I have for some time been an advocate of reflexivity in ethnographic research (see http://www.temple.edu/anthro/ruby/exposing.html). It is my contention that the researcher must expose him or herself as much as the people studied are exposed. Ethnographic knowledge is created because of the interaction of the ethnographer with those studied. Objectivity is a dangerous myth in the study of human behavior because it pretends that the human beings doing the research can somehow lose their own cultural identity and stop seeing the world the way they do. I believe that it is essential to reveal who the ethnographer is and how his/her cultural identity shapes the research questions being asked and the results. Part of my interest in studying my hometown was to explore the implications of the researcher also being a native. Since my Oak Park research revolves around the social costs of maintaining diversity, I feel it necessary to describe my personal experience with living in an integrated community. If I am to do a credible piece of research I must be increasingly aware of how my experiences predispose me to view Oak Park's efforts. I trust those who read this "confession" will take in the spirit intended.
In 1972 my wife and I brought a six bedroom three story Victorian in the East Mount Airy section of Philadelphia. It was the first home I purchased and lived in. I grew up in apartments. The experience of buying the house made me realize how much the real estate industry steered people and aided residential segregation in the U.S. I naively thought that after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, realtors would cease such improper and illegal actions. In the early 1970s East Mount Airy was in the process of resegregating - although I did not realize that at the time. West Mount Airy was known then as now as a prime example of a community that was able to remain stably integrated. As a community that is "diverse by choice" it is often compared to Oak Park and has in the past participated in the Oak Park Exchange Congresses where integrated communities compare notes on how to survive. East Mount Airy was struggling to follow their neighbors' example.
The transformation of most of East Mount Airy from middle class white (predominantly Irish-Catholic) to middle class black was in process when we arrived. Within East Mount Airy there is a small neighborhood of older large Victorians that physically resembled the affluent and very white community of Chestnut Hill to the north and West Mount Airy to the west. We heard that bargains were to be had in this neighborhood because whites were irrationally fleeing. As it turned out most of our new neighbors were middleclass professionals - both black and white - who were also taking advantage of the bargains. The majority of East Mount Airy consisted of more modest homes that had already been purchased by African-Americans when we got there. Germantown was directly to the south - a predominately black community of unemployment, abandoned homes, poverty and high crime. We soon realized that our proximity to this area was a problem because in time we were repeatedly burglarized and worse by people from that neighborhood (I know they were Germantowners because they tended to get caught). I suppose the situation is similar to the one faced by some Oak Parkers when people from the westside of Chicago come into their village to commit crimes. (I make this assumption based upon my reading of the crime reports in the local newspapers. Most burglaries are done by westsiders.)
During the 1970s, the number of day-to-day hostile encounters I experienced with black youths and adults increased to the point where going to the local drug store became an unpleasant experience. While there was an East Mount Airy Neighbor's Association patterned after the famously successful West Mount Airy Neighbors' Association, my community was not cohesive. Crime was on the rise. Graffiti and senseless vandalism increased. One neighbor was savagely attacked and held hostage in his own home by local thugs who demanded money. And on it went, until living there became very unpleasant. At the same time I was teaching at Temple University located in the heart of a black North Philadelphia community - a place of even greater poverty, abandoned homes and crime. Faculty and students in my own department and elsewhere were getting mugged and robbed. The campus was regularly vandalized for no apparent reason. I regularly experience students who "play the race card" when they are having trouble in a course. While I was in favor of striving for an integrated world, the day-to-day actuality of it seemed increasingly difficult.
In 1980 I started a long term ethnographic research project in central Pennsylvania in a cultural homogenous rural white community. I found the lifestyle very compatible and in 1986 we bought a house there and made it our primary residence in 1988. We have a small condo in a gated community in Philadelphia for the time I need to be in the university - about three days a week during the school year. The hostile day to day encounters, the crime and the lack of our collective abilities to get along eventually wore me out. Retreating to all white Juniata county was, I suppose, a cowardly act but I simply became unwilling to put up with the lack of civility and understanding that I saw in Philadelphia. I have lost any liberal white guilt that I had. I am unwilling to put up with angry folk who take out their frustrations on whites who seem to love being punished for the sins of their forefathers.
Living in this social
experiment during this year makes me realize again how difficult
it still is to find a way for blacks and whites to live together
productively. Oak Parkers are still struggling even though they
have been at it for 30 years. How to maintain a diverse community
where everyone feels comfortable seems to be a constant topic
of discussion. The more I observe sincere blacks and whites really
trying to figure out how to create and maintain a community that
suits everyone's needs, the more I realize how hard that is to
accomplish. It is a sad fact that Oak Park may be one of the
few places that is really even trying anymore. I am certain my
failed experience in living in an integrated community must have
an impact on how I approach this research. During the coming
year I will strive to understand how that experience will influence
my observations.