Excerpt: Black, Brown, Red, and Poisoned

Austin, Regina, and Michael Schill. [1994] 2005. "Black, Brown, Red, and Poisoned". Pp. 373-378 in Understanding Society, 2nd ed., edited by Margaret L. Andersen, Kim Logio, and Howard Taylor. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning, Inc.

Minority communities face a disparate amount of pollution, the authors claim. In some cases factories and housing for workers arose at the same time, but as whites' social status improved they left for better housing while "poorer black and brown folks who enjoy much less residential mobility" moved in. In other cases the housing came later and was built near industrial land because the location was cheap and the people were poor. In still other cases, industries are built near residential land due to several criteria, such as the land's low cost, the presence of cheap laborers in the nearby vicinity, and low population density of the area (which the authors correlate with poverty and race in certain regions of the country).

Excerpt: American Apartheid

Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. [1993] 2005. "American Apartheid". Pp. 366-372 in Understanding Society, 2nd ed., edited by Margaret L. Andersen, Kim Logio, and Howard Taylor. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning, Inc.

Taking an objective approach, Massey and Denton identify what they deem the most important factor in understanding race relations and the persistence of racial inequality: residential segregation. Once the most commonly cited explanation by sociologists, the separation of black and white neighborhoods was the basis for numerous studies and the eventual Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, and its resultant school desegregation programs. Following this decision and the passing of the Civil Rights Act (1964), Voting Rights Act (1965), and the Fair Housing Act (1968), many politicians declared the problem was solved, civil rights leaders stopped pressing for reforms, and the term "segregation" fell into disuse.