Departments

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wealth gap

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    11/29/2021

    The Invention of America's Most Dangerous Idea

    by Gene Slater

    How did a right-wing conception of "freedom" rooted in the individual's absolute property rights supersede an idea of freedom based in social equality? Blame the real estate industry. 

  • SOURCE: Dissent
    7/8/2021

    Redlining, Race, and the Color of Money

    by Garrett Dash Nelson

    "Redlining maps reveal how the federal government managed risk for capital—a role that has perpetuated inequality long after the end of explicit discrimination in the housing market."

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    5/27/2021

    The Housing Market is Booming but Remains Deeply Unequal

    by LaDale Winling

    The standards and practices of real estate appraisal were developed in the context of white supremacy in the 1920s and since then have worked to make home ownership a path toward building wealth that has favored white Americans. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    5/24/2021

    How 24 Hours of Racist Violence Caused Decades of Harm

    by Jeremy Cook and Jason Long

    Census analysis shows how the Tulsa race massacre inaugurated a U-turn in the economic fortunes of the city's black community and gives a sense of the value of property lost. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    3/20/2021

    Your Home’s Value Is Based on Racism

    by Dorothy A. Brown

    The real estate market isn't "free" – it is shaped by the preferences of white buyers who prefer much less racial integration than black buyers do. Consequently, the market is a machine for expanding racial inequality through home equity. 

  • SOURCE: Vox
    1/26/2021

    The Mirage of the Black Middle Class

    by Anne Helen Petersen

    Economic policy debates center on restoring the security of the middle class, but this overlooks that high-earning Black Americans have and still face structural impediments to building wealth through homeownership. 

  • SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
    9/21/2020

    A Neighborhood’s Race Affects Home Values More Now Than in 1980

    by Brentin Mock

    The real estate industry has adopted appraisal standards in response to fair housing laws that are, on the surface, race-neutral. But they don't account for the ways that racism has lowered the sale value in diverse neighborhoods, and still penalize Black and Latino homeowners. 

  • SOURCE: The Nation
    8/25/2020

    The Burning House: How Federal Housing Programs Failed Black America (Review)

    by Marcia Chatelain

    "As Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor shows in Race for Profit, we are also only beginning to reckon with the complex network of bankers, real estate agents, and federal agencies that used the rhetoric of equality to obscure a set of race-to-the-bottom schemes that sought to extract as much wealth as possible from poor Black Americans."

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    6/29/2020

    The Surprising Cross-Racial Saga of Modern Wealth Inequality

    by Adolph Reed Jr.

    A political scientist argues that the black-white wealth gap is mostly a product of four decades of income gains accruing to the highest earners; accordingly a broad economic justice program is the best way to close the wealth gap. 

  • SOURCE: CNN
    6/28/2020

    Nikole Hannah-Jones on the Case for Reparations

    The creator of The New York Times 1619 project and Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones speaks with CNN's Manu Raju about the history behind the wealth gap between white Americans and Black Americans

  • 10/27/19

    The Widening Gap Between the Super-Rich and Other Americans

    by Lawrence Wittner

    Although President Donald Trump has claimed that “inequality is down,” federal data released this year show that, in 2018, the nation’s income inequality reached the highest level since the U.S. Census Bureau began measuring it five decades before.