(2) As sociologists Nancy Denton and Doug Massey wrote in their seminal book, American Apartheid, “Although America’s apartheid may not be rooted in the legal strictures of its South African relative, it is no less effective in perpetuating racial inequality.”
(3) Pittsburgh, the city I love, remains one of the most racially segregated cities by neighborhood in America.
(4) Pittsburgh has one of the highest rates of occupational segregation between Whites and Blacks.
(5) Fetal deaths are 2 times more likely among Black women than White women.
(6) Black maternal mortality rate in PGH is higher than Black mortality rates in 97 percent of similar cities.
(7) More than 1/3 of Black women live in poverty in Pittsburgh. They are 5 times more likely to be poor than White men.
(8) Black men are more segregated to certain jobs, compared to the White male workforce.
(9) Black mothers are 3 times more likely compared to White mothers to give birth to extremely low weight babies.
(10) Black adult mortality rates are higher in PGH than almost every other similarly situated mid-size city in America.
(11) More Black children in Pittsburgh grow up in poverty than 95 percent of similar cities.
(12) Pittsburgh's White women make 78 cents to every dollar made by Pittsburgh's White men; Black women make 54 cents.
(13) White men and women are 3 times more likely to have a college degree than Black men and women.
(14) Pittsburgh has some of the highest rates of occupational segregation and homicide and lowest average income for Black men.
(15) This is America’s Apartheid. This is my city. While PGH is not rooted in laws like the former Group Areas Act of South Africa, the city has become no less effective in perpetuating racial inequity and inequality. The data does not lie.
(16) This is the fight of our lifetime in Pittsburgh.
Sources:
Tweet 2: Denton, Nancy & Douglas Massey, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass 15 (1993)
Sources:
Tweets 4-14: Howell, Junia, Sara Goodkind, Leah Jacobs, Dominique Branson and Elizabeth Miller. 2019. "Pittsburgh's Inequality across Gender and Race." Gender Analysis White Papers. City of Pittsburgh's Gender Equity Commission.
Sources:
Tweet 15: Tomlinson, Richard; Beauregard, Robert; Bremner, Lindsay; Mangcu, Xolela: Emerging Johannesburg: Perspectives on the Postapartheid City (2003)
I draw this parallel having done human rights activism in Johannesburg at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies and studied comparative constitutional law, race and housing with law faculty at the University of Witwatersrand School of Law as a Fulbright Scholar a decade ago.
