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Once the visitor was told rather repetitively that this city was the melting pot; never before in history had so many people of such varied languages, customs, colors and culinary habits lived so amicably together. Although New York remains peaceful by most standards, this self-congratulation is now less often heard, since it was discovered some years ago that racial harmony depended unduly on the willingness of the blacks (and latterly the Puerto Ricans) to do for the other races the meanest jobs at the lowest wages and then to return to live by themselves in the worst slums.

John Kenneth Galbraith#22

HistoryInequalityCitiesRaceRacism

About this quote

What does it mean?
Claims of New York racial harmony often masked the fact that it depended on minority groups taking the lowest wage jobs and living in slums.
In plain terms
NYC racial harmony relied on blacks doing poor jobs and living in slums.
What can you take from it?
Surface harmony may hide economic inequality.

Where it applies

  • urban policy
  • social analysis
  • historical review

Putting it to work

  • study urban history
  • examine inequality
  • critique narratives

Questions to consider

  • What conditions sustain surface-level harmony?
  • How does economics shape race relations?

Another view

It oversimplifies complex urban social dynamics.

More from John Kenneth Galbraith

  1. The traveler to the United States will do well, however, to prepare himself for the class-consciousness of the natives. This differs from the already familiar …

    Permalink to quote #21
  2. Let there be no question: economics, so long as it is thus taught, becomes, however unconsciously, a part of the arrangement by which the citizen or student is…

    Permalink to quote #23
  3. In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.

    Permalink to quote #20

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