Race Maps and Claude Steele

I recently came across this article that shows the populations of major U.S. cities color-coded by race: Race Maps of America

Here is a picture of Detroit (also found in the article):

Note: Red represents White, Blue is Black, Green is Asian, Orange is Hispanic, Gray is Other, and each dot represents 25 people


After reading the article by Claude Steele this past week, the message presented by these maps immediately entered my mind. The maps clearly demonstrate that in our modern society, even though the Civil Rights movement and the likes are in our history, segregation continues to thrive. In each map, there are prominent dividers between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Notable is that many of the minorities are located in the center of the city, where poverty and crime flourish. We would like to consider our country a "melting pot" by which many different perspectives and cultures are infused into one. In this visual, we would expect a rainbow rather than the separation observed.

To connect this with our discussion of Indian culture with Deloria (note that Indians are not even distinguished in the maps), it looks as though all minorities in the country are squeezed and contained within their own sort of "reservations" by which their cultures and heritage live, yet barely exist beyond.

The connection between the maps and Steele's message is that this physical separation amplifies the demographic distinctions and self-fulfilling prophecies among entire communities. Steele talks about how once one student "disidentifies" self-esteem with academic performance, his friends and social group are likely to follow. The clear barriers between races continue to encourage this "groupthink," and close off different, positive prospectives from influencing these social groups.