Segregation has been embraced, mandated, and maintained in the United States by law and policy
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Hamartia Antidote
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How to spot discrimination in mortgage lending, and what you can do about it
Explore mortgage lending discrimination, its types, how it affects borrowers, and what you can do if you suspect discrimination. Learn about your rights.
www.businessinsider.com
Angie Chatman
At the Republican National Convention in August, speaker Patricia McCloskey claimed that the opposition wants to "abolish" the suburbs. "By ending single-family home zoning," she said, "this forced rezoning would bring crime, lawlessness, and low-quality apartments into now-thriving suburban neighborhoods."
Patricia and her husband, Mark McCloskey, are residents of an exclusive gated community in St. Louis, Missouri called Portland Place. When Black Lives Matter protesters walked down their street this summer towards Mayor Lyda Krewson's home in the Portland Place neighborhood, the McCloskeys threatened the protesters at gunpoint, with a pistol and a rifle. The video blew up on social media, and the incident led to their invitation to the RNC. Perhaps it's no surprise that the McCloskeys' neighborhood is majority white, and much whiter than the city of St. Louis overall.
Single-family home zoning and neighborhood segregation
Single-family home zoning is one of the ways that housing segregation has been embraced, mandated, and maintained in the United States by federal, state, and local governments. Richard Rothstein, in his book "The Color of Law," discusses this and other public policies that purposely prevent Black and white Americans from living in integrated neighborhoods to this day.
Rothstein explains that, despite popular belief, housing segregation is not de facto — meaning a process that happens organically as a result of individual prejudice — but a de jure system of zoning and other laws that has barred the majority of Black Americans from owning homes in higher-value white neighborhoods and building wealth. The Fifth, 14th, and, arguably, the 13th Amendments to the Constitution all prohibit this type of de jure segregation (segregation by law and policy), according to Rothstein.
In the US, home ownership is the primary means by which wealth is accumulated then transferred to the next generation. It is the primary reason that, in 2016, according to the Brookings Institution, white families had on average a net worth of $171,000 while Black families had a net worth of $17,150.
"The Color of Law" is a New York Times bestseller and in 2017 was longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction. The author is a distinguished fellow of the Economic Policy Institute and an emeritus senior fellow of the Thurgood Marshall Institute at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Currently, he is a senior fellow at the Haas Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. We spoke via telephone about how US housing policy has built and maintained the racial wealth gap.
A conversation with Richard Rothstein, author of 'The Color of Law'
Your book, "The Color of Law," presents the case that housing segregation in the US was purposeful. What was the motivation to isolate African Americans? And how did federal and state governments benefit?
The motivation was to create and maintain segregation of African Americans and whites.
That seems so simplistic.
Well, it doesn't need to be complicated. If you don't want Black and white people to live in the same neighborhood, then you make regulations and policies to enforce that intention.
How do contemporary policies maintain segregation?
As I say in "The Color of Law," one example is property tax assessments. Properties are assessed based on perceived market value. I say perceived because you really don't know the value of a home until someone buys it.
Homes in white neighborhoods typically appreciate faster than homes in Black neighborhoods. Yet it may take a while before county or city assessors do a re-assessment. During the interval, homeowners in predominantly white neighborhoods have outdated assessed values that are farther below the rising market values of their homes than the assessed values of homeowners in predominantly Black neighborhoods. As a consequence, homeowners in predominantly white neighborhoods pay lower property taxes relative to the market values of their homes than homeowners in predominantly Black neighborhoods pay.
In Chicago and other cities, this excessive tax burden that African Americans bear may lead to them losing their homes if they fall delinquent in their property tax payments, creating an opportunity then for speculators to pay off the delinquent taxes and take possession of the property.
That's what happened with my mother's house. She had a tax lien, which lowered the amount of money we inherited from her estate. And if she hadn't died, the house would have soon been put up for auction.
Then you know. And home equity is the primary way wealth is transferred to the next generation. Chicago isn't the only place where African Americans are disproportionately dispossessed from their homes following a tax lien.
I watched your 2017 talk at Politics and Prose bookstore with Ta-Nehisi Coates on YouTube. In it, Mr. Coates suggested that a combination of external forces as well as internal resistance is what provides the conditions for systemic change. COVID-19 is definitely a powerful external force. Do you see systemic change on the horizon?
I see change because we're now having a more accurate and passionate discussion of the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow than ever before in American history. My hope is that this discussion will produce an awareness that housing segregation wasn't de facto, the accidental result of non-governmental actions in the private economy. That is a myth.
COVID illustrates that once unlawful and unconstitutional policies were implemented to create residential segregation, the consequences are reinforced by a public health crisis. Government-created segregation causes African Americans to live in more crowded conditions than they would were it not for state-sponsored segregation. Segregation also results in disparities in education and policing in Black neighborhoods.
Both COVID-19 and climate change are revealing the enormous public health costs and consequences of housing segregation. Do you see any structural changes on the horizon? Where? In what form are they appearing?
Well, if a few years ago you had told me that Confederate flags and statues commemorating the defenders of slavery would come down all over the country, I would have been shocked. The future is harder to predict than we assume.
But the country has been in discussions about Confederate symbols for years. During the Obama administration, Bree Newsom climbed that pole at South Carolina's capitol after the Charleston church shooting.
When you consider the hundreds of years in which federal and state governments not only sanctioned slavery and then segregation, but mandated it, in comparison, five or 10 years for change to occur isn't very long. Don't get me wrong: I, too, am impatient about the slow pace of change, but I am hopeful, given what is taking place now not only to recognize the history of government-imposed segregation, but to engage in action to make the future different.
In that same talk with Mr. Coates, you described the National Realtors Association rules of the mid-20th century. Some deeds included language that prohibited future resales of homes to African Americans. Would you explain how these practices also enforced housing segregation?
The deeds on some homes have language prohibiting "non-Caucasians" from owning the home, which makes it appear that housing segregation was due to individual actions of racists rather than state and federal government.
But the racial-exclusion clauses in deeds were not only recommended by the federal government, but in some cases required as a condition of Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration subsidies for the creation of all-white suburbs, like Levittown in New York state. And federal and state courts, in violation of their constitutional obligations, enforced those deed clauses by ordering the eviction of African Americans who bought homes where the deeds barred them from doing so.
Though the clauses on those deeds are now unenforceable, some people are looking to modify those documents. That is an expensive and time-consuming process, as well as a whitewashing of history. I suggest that instead a person adds a statement:
"We (your name), owners of the property at (your address) acknowledge that this deed includes an unenforceable, unlawful, and morally repugnant clause excluding African Americans from this neighborhood. We repudiate this clause, are ashamed for our country that many once considered this acceptable, and state that we welcome with enthusiasm and without reservation neighbors of all races and ethnicities."
As for the National Real Estate Association rules, you know that real estate agents are licensed by the state. And while being licensed by the state does not make someone a state actor, the National Association of Real Estate Boards had a Code of Ethics that African Americans could not be sold a house in a white neighborhood. During most of the 20th century, if a realtor sold a home to a Black family in a white neighborhood, the realtor's local board would effectively put him or her out of business by denying access to its multiple listing service (MLS). In fact, state licensing agencies did nothing to prevent such abuse.
That's another example of how pervasive housing discrimination was and how it was not de facto or individual choices that led to segregation, but rested on federal- and state-sanctioned policies, which violated our Constitution.
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Hamartia Antidote
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Another author who completely/conveniently ignores all the other people in the US who consider themselves "non-white" who apparently do not have this housing problem.
There are plenty of people in the top suburbs in the US who are not "white" and they aren't complaining about single family zoning laws.
There are plenty of people in the top suburbs in the US who are not "white" and they aren't complaining about single family zoning laws.
Bilal9
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I can assure you - that this is still the case in the deep South (places in Alabama and Mississippi come to mind). Non-whites will not be served, even as a tourist. They will be told to go to some black-run or Spanish-run establishment 'down the road'. Personal experience outside this dump of a town called 'Mobile'.
When you can't pay for food - forget about zoning. These are neanderthals, unfit to live in the 21st century.
Be Thankful you don't live in these places, I am...
Hamartia Antidote
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Wouldn't it have been smarter for the author to be more specific rather than making generalizations?
It is definitely true in the NorthEast that the black population in the suburbs is far lower than their percentage of the general population. However it also true that the population of smaller Asian groups in the suburbs whether they be Iranian, Pakistani, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean,etc is MUCH MUCH higher than the black population too. So instead of saying it is a white conspiracy issue maybe it is a non-black conspiracy.
BTW is is not unusual for suburban towns to block new multi-family development because units are usually purchased for the specific purpose of cramming renters in...who tend not to care about the upkeep of neighborhoods.
Bilal9
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Well - we're jumping into a lot of conclusions here with shaky basis, but that is what discussions are for.
Asians conspiring to keep Blacks out the suburbs??
I'd like to smoke whatever it is you're smoking.
Iranian, Pakistani, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean (i.e. Asian & Middle Eastern) immigrants generally don't come from the same educational and value backgrounds as do African Americans. Most Asian immigrants have had educated parents back home, come from much more culturally 'exposed' & cosmopolitan backgrounds and are focused much more on education and a value of hard work.
The lower class of these Asian countries did not get here to the US (except in places like NYC) and even if they did, their kids are laser-focused on education too. Minimum masters, and in some cases having Ph.D's. When their own parents had no education. They didn't laze around and munch Cheetos while watching music videos all day.
That reverence for becoming educated and advancing the status quo is unparalleled in other ethnic groups - except maybe some Hispanic communities.
Did Whites do Asians any favors for buying houses or getting jobs in the US. I don't believe so.
Most Asians had to work twice as hard compared to Whites to hold down their jobs (and mortgages) . I know I busted my own butt working three jobs when I was in college (no grants/scholarships). And after graduation, got rejected in multiple job interviews at the last minute because I didn't 'look' the part. Found out later they gave a White guy the job.
These were all in states outside California. Not going back to these MidWestern or Eastern hellholes.
Like me - most new Asian immigrants did not have the luxury of experimenting with drugs or 'explore' weird career options - having the luxury of an inheritance. Any kudos Asians deserve is due to their own hard work and conservatism about money and income.
But coming to the point of this thread - if you go to a site called https://www.bestplaces.net , it tells you that rents and mortgages are higher in places where weather is good (like here in SoCal), and it can only be afforded by people with higher levels of education and who have the skills to hold down good jobs.
SoCal is the most diverse community of EDUCATED FOLKS of WHATEVER COLOR.
It is a true meritocracy.
Narrow minded uneducated people who believe in color bars can stay back in their little hellholes and wither away.
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Hamartia Antidote
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Agreed! Now tell the people who don't have those same values that is the reason they aren't living in a nice suburb...not because the white people are excluding them. When somebody sells their house it goes to the highest bidder. Most people only meet the buyer when they are in a lawyer's office signing paperwork.
LOL! I say basically the same thing about the area of the NorthEast I'm in and you wonder what I'm smoking. Are all the diverse people in Southern California keeping the black people out of their areas so it isn't 13.4% black (the national average)? Is there some magical conspiracy meeting being held by educated folks on how to exclude just black people?
A part of San Diego
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Hamartia Antidote
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It's rather strange that he is speaking about desegregation in schools in Kentucky and Washington when less than a kilometer from where he is speaking one of the biggest court ordered school desegregation plans occurred.
Boston desegregation busing crisis - Wikipedia
Unfortunately it backfired very very badly. What was once quiet public schools the envy of the nation with studious children trying to get into Harvard and MIT turned into basically extended daycare centers for people who didn't want to learn...across the entire school system. Those parents you talked about who valued their children's education highly pulled their kids out (including me - I was out after only 2 years of public school) and sent them to private schools due to the educational quality taking a huge nosedive. The public school enrollment went down by almost 50%. Around 75 local schools closed due to the lower enrollment. The best teachers moved to private schools.
Even today long after busing stopped anybody who is interested in a nice education goes to tuitioned private schools and the free public schools are considered a last resort option or the only option for those who can't afford the private school cost. Further increasing the educational gap between rich and poor. The remaining public schools have fallen into disrepair. Test scores are among the lowest in the state. It's a sad disgrace.
Also he never mentions this either
Massachusetts Comprehensive Permit Act: Chapter 40B - Wikipedia
The Comprehensive Permit Act[1] is a Massachusetts law which allows developers of affordable housing to override certain aspects of municipal zoning bylaws and other requirements. It consists of Massachusetts General Laws (M.G.L.) Chapter 40B, Sections 20 through 23, along with associated regulations issued and administered by the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development.[2][3] Chapter 40B was enacted in 1969 to address the shortage of affordable housing statewide by reducing barriers created by local municipal building permit approval processes, local zoning, and other restrictions. Its goal is to encourage the production of affordable housing in all communities throughout the Commonwealth.
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Bilal9
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You can't undo some three hundred years of damage in one generation.
I get it. Blacks are less than intelligent, blah blah blah.
Focus on the person, not the race. There are plenty of dumb white folks who can't afford Mira Mesa or Irvine, where property values are the highest in SoCal.
You need an education to afford housing in these two places.
And that education cannot come until all the barriers are transcended and playing fields are leveled.
The field hasn't BEEN level for a while, my friend.
You need to study more stuff by this gentleman above as well as the Berkeley economist and former Labor Secretary for Bill Clinton, Robert Reich. He is my biggest role model, after our prophet Muhammad (SAW).
The man is a genius, even if you don't agree with his views.
This is his latest book, I suggest all to read it. You will see things you never even thought about. It explains why the rich get richer and fanboys for the rich (schmucks like us) take it all lying down...
The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It
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OIO
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Are you white or not?
Hamartia Antidote
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Why are you now going off-topic? Back to segregation please...
Hamartia Antidote
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White of course...you Han?
Bilal9
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You don't get it.
I was trying to illustrate the fact that social mobility today in the US is at an all time low.
So the fact is - whether you are a Asian or Black, you will still be screwed regardless.
This is the crux of the issue why Blacks were intentionally segregated. The ones in power did it. To create a permanent working class.
The fact that some Blacks rose above it - is due to their extraordinary talent and intelligence. The system was rigged against them, and it still is.
This is the reason Tea Party nutjobs say - there are (N-word) folks and there are Black people. Divide and conquer.
Well guess what? You won't sell them a house, so over time, their ability to accumulate wealth just declined - since housing is the number one investment in this country.
You won't give them a proper education - so their potential to earn any decent income is limited.
Then when they try to get desperate, you incarcerate them, ruining their future for good.
The common unspoken excuse is, they are irresponsible, destructive and bla bla bla. This is what some White friends have told me in the past.
Centuries of the field being NOT level is not corrected in one generation.
But now it looks like not just blacks, but all non-whites will suffer, because the White majority in this country is desperate to keep the status quo where it is.
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