> Whereas large employers in the city would have an integrated workforce,
> with people doing all kinds of jobs from clerical work to mid-level
> management to technology occupations to professional-managerial - still
> skewed toward whites, especially at the upper end of the pay scale and
> occupational prestige hiearchy -- in the beach suburb, job segregation
> within an organization was easy to see. Black people were segregated to a
> handful of occupations: maintenance, janitorial, help desk, food service.
> It was bizarre to move from one way of living to another way every day.
>
> This pattern gets repeated all over this beach town, with the exceptions
> being government and military employment, and some contracting agencies
> that work for gov/mil.
>
Do you still live in that military-dominated city? One of the things that struck me about DC was the feeling of a relatively secure black middle class. There's a certain amount of movement toward the suburbs with gentrification, but in comparison to New England and by all means Chicago it feels very different, not at all like what I think Chuck Grimes described experiencing 40 years ago. Visitors with the right kind of eyes see it too. I don't know if the numbers back that up.
-- Andy "It's a testament to ketchup that there can be no confusion."