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I, a historian of racial capitalism, explained redlining to my white neighbor today, who responded "but how was that legal?" in literal disbelief.
Always amazed at how little white ppl know of the system designed to benefit them at the expense of everyone else.
Always amazed at how little white ppl know of the system designed to benefit them at the expense of everyone else.
A bunch of folks have asked for resources & recommendations. Here's a short thread. Ta-Nehisi Coates' "Case for Reparations" is a good place to start if this is new for you. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
My friend @ProfTDParry recommended this excellent documentary on redlining & racial covenants--basically writing into the deed that only white ppl can buy the house--in Minneapolis. https://twitter.com/ProfTDParry/status/1266845469763702784
Also got to give credit to the folks working overtime in the comments like @CoolSahara29. Lots of great recs here: https://twitter.com/CoolSahara29/status/1267446194323681283
And solidarity to all the teachers in the room; I taught high school for years. The folks over at @ZinnEdProject have great resources on redlining & other issues of equity & justice often omitted from textbooks. https://twitter.com/ZinnEdProject/status/1267268929413677060
I wrote about how some of these issues of white flight, segregation, etc. drive present-day inequality & *flooding* in Baton Rouge for the @washingtonpost @madebyhistory. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/11/12/how-racial-segregation-exacerbates-flooding-baton-rouge/
I also wrote abt realizing how the opportunities available to me personally come from my family's benefits from slavery & Jim Crow. I tried to leave my parents out, but y'all, my mom was *pissed* when I mentioned the segregated grade school at the end.
https://twitter.com/wihorne/status/963136669514960898
https://twitter.com/wihorne/status/963136669514960898
Finally, a few must-read books. First, @KeeangaYamahtta's RACE FOR PROFIT & FROM #BlackLivesMatter 
TO BLACK LIBERATION are both essential reads. She shows quite well in both books how this system is ongoing & that we must destroy it. https://www.amazon.com/Race-Profit-Industry-Undermined-Homeownership/dp/1469653664
TO BLACK LIBERATION are both essential reads. She shows quite well in both books how this system is ongoing & that we must destroy it. https://www.amazon.com/Race-Profit-Industry-Undermined-Homeownership/dp/1469653664
. @ndbconnolly's A WORLD MORE CONCRETE shows how propertied & political elites--including liberals--sold out residents of poor neighborhoods for lucrative construction & development contracts. https://www.amazon.com/World-More-Concrete-Remaking-Historical/dp/022637842X
There are so many great books that show the effects of redlining & discriminatory policies. One I always recommend is Tom Sugrue's ORIGINS OF THE URBAN CRISIS because it shows the many & lasting effects of discriminatory housing in the north. https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Urban-Crisis-International-Perspectives/dp/0691121869
It was one of the first books I read that helped me understand the problem of northern racism & that white supremacy, & thus racial capitalism, were national problems.
Finally, do read Richard Rothstein's THE COLOR OF LAW, which shows the ways that white Americans embedded discrimination in the American legal system via housing & policing policy. https://www.amazon.com/Color-Law-Forgotten-Government-Segregated/dp/1631494538/
Oh, & since it's summer, the beach is fucked too. https://www.amazon.com/Land-Was-Ours-Beaches-Coastal/dp/1469628724
The main takeaway:
White Americans created a system to enrich themselves built heavily on segregated schools & housing well after the end of slavery. The profits from this system shape the opportunities available to each of us.
White Americans created a system to enrich themselves built heavily on segregated schools & housing well after the end of slavery. The profits from this system shape the opportunities available to each of us.
Because we have done almost nothing to address this machine that produces white wealth at the expense of everyone else, we compound its effects, producing ever greater inequality.
But as I tell my students, inequality is *highly fucking dangerous* because it shows systems of power to be arbitrary & illegitimate. We are all feeling the effects of this now, but it is a system that chokes millions of Americans from birth until the day they die.
A system of that nature is both unjust & unstable. Eventually, as I point out in my segregation & flooding piece (further up in the thread), it comes back to harm the people who built it too.
We should destroy racial capitalism because it is unjust. But we should also destroy it because it creates an arbitrary & combustible system of economic & political power that cannot (& should not) be sustained. /end
