While New York was segregated throughout most of the 20th century, it was still better than many other parts of the country.  As the Whitmans said, they liked New York because it was more liberal in the sense that they had more freedom and less prosecution. Despite having more freedoms, non-whites still struggled economically, and most segregation was seen in the job market and in education.
    Over the last 50 years, New York has done a very good job with desegregation. You rarely hear about someone not getting a job here or not being able to move somewhere because they are non-white. This was not the case 50 years ago.
 “I would be the first to move out if a Negro family moved into this neighborhood. Property devaluates as soon as a Negro moves into an area,” said a New York shipyard worker. Many homeowners had worked their entire life in order to purchase a home. Much of this segregation once again comes from an “idea” that was also talked about in last week’s reading. As this shipyard worker’s quote shows, he doesn’t necessarily seem to have a problem with a black family moving into his neighborhood, but rather with the idea that the neighborhood’s housing market would suffer as a result of other people associating blacks with that particular neighborhood. Unfortunately, this economic problem was one of the major setbacks of the desegregation movement.
    Movement patterns also tie in to the reading we had last week. Last week I talked about people moving to certain areas because they wanted to and because they felt more comfortable there. In Freeman’s chapter, it seems that many non-whites were forced into certain areas, rather than them choosing an area were they felt more welcome. Whether it was in order to get a job or in order to send their children to school, many non-whites were directly or indirectly forced to live in certain areas. Which one of the two is really segregation?