The Persistence of Racial Segregation and Urban Apartheid in a post-“Jim Crow” America: The Case of Detroit, Michigan (1967-2012)

In this presentation, Thomas focused on questions of race, racism, and class oppression in Detroit, Michigan, perhaps America’s most segregated big city. How can legislation barring discrimination in housing and land policy still not provide the remedies for deep spatial and racial division in the US? Pierre Bourdieu and other anthropologists and sociologists have cited the school system as one of the most effective institutions in reproducing the class inequality. But what other forces and institutions contribute to “American Apartheid”? How has poverty been increasingly racialized in US cities and what has that meant for various ethnic and racial communities in Detroit?