A White Boy’s Formative Years Around Race

I was born in 1961, the year JFK was inaugurated president. Through the efforts of a robust Civil Rights movement, the interrogation of Jim Crow laws had finally reached national prominence that year. Yet, Jim Crow laws seemed as solid and steady as ever.

At the same time, across the Northeast, Midwest, and West, the segregation of African Americans in ghettos had only intensified, with the continuing second wave of the Great Migration of Blacks from the South to points North and West and local and national housing laws preventing them from moving just about anywhere except the ghetto.

I had no inkling of race in my early years. My family moved from a triplex in a working-class neighborhood in a racially diversifying Hartford, CT, to the lily-white suburb of Simsbury two months before I turned two. I know my parents wanted to move for more house space and a yard, but they also moved at a time when realtors in cities across America used scare-mongering as one of several methods to encourage White flight out of city centers.

From the beginning of World War II, around 1940 to 1960, African Americans increased from 4.3% of Hartford’s population to 15.4%, more than tripling in numbers (By 1980, 60% of the region’s Black population lived in Hartford). In response, the migration of White families to outer suburbs during the 1960s became all too common.

While real estate agents steered Whites looking to move out to West Hartford, Avon, Simsbury, and Farmington, they steered the slim percent of Blacks that could afford to move out, primarily to Bloomfield. Bloomfield shifted from more than 95% White in the 1950s to 30% Black by 1980.[1] In the 2020 U.S. Census, Bloomfield had become nearly 60% Black, the only majority-Black suburb in Greater Hartford.?

No other suburb west of the Connecticut River—except a few neighborhoods in Windsor— received even a sliver of the population of African Americans moving out of the city. When our family moved, you could count the number of Black families in the town of about 20,000 on one hand. Sixty years later, Blacks are still less than 3% of Simsbury’s population. Although my parents no longer live there, having moved out in 2006, the town is still not a very congenial place for people of color, particularly Blacks.

My parents' politics evolved during their first decade in Simsbury, from leaning moderate to becoming quite liberal. The influence of the Civil Rights movement certainly played a role in the shift. Both were devastated by the assassinations in 1968, first of Martin Luther King Jr. and then, only weeks later, Robert F. Kennedy.

Soon after, they helped form a small study group on racial matters in their church, The First Church of Christ Congregational Church in downtown Simsbury. Eventually, they proposed to the head minister that they lead a non-traditional Sunday service to spotlight racial disparities in the nation and the region and argue for the church to take a strong stance against racism.

It didn’t go over well. The congregation – and the minister - strongly opposed the proposal. Within less than a year, my parents left the church and joined a more progressive congregation in West Hartford.

For further reading, see below.

FOOTNOTE: [1] Alex Putterman, “West Hartford is mostly white, while Bloomfield is largely Black; how that came to be, tells the story of racism and segregation in American suburbs,” The Hartford Courant, February 20, 2021, https://www.courant.com/2021/02/19/west-hartford-is-mostly-white-while-bloomfield-is-largely-black-how-that-came-to-be-tells-the-story-of-racism-and-segregation-in-american-suburbs/.

From my book, It's Never Been a Level Playing Field, (from Myth 2 on segregation in housing & neighborhoods, pp. 44-5):

African Americans had begun moving ever so slowly to the suburbs in the 1960s despite the legal restrictions and White resistance, overt and covert, to try to prevent these migrations. As specific housing laws changed in the 1970s, Blacks moved progressively out of center cities and into the suburbs. By 1990, less than half of Blacks lived in the “urban core,” and by 2017, the percentage had declined to 41.7 percent.

Since White people began fleeing those same inner-ring suburbs as Black people moved in, these locations tended to have fewer and less updated amenities and infrastructure than the outer-ring suburbs. Just as U.S. cities disinvested in what became urban ghettos earlier (1930s-1970s), counties similarly disinvested in these inner-ring suburbs (with places in my own county such as Capitol Heights, Suitland, Oxon Hill, Seat Pleasant, Bladensburg, among many others), devolving to take on the appearance and character of many inner-city ghettos, with blighted blocks, vacant houses, deteriorating commercial plazas, trash-strewn streets, numerous liquor stores, and more predatory and payday lending vendors than you can count.        

Click the link to read the initial postings for my inaugural newsletter on Substack: Leveling the Field (finally!). https://levelthefield.substack.com/

Heartbreaking Police/Security Killings

Finally, I can’t leave today’s newsletter without sharing my thoughts about the police murder of Sonya Massey in Chicago last month. As most of you likely know, Ms. Massey called 911 over concern someone was attempting to break into her house. What started out as a relatively friendly visit and chat with police suddenly shifted to a White police officer shooting her, point-blank, in the face and killing her for no justifiable reason and then refusing to administer aid as she lay dying on her kitchen floor.

My heart breaks into small pieces every time a police killing like this occurs - far too often. Most police have little to no training to deal with a person experiencing mental health challenges (which Massey was). In fact, many local police have insufficient training period and the vetting of police officers as they’re hired is incredibly lacking. Officer Grayson, who has now been indicted for murder, had worked for six different local police departments across just four years. Grayson had been discharged from the military in 2016 for ‘serious misconduct.’ All of this is so wrong.

But what has gotten short treatment in the media is how a White police officer got so easily triggered by a Black woman to pull out his gun and shoot with little warning. On countless occasions, White police officers devalue Black life so that it becomes too easy to shoot as if that is the only option to neutralize someone who might be perceived as a threat (he said he feared she was going to throw the pot of hot water at him). Historically through today, Blacks are disproportionately killed by police compared to Whites. If Massey was White, it is far more likely she’d still be alive today. (To read more about Massey’s case, go to LDF calls for justice & change.)

On Friday, another law enforcement killing came to light nationally, though it happened in late June. In Milwaukee on June 30, Dvontaye Mitchell died at the hands of four security guards, who pinned him down after a small outburst at a Hyatt Regency Hotel Mitchell was visiting. Guards pinned Mitchell face down, very much like George Floyd was held down, and despite his pleas for help and his apologies for his behavior, they held him down (and several times hit him in the head) until he was no longer breathing. Many minutes later, emergency personnel were not able to resuscitate him.

Security and police personnel are often trained to use excessive force, with little training in how to de-escalate situations properly. More than a month after, none of the personnel have yet been charged with any crimes. Mitchell’s treatment was profoundly inhumane. Although at least one of the guards pinning down Mitchell was African American (holding his feet), the two main perpetrators were White, holding down his upper body, ushering rapid-fire commands, and at least twice hitting his head with a hard object. (To read more about this case, go to Mitchell Death Ruled Homicide.)

One data point to remember: studies have shown that White police officers are 1.5-3 times more likely to use lethal force (depending on the city) when patrolling Black neighborhoods than Black police officers patrolling those same neighborhoods. [Here is an example of one of many studies - Texas A&M Study]

We need more than thoughts and prayers for these homicides. We need a genuine change in police practices. A chapter in the final section of my book, “Leveling the Field Part IV” proposes numerous transformative recommendations for change.

Images courtesy of Chat GPT 4.0