Abstract
In Race and the Politics of Deception: The Making of an American City, Christopher Mele traces the history of Chester, Pennsylvania, a city on the Delaware River just outside of Philadelphia, from the early 1900s to the present. Chester’s history closely parallels that of other U.S. cities from Baltimore to Chicago. The Great Migration brought thousands of African Americans to the burgeoning industrial boomtown during World War I. In subsequent years, the city’s racial geography was characterized and shaped by the solidification of racial residential segregation, the related processes of suburbanization and urban disinvestment, and later, urban renewal and revitalization efforts. Today, Chester boasts a professional soccer stadium, Harrah’s casino, and plans for upscale condos and office space, but it also has a decaying downtown business district and a poverty rate nearly triple the national average. Mele examines the role of race in the history of the area, finding that “local power holders manipulate racial issues to effect changes for their own benefit” (p. 97).
What distinguishes Mele’s telling from similar accounts of other cities is his focus on the agency and intentionality of urban elites and other members of the local Republican Political Machine in Chester. He uses the term race strategies to describe the strategic deployment of racial stereotypes, stigmatization, scapegoating, and color-blind ideology as a means of stirring racial animus, diverting attention from political corruption, or justifying neoliberal development policies. Race strategies are used here as a particular type of “racial project” (see Omi and Winant 1994) in which actors tactically utilize and manipulate racial discourses and representations to accomplish political and economic goals. Mele argues,
The political embrace of race strategies provided the legitimacy and justification for institutional practices such as mortgage lending that excluded minorities and also motivations for individuals and entire communities to behave in a racist and at times violent manner. … In turn, local power holders reaped the benefits of systematically draining resources from a city they helped vilify. (p. 158)
Drawing upon a variety of primary and secondary data sources, including interviews with city residents and officials, archival documents, and historical and journalistic accounts, Mele produces vignettes describing development processes, spatial patterns, and political conflicts, highlighting the uses of race strategies by elites for political and economic gain. After introducing Chester and his interest in it, Mele presents his notion of race strategies and discusses their salience in the politics of urban development and significant and lasting impact on many communities of color today. The book is organized chronologically, with each chapter focused on a particular time period and how elites’ manipulation of racial attitudes and segregated communities worked to their benefit while shaping the organization of the city itself.
Striking among Mele’s findings and analysis is the persistent pattern of the local Political Machine simultaneously playing both sides of the black-white racial divide against each other while reaping political and economic benefits from each. In the early 1900s, local political boss John McClure and his cronies managed prostitution and gambling in the black vice districts while blaming blacks for increasing urban ills and campaigning on social reforms to appeal to the city’s white residents. As racial tensions heightened into race riots, restrictive covenants maintained rigid racial residential segregation. The McClure Machine had its hands in segregated public housing developments, black-owned businesses, and the construction of suburban housing for middle-class whites while skimming profits, taking payoffs, and encouraging white flight by stoking fears of black pathology and racial integration.
Among the most compelling of Mele’s findings can be found in his chapters on the Civil Rights Movement and Lyndon Johnson’s federal War on Poverty programs (Chapters 4 and 5). Though Chester’s NAACP eschewed the more disruptive and confrontational tactics of the Civil Rights Movement, McClure planted Stanley Branche, an aggressive and radical community organizer whose business district shutdowns would stir fear and panic among the white community. Local elites similarly manipulated the War on Poverty program by funneling federal funds into front organizations, expanding vice industries, and racketeering while employing culture of poverty discourses to further stigmatize the city’s poor and black residents. As poverty concentrated in Chester’s black neighborhoods, the funds designated for community support were redirected by the very claims-makers who blamed the community for its plight.
Race and the Politics of Deception is a fascinating and highly readable account of the racial history and geography of a small U.S. city. By centering his analysis on how race strategies shape urban development, Mele contributes to our understanding of relationships between race and urban space. Future scholars developing theories or accounts emphasizing agency and intentionality might make more generous use of direct quotes from key figures than are included here. This emerges as a limitation of Mele’s analysis, particularly in early chapters, though it may be due to his data sources. Regardless, this book would fit nicely in a graduate or undergraduate course, and it seems likely future scholars will have many opportunities to explore the use of race strategies in the current political climate.