Progressives Say America’s Still Segregated. This Chart Shows How Wrong They Are.

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A new analysis of 2020 U.S. Census data offered the latest evidence that America is an exceptionally diverse and tolerant country.

SO WHAT

Progressives’ complaints about “white supremacy” make less sense every day.

THE NUMBERS

The percentage of Americans living in mixed-race neighborhoods has skyrocketed in recent decades, going from 28% in 1990 to 56% in 2020, The Washington Post reported last month.

Most white Americans now live in racially mixed neighborhoods.

  • “Large pockets of segregation remain, but as America’s White population shrinks for the first time and Hispanic, Asian, Black and Native Americans fuel the nation’s growth, diverse neighborhoods have expanded from urban cores into suburbs that once were colored by a steady stream of White flight from inner cities,” the Post’s Ted Mellnik and Andrew Van Dam wrote.
  • The reporters defined racially mixed neighborhoods as those where “no single race, or even all non-Whites together, make up 80 percent of the neighborhood population.”

WHAT IT MEANS

New York Times staff writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, the creator of the controversial 1619 Project and one of the most prominent voices in the anti-racism movement, has claimed that segregation persists in America.

  • “Segregation in housing is the way you can accomplish segregation in every aspect of life … We don’t have to discriminate if we’re living in totally segregated neighborhoods,” Hannah-Jones said during a 2018 interview with Vox. “Education and housing are the two most intimate areas of American life, and they’re the areas where we’ve made the least progress.”
  • President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has characterized Republican voting reforms as “Jim Crow 2.0.”

OK, but: In 1997, majorities of white Americans told Gallup they would prefer living, working and sending their children to school in a racially mixed environment.

  • Only 1% said they would move if a black family moved in next door, compared to 44% in 1958.
  • Last year, Gallup found that 94% of Americans support interracial marriage, up from just 4% in 1958.
  • And the 2020 World Values survey found that America ranks among the most racially tolerant countries.
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