I rarely read a work of fiction or non-fiction that transforms my perception of life. Last week, I read that book: Thomas Shapiro's The Hidden Cost of Being African-American.
Though, this was not likely his intent, it shows that absent some sort of catalyst, there will never been racial parity, integration, or class equality in the United States.
Looking at the use of transformative assets, which lift many whites beyond their earning capacity, the tipping point of integration for most whites, and the costs associated with being African-American and segregated, Shapiro convincingly explains the divide between most Americans.
Erin Aubry Kaplan, a black columnist for the Los Angeles Times, could well benefit from the reading of this book. In her February 15th column, Fear Takes Flight, Kaplan is dismayed that her black, middle-class neighbor is moving from the Century Heights section of Inglewood to -- anyplace else.
I learned the hard way that living in a black neighborhood can cost you. When selling our remodeled West Adams home, which had been such a bargain, there were few takers.
Sure, a few white families looked at our home, but none were willing to take the plunge and spend almost eight hundred thousand dollars on a house in a black neighborhood.
The first clue that this would happen was when I would visit open houses in our neighborhood and the groups of people visiting the homes were smaller and smaller numbers of well-heeled blacks as the prices spiraled upwards.
Yet owning that home, may have cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars in 'appreciation.' Many of my visiting acquaintances, after overcoming their irrational fear of being shot in a random drive by, would comment -- "Oh, what a lovely home. If this were in any other neighborhood, it would be worth millions of dollars."
And if you follow Shapiro's well documented evidence. It's true. Lost equity, is just one of the costs of being African-American. Aubry Kaplan's neighbor has just realized that -- and is taking action.
Bottom line, this book has saved me months, if not years of hand wringing. The reasons for segregation and failing urban schools have been a mystery for me. If, supposedly, the minds of whites have changed, then why were separation and unequal schools so pervasive, I pondered?
The answer can be summed up, I think, in one insidious code phrase used by too many I know, "It's for the children."
Translation. "It's for our white, privileged, children -- and if yours suffer -- well, that's America."
