Segregation and Poverty in King Country

Tsz Ching Won

Sociology 3

Section A06

2/23/2015

Segregation and Poverty in King Country, Washington State

I underestimated the seriousness of racial discrimination and segregation in Washington State. I know there was a long history of racism until the late 1960s. African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans were shut out of most neighborhoods, schools, many occupations, and sometimes stores and restaurants. Although the federal government passed a law banning housing discrimination in 1968, but the segregation is still highly segregated nowadays. From the racial dot map (2013), we can see obviously that the majority of Whites are living in the North and the minority’s racial groups are living in the South. Because the North was considered as a “Sundown Zone” in the mid 1960s, the Blacks were not supposed to be in the white neighborhoods; particularly Black men will be stopped and questioned by the police officers. But we can still see a multi-racial population in the Seattle metropolitan area. It can be explained by looking at the comparison of income and poverty measures in King Country and Washington State. King country has a lower poverty rate than the State. King Country is the richest country in Washington State because Seattle, Bellevue and Everett made up the metropolitan region. Therefore, People who can afford living in the metropolitan area have higher income obviously because the housing price is relatively high. Therefore, only the upper-class minorities can afford to live in the multi-racial neighborhood. In conclusion, King country has the most population of White, and a larger population of Asian than Black and Hispanic. This phenomenon can also be explained because the average income of Asian is so much higher than other minority’s racial groups and their average earning are same as the White.