Responses to racial segregation in a black Miami community

John Wesley Gaskin, Florida International University

Abstract

The present study examines the extent to which blacks are segregated in the suburban community of Coconut Grove, Florida. Hypersegregation, or the general tendency for blacks and whites to live apart, was examined in terms of four distinct dimensions: evenness, exposure, clustering, and concentration. Together, these dimensions define the geographic traits of the target area. Alone these indices can not capture the multi-dimensional levels of segregation and, therefore, by themselves underestimate the severity of segregation and isolation in this community. This study takes a contemporary view of segregation in a Dade County community to see if segregation is the catalyst to the sometime cited violent response of blacks. This study yields results that support the information in the literature review and the thesis research questions sections namely, that the blacks within the Grove do respond violently to the negative effects that racial segregation causes. This thesis is unique in two ways. It examines segregation in a suburban environment rather than an urban inner city, and it presents a responsive analysis of the individuals studied, rather than relying only on demographic and statistical data.

Subject Area

Social structure|African Americans|Cultural anthropology

Recommended Citation

Gaskin, John Wesley, "Responses to racial segregation in a black Miami community" (1999). ProQuest ETD Collection for FIU. AAI1393822.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/dissertations/AAI1393822

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