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield).Google Scholar
Price, M. (2016), The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the Political Uses of Race (New York: New York University Press).Google Scholar
Reardon, S.F. and Bischoff, K. (2011), ‘Growth in Residential Segregation of Families by Income, 1970–2009’, census brief prepared for Project US2010.Google Scholar
Reardon, S.F., Grewal, E.T., Kalogrides, D. and Greenberg, E. (2012), ‘Brown Fades: The End of Court-Ordered School Desegregation and the Resegregation of American Public Schools’, Journal of Public Policy Analysis and Management, 31: 876904.Google Scholar
Reed, A.L. Jr (1986), The Jesse Jackson Phenomenon (New Haven: Yale University Press).Google Scholar
Santora, M. and Schwirtz, M. (2014), ‘City Settles Lawsuit Accusing Fire Dept. of Racial Bias’, New York Times, 19 March.Google Scholar
Schwartzman, P. (2016), ‘Why Some Whites are Waking up to Racism’, Washington Post, 3 August.Google Scholar
Schwirtz, M. (2013), ‘For New York City Fire Department, More Diversity Amid Tension’, New York Times, 4 December.Google Scholar
Shapiro, T.M. (2004), The Hidden Cost of Being African American (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Shapiro, T.M., Meschede, T. and Sullivan, L. (2010), ‘The Racial Wealth Gap Increases Fourfold’, brief, Institute on Assets and Social Policy, May.Google Scholar
Shapiro, T., Meschede, T. and Osoro, S. (2013), ‘The Roots of the Widening Racial Wealth Gap: Explaining the Black–White Economic Divide’, brief, Institute on Assets and Social Policy, February.Google Scholar
Sheingate, A. (2009), ‘Why Can’t Americans See the State?’, The Forum, 7: 4.Google Scholar
Spence, L. (2015), Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics (New York: Punctum Books).Google Scholar
Stepan, A. and Linz, J.J. (2011), ‘Comparative Perspectives on Inequality and the Quality of Democracy in the United States’, Perspectives on Politics, 9: 841856.Google Scholar
Stout, C. (2015), Bringing Race Back In: Black Politicians, Deracialization and Voting Behavior in the Age of Obama (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press).Google Scholar
Strolovitch, D.Z. (2013), ‘Of Mancessions and Hecoveries: Race, Gender, and the Political Construction of Economics Crises and Recoveries’, Perspectives on Politics, 11: 167177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swarns, R.L. (2015), ‘Minority Sheet Metal Workers in New York Get Back Pay After Decades of Bias,’ New York Times, 20 December.Google Scholar
Tate, K. (1994) (ed.), From Protest to Politics: The New Black Voters in American Elections (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Tate, K. (2003), Black Faces in the Mirror: African Americans and their Representatives in the US Congress (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Tesler, M. (2012), ‘The Spillover of Racialization into Health Care: How President Obama Polarized Public Opinion by Racial Attitudes and Race’, American Journal of Political Science, 56: 690704.Google Scholar
Tesler, M. (2016), Post-Racial or Most-Racial? Race and Politics in the Obama Era (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Theoharis, J. (2013), The Rebellious Life of Mrs Rosa Parks (Boston, MA: Beacon Press).Google Scholar
Thurston, C. (2015), ‘Policy Feedback in the Public-Private Welfare State: Citizens Advocacy Groups and the Expansion of Access to Government Homeownership Programs’, Studies in American Political Development, 29: 250267.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. and Tarrow, S. (2007), Contentious Politics (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers).Google Scholar
Valelly, R.M. (2004), The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Wright, G. (2013), Sharing the Prize (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Wright Rigueur, L. (2015), The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar

Supreme Court Cases Referenced

Adarand Constuctors Inc. v Pena, 515 U.S. 200 (1995).Google Scholar
Alexander v Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275 (2001).Google Scholar
Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).Google Scholar
City of Richmond v J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989).Google Scholar
Freeman v Pitts, 503 U.S. 467 (1992).Google Scholar
Fullilove v Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448 (1980).Google Scholar
Milliken v Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974).Google Scholar
Regents of the University of California v Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978).Google Scholar
Ricci v DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557 (2009).Google Scholar
Shelby County, Alabama v Holder, 570 U.S. 173 (2013).Google Scholar