Community Class and Ideas about Racial Diversity

            In this week’s readings, I have found the varying ideas that different classes hold about racial diversity in their communities (and the underlying causes for their views) very interesting.  I was particularly struck by the theory MacLeod mentioned in the third chapter of Ain’t No Makin’ It, which argues that “racism in lower-class communities stems from competition for scarce economic resources” (42). Obviously, other social factors also contribute to the development of racist attitudes, but I think that some of the truth of that theory reveals itself when we think about both the Hallway Hangers and the social preservationists.

As MacLeod notes, the racism of many of the Hallway Hangers is informed by their belief that African-Americans and other people of color are being disproportionately hired for local jobs. Accordingly, it is not illogical to assume that many of the Hangers would choose to live in a predominately white area if they could. Social preservationists, on the other hand, choose to move to “ethnic” towns and neighborhoods as a means of developing close, community-based bonds like those that exists between the Hangers. Social preservationists may not be especially wealthy themselves, but they must be better off in general than anyone living in Clarendon Heights. Thusly removed from the economic frustration of the lower classes, they value the ethnic and economic character of the neighborhoods they move into to the point of romanticization. Are stable beliefs in racial equality, therefore, a kind of luxury that only upper- and middle-class people tend to be able to afford (even if they settle for somewhat delusional anti-racism, as the social preservationists tend to do)?