Since I haven’t found a sub for sociology I decided to post this question here looking for a scientific answer. I’m looking for a more empirical answer rather than opinion based since I think this is critical in understanding such a complex and nuanced topic.
So I noticed that in the USA people are often strongly divided based on whether they identify as being “black” or “white”. Basically many people there make this a big part about their identity and separate communities based on it to the point where they developed different cultures and even different ways of talking and behavior solely based on whether they identify as “black” or “white”.
As far as I understand it’s based on the brightness of their skin color because of slavery but it’s not quite clear to me who is considered “black” or “white” since I’ve seen many people who for example have very bright skin and seem to have almost no African ethnicity but they still identify and talk/behave as “being black”.
I wonder why they still have this culture and separation since segregation ended in 1964.
Because in other regions like South America such as Brazil for example this culture doesn’t seem to exist that much and people just identify as people and they talk, behave and connect the exact same way no matter the skin brightness. People such in South America seem way more mixed and seem to not have this type of separation like in the USA based on external features like skin, hair or eye color.
To me it kind of feels like this is a political and economic reason in the US that they purposefully want to divide people for their gains. Because the extent to which this seems to have been normalized in Americas every day conversation both in private and in public/commercial spaces feels like brainwashing. And I wonder if this will ever improve since it seems to go as far as people being proud about these racist stereotypes and think this is completely normal. But considering the broader global context and America’s historical background it doesn’t seem normal. Especially with America’s context of slavery you would expect there to be strong efforts of fighting these stereotypes and having a political leadership that doesn’t see “color” and only judges based on an individual’s personality.
Where I live the government literally built a useless freeway just to separate poor black communities from the middle class white ones. This is actually very common.
You imply people make their identity around race and thus choose to be separate because they are only comfortable in their culture, but you have the causality the wrong way around. People for the most part don’t make their race their whole identity and voluntarily separate their communities based on that - most people actually seem keen on interacting and sharing culture and space, but there are racist policies still that keep people segregated and create dramatically different lived realities among populations. These racist policies physically separate people, and the economic impacts keep the disadvantaged folk stuck in ghettos and make it hard to integrate into more affluent “white” and mixed spaces.
Black folks are treated differently by the police, by educators, by employers, and this translates to different economic, health, and political outcomes for many people of color (tbh viewing this as “black” and “white” is not how race works in the U.S., it’s more like “white” and “not white” with a spectrum and some inconsistency based on how “white passing” some in-between people are).
Not to mention that property taxes are what fund local schools and infrastructure, so if you live in a more affluent “white” neighborhood you have better funded schools and are more likely to go to college, get a good job, afford a home, etc. and growing up in a poor neighborhood means your schools are not as well funded and the opportunities available to you are limited.