Talk:Sundown town

Sensationalist language, unsupported claims and stylistic weaknesses

The article in its current form contains numerous instances of sensationalist language, unsupported claims, and off-topic content. A recent edit of mine corrected some of these issues, but was promptly reverted. I would like to open a discussion.

Lead

Present tense

Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, gray towns, or sundowner towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States. They are considered towns that practiced or still practice...

The article does not substantiate the claim that any sundown towns still exist today. There are no examples given of purported sundown towns existing in the 21st century. There are three references in the article that allege a connection between the practice as it existed decades ago and unspecified exclusionary practices today.

The first:

some commentators hold that certain 21st-century practices perpetuate a modified version of the sundown town

(citing a Yahoo News article and the Loewen book). "Certain 21st-century practices" is unclear, and the wording all but acknowledges that what exist today are not strictly speaking sundown towns. This has the potential to mislead readers into believing that towns that explicitly/legally forbid minorities to remain after dark continue to exist. Many readers will be especially vulnerable to this misreading in light of viral misinformation that has circulated on TikTok since 2022, e.g. this video, which adduces a historical map of sundown towns as evidence that such towns exist today. (In fact, the source itself repeatedly implies that some of the towns are still sundown towns, despite relying on purely historical evidence, showing the reach of this misinformation.)

The second:

Though widely believed to be a thing of the past—racially restrictive covenants were struck down by the Supreme Court in its 1948 Shelley v. Kraemer decision—many hundreds of towns continue to effectively exclude Black people and other minorities in the 21st century.

(citing the Loewen book). This is unclear, and even if true, does not go quite as far as claiming that sundown towns continue to exist.

The third:

In 2019, sociologist Heather O'Connell wrote that sundown towns are "(primarily) a thing of the past", but writer Morgan Jerkins disagreed, saying: "Sundown towns have never gone away."

The referenced article in Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, despite the parenthetical, discusses sundown towns in the past tense throughout and makes no attempt to establish their continued existence. Morgan Jerkins is not a historian, not a subject matter expert, and provides no evidence for her apparently casual assertion. This sentence should be deleted.

This is the entirety of the support the article provides for describing sundown towns in the present tense. Drawing an equivalence without between this and e.g. Reconstruction-Era lynch mobs runs a serious risk of misleading the reader, at least not without carefully delineating the many dissimilarities in virtue of which such a comparison should be treated with significant caution.

Miscellaneous

Entire sundown counties and sundown suburbs were created as well.

The word "entire" here lacks semantic content, serving only to violate NPOV.

Some commentators hold that certain 21st-century practices perpetuate a modified version of the sundown town.

This requires further explanation.

History

Though widely believed to be a thing of the past—racially restrictive covenants were struck down by the Supreme Court in its 1948 Shelley v. Kraemer decision—many hundreds of towns continue to effectively exclude Black people and other minorities in the 21st century.

This is unclear and contains the false presupposition that "effective exclusion" is equivalent to being a sundown town. The logical construction is equivalent to that of e.g. "Although witch burning is widely believed to be a thing of the past, many wiccans continue to face discrimination in the 21st century."

Those who failed to leave could expect to receive lashings under a law known as the "Peter Burnett Lash Law", named for Provisional Supreme Judge Peter Burnett. No persons were ever lashed under the law...

If the lashings never took place, "were liable" is more accurate than "could expect".

This law in Oregon was the foreshadowing of future laws restricting where minorities could live, not only in Oregon but in other jurisdictions.

"Foreshadowing" is needlessly ominous. A description more aligned with NPOV would be "...anticipated future laws". However, the entire sentence can be omitted, as the following paragraphs go on to explain the relevant restrictions anyway.

Those new residents who remained more than ten days, were caught in the state, and were unable to pay the fine were to be punished by being sold at auction and in effect enslaved for a temporary period to work off the fine

"Were caught in the state" is redundant. "[were] in effect enslaved for a temporary period to work off the fine" has a number of issues. It depends on the weasel word "in effect". The term for being "in effect enslaved for a temporary period to work off [a] fine" is "indentured servitude" or "forced labor". In the context of the antebellum US, it is highly misleading to conflate this with slavery, as Illinois was not and had never been a slave state (under US jurisdiction). Relatedly, although the source does admittedly use the same term, black people were not "sold" at auction. Sale implies ownership, which implies slavery. Their labor was sold. This is yet another NPOV violation.

However, this one legal victory did not stop towns from developing into sundown towns.

"This one legal victory" is too colloquial and imposes the editor's perspective (after all, it was also a legal defeat). I suggest amending it to "this outcome". "Developing into sundown towns" ignores the immediate context which focuses more narrowly on property ownership. I suggested amending it to "restricting black immigration", although that is probably too narrow. Better would be "restricting black people from owning property".

City planners and real estate companies used their power and authority to ensure that white communities remained white, and black communities remained black.

"used their power and authority to..."— a) "power" and "authority" are redundant. b) The only conceivable reason for interposing this phrase between the subject and embedded clause is to impart negative valence to the subject. Another NPOV violation.

"...ensure that white communities remained white, and black communities remained black."—More concisely, "uphold racial segregation at the community level".

These were private individuals making decisions to personally benefit themselves, their companies' profits, or their cities' alleged safety, so their methods in creating sundown towns were often ignored by the courts.

This sentence has numerous issues. "These were private individuals making decisions to personally benefit themselves..."—This is awkwardly worded.

"...their companies' profits..."—This is awkwardly worded, especially since the construction of the sentence coordinates it with the adverb "personally", which makes no sense (profits are not people). It is also redundant, unless "benefit themselves" referred to some other form of personal benefit (in which case it is vague).

"...or their cities' alleged safety..."—Why is it only "safety" that is "alleged" and not "companies' profits"? This very page goes on to list several cases where racial integration precipitated outbursts of violence. Furthermore, even if there were no connection between racial integration and crime, it would be unnecessary to qualify their motivations in this way. If I went to the store to buy a some coke, only to discover that it was sold out, one wouldn't say my motive was "to get some alleged coke".

"...so their methods in creating sundown towns were often ignored by the courts."— a) "their methods in creating sundown towns" is awkward phrasing. b) Having selfish motives ("to personally benefit themselves/their companies' profits") does not entail ("so") escaping the notice of the law. c) "ignored by the courts" appears to be suggesting that the courts were complicit in some kind of illegal activity, while the sentence as a whole appears to be conceding that such private individuals were operating within the law.

In view of its many problems, this sentence should be deleted.

In addition to unfair housing rules, citizens turned to violence and harassment in making sure that Black people would not remain in their cities after sundown.

"unfair"—"discriminatory" is more neutral.

"citizens turned to violence and harassment"—This is a blanket statement. "Citizens" are not a hivemind, and they did not all of them, in all places, turn to violence and harassment.

"...in making sure that Black people would not remain in their cities after sundown."—Should be reworded for style, e.g., "to discourage Black people from remaining..."

Whites in the North felt that their way of life was threatened by the increased minority populations moving into their neighborhoods, and racial tensions started to build. This often boiled over into violence, sometimes extreme, such as the 1943 Detroit race riot

A few problems with this: a) Detroit was not a sundown town, so the race riot has dubious relevance to this page, or at least it should be made clearer. b) "This often boiled over into violence"—The use of the singular "this" as opposed to "these" suggests the reference is to whites' "[feeling] that their way of life was threatened," whereas, as the Wikipedia article on Detroit race riots explains, much of it was in direct retaliation against black-on-white violence and property destruction. In my opinion, the reference to violence in the previous sentence was sufficient.

Functions

In Nevada, the ban was expanded to include Japanese Americans

The timing of this is unclear. Suggest adding a "When?" tag.

Two examples of the numerous road signs

It may be that the road signs were subjectively numerous, but that is a matter of opinion. The word should be deleted in accordance with NPOV.

Road trips for African Americans were fraught with inconveniences and dangers...

"Fraught" is itself a "fraught" word, again intended to play upon the reader's emotions. No information content is lost by saying "...were inconvenient and sometimes dangerous". Another NPOV violation.

...because of racial segregation, racial profiling by police, the phenomenon of travelers just "disappearing"...

"Just 'disappearing'" seems intended to evoke something out of a horror movie. Despite appearing in quotes, the term is not used in any of the sources cited in the paragraph, nor is any phenomenon comparable to people "just 'disappearing'" described.

--- I went ahead and removed the residual paragraph about Nevada and Japanese Americans. Not only did that sentence not fit, I went to the source material and couldn't find any reference about Japanese Americans in Nevada. - nvblue 2024-11-6

Followup

@DMacks:, please let me know if you agree with my comments here and I can republish my revision. If any of my previous edits are not recapitulated here, then they will not be repeated in the next version. Kalachakratantra (talk) 00:24, 19 September 2024 (UTC)