Purported neighborhood preferences are themselves produced by racial discourse

Evidence

So, rational choice theorists to the contrary, preferences are not naïve, discursively unstructured, simply given, or unchanging. Preferences are ordered by the dominant discursive culture and terms. In the case of the preference for segregated space, segregation is discursively (re)produced and ideologically massaged. White Americans of all class stripes reportedly prefer to live in neighborhoods which are at least 80 percent white; black Americans prefer to live in neighborhoods which are 50 percent white (which is to say 50 percent not white). Given that those classified and experienced as white make up roughly 70 percent of the population, that leaves vast areas of possibility for all-white areas. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 384

Categorization

• XREF: Directly challenges the premise of the Schelling model from §383 and connects to the project’s earlier treatment of discursive racial formation. — connects to: Residential preferences are culturally shaped, not rational givens — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 384; Racially patterned residential preferences reproduce segregation without overt racism — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1783; Whites redefined neighborhood worth as racial homogeneity plus amenity self-sufficiency — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 187 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: The claim that black Americans ‘prefer’ 50 percent white neighborhoods is striking and begs sourcing — which surveys, which years, and how should that asymmetry itself be read?