“SOCIOECONOMIC DIVERSITY IS OVERRATED”: WHITE ATTITUDES ON RACE AND CLASS IN A RACIALLY INTEGRATED NEIGHBORHOOD

Abstract

This article investigates homeowners' perceptions of race and class within a racially integrated neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland. Forty-two semi-structured interviews were completed with 59 white homeowners between September 2005 and September 2006. Adding a social class component to Bonilla-Silva's (2006) color-blind racism perspective, I ask if white homeowners in a racially-integrated neighborhood accept a color-blind worldview, or if they have an alternate framework for understanding race. Akin to O'Brien's antiracists (2001), there was a range of rejection of color-blindness, from selective to reflexive race cognizance. Most homeowners recognized the institutional basis of racial inequality and their own white privilege. However, many conflated race and class and argued that it was really class differences that caused racial differences. While many supported more racial integration, most rejected class integration in the neighborhood. This paradoxical set of attitudes will most likely continue to be an obstacle to the maintenance of racially integrated neighborhoods.