CHAPTER 1 Less Separate, Still Unequal: Diversity and Equality in “Post–Civil Rights” America Thomas J. Sugrue The Paradox of Diversity, Toleration, and Inequality It is now a commonplace assertion that the United States will be majority nonwhite in a few decades. 1 But that prediction tells us nothing about what diversity will mean, which identities will be salient and which will fade from signifcance, or how diver- sity will shape Americans’ lives from where they go to school to where and how they live, where they work, what they are paid, if they are healthy or prone to illness, and whether throughout their lives they are treated with dignity and respect. Through- out American history, racial and ethnic categories have pro- foundly structured educational opportunities, jobs and fnancial security or insecurity, access to political representation and pub- lic goods, and nearly every aspect of the life course, from birth outcomes to health to mortality. The relationship between race or ethnicity and opportunity is not fxed, however. It has changed at critical junctures dur- ing moments of disruption and possibility. When it comes to <i>Our Compelling Interests : The Value of Diversity for Democracy and a Prosperous Society</i>, edited by Earl Lewis, and Nancy Cantor, Princeton University Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2019-07-25 09:35:14. Copyright © 2016. Princeton University Press. All rights reserved.