Black and Blithe: The Black Experience in San Bernardino

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to identify and explain the factors that played a role in San Bernardino’s decline over the last twenty years and the impact that decline had on the city’s Black residents. As such, there were two key aims for this study. The first was to understand why San Bernardino went from a thriving blue-collar city to a city that its citizens are ashamed to be associated with. The second was to determine the specific impact of this had on Black residents of San Bernardino. There is little research on how urban decline negatively influences mid-size cities like San Bernardino and even less research on how urban decline affects Black residents, which is one of the many reason why this study was conducted. Theoretical Framework. When addressing the dynamics of a city and the various factors that led to a state of urban decline and the resulting impact on its minority population, social construction policy model theory was chosen because its provides a better understanding of why politicians and government officials create, endorse, and promote certain local policies that tend to favor whites and their concerns, while groups such as Blacks and their concerns are routinely ignored. Methodology. Two separate approaches were used to obtain information for this study: the gathering of secondary data and personal interviews with participants who currently or previously lived and/or worked in San Bernardino. The sample size was 40 subjects and the data was collected via answers to a set of questions regarding issues facing San Bernardino. Six subjects were interviewed in person, nine subjects were interviewed via phone conversation and twenty-five were answered the question via email. An ethnography methodology approach was used to extract information that may lead toward an understanding of why San Bernardino went into decline and how this affected the Black community. Findings. The research showed that the majority of subjects interviewed for this study left or wanted to leave San Bernardino. The factors listed for leaving were safer environment, better employment opportunities, better educational systems, cheaper cost of living, and shorter commutes. Those that stay in the city stay for the following reasons: existing homeownership, family obligations, economic factors or current employment. Conclusions and Recommendations. Black residents in San Bernardino have very little power economy, political or cultural. To address this problem, the Black community politically active in the city, form private public partnership with willing businesses, incentivizes businesses to seek local black talent as well as incentivizes banks to lend to local black owned business and both the black communities and city officials and leaders must seek to develop a symbiotic relationship which would benefit all parties involved