Unravelling Deepening Urban Inequality Equality Research Proposal

In order to reduce the negative implications of social inequality, based on race, ethnicity or even economic features, researcher James Jackson promotes three broad recommendations. They are as follows:

development of a sustained, comprehensive focus by government and private and public organizations on providing greater economic opportunities in education, employment and intergenerational transfer of wealth enforcement of existing Civil Rights legislation and regulations to eliminate continuing, persistent racial and ethnic discrimination in housing, employment, schooling and the criminal justice system, and identification of common objectives among racial and ethnic minority groups to produce workable, long-lasting coalitions" (Jackson)

4. Conclusions

The past century has witnessed improvements in the conditions of the white immigrants to the United States and this has materialized in reduced crimes and punishments within the Chinese and Japanese communities. The improvements in their situation have been based on increasing socioeconomic status. The same cannot however be said about the African-Americans, the Native Americans and the Latinos, whose condition has even been meet with regressions. The inequality gap between whites and black continues to deepen and proof of this stand the growing numbers of crimes in the black, Latino and Native American communities.

From this mass of information, one fact is clear - blacks have suffered the most persistent forms of individual and institutionalized racial discrimination, and for a longer period than any definable group in American history. This systematic and sustainable discrimination is at the heart of a syndrome of disadvantages that lower life chances and circumstances for individuals and families in the black population" (Jackson). They also represent the main sources of inequality.

It is also true that some African-Americans have benefited from the measures implemented throughout the past century and have consequently managed to improve their condition. This then means that an urban inequality has become obvious within the same race, taking the urban inequality to a different level. The inequality between the poor and the wealthy blacks can be revealed by the law enforcements in poor black communities and the large numbers of poor African-Americans in correctional institutions.

References

Hawkins, D.F., Herring, C., Race, Crime and Punishment: Old Controversies and New Challenges

Jackson, J.S., African-American Prospects in the 21st Century: A Framework for Strategies and Policies