I asked Douglas Massey, a professor of sociology and public policy at Princeton, about the difficulties facing proponents of increased integration. These differences, in turn, reinforce both the race prejudice and the stereotypes that drive many whites to oppose government action to achieve integration. Take neighborhood school proficiency ratings. For poor whites, the nearest elementary school has a 50 percent proficiency rating compared with 30.1 percent for poor blacks. The violent crime level in poor white census tracts is in the 55.5th percentile compared with the 74.5 percentile in poor black tracts.

Source: New York Times July 17, 2019 10:02 UTC