Vox, Dec. 4, 2019: The Sordid History Of housing Discrimination In America
As of 2016, the median wealth for Black families in America was $17,600, while the median wealth for White families was $171,000.
One of the biggest factors driving these disparities is housing. A home is the most valuable thing many people will own. And buying a nicer home in a nicer neighborhood has always been the easiest way to climb up the socioeconomic ladder. But that option hasn’t always been available to everyone, especially Black families.
The story of housing discrimination in America is complicated and rooted in a long history of racist policies stretching back to slavery. Well into the 20th century, the government systematically discriminated against Black homeowners through a process known as “redlining,” which constrained who could get decent mortgages for good homes and where those homes could be built.
In the ’70s, the government abandoned redlining in an attempt to level the playing field for everyone. This was seen as an improvement on overtly racist policies, but in reality, the new practices reinforced the very problems they hoped to solve.
A new book by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a professor of African American studies at Princeton, called Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership is the best attempt yet to unpack this history and lay out the consequences.
