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A review by happylilkt
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
5.0
Updating my rating to 5 stars because I can't stop thinking about and recommending this book. Really, you should read it.
One of the best books I've read so far on race in the US. I prefer a historical / fact based study as opposed to lectures and sermons, and this one absolutely delivered. It's a highly focused, compact account of official and unofficial housing, unionization, and property tax policies that boxed out African Americans during the most significant era of suburbanization in the US—effectively locking in segregated communities—and restricted their comparative ability to increase wealth. Humanity's obsession with status and exclusion is on full display here. This book definitely turned upside down many of my casual assumptions about segregated neighborhoods and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to study the politics of race in the US.
Some of my personal Notes:
At p. 76
While some may argue that the refusal to insure / grant FHA loans to non-whites was simply based on property values/risk assessments, or at worst just reflective of the cultural norms, what I find most infuriating is that, in my opinion, one of the chief roles of government is to regulate what human incentives get wrong—some (unrelated to housing) examples: restrict pollution and other negative externalities; standardize nutritional information on processed foods, and so on—and in this case where they should have been regulating against discrimination, they were instead fostering and promoting it. Seems like it would have been better for the government to have not been involved with housing at all. They should have just stayed out of housing (except for regulating non-discrimination policies). I'm definitely of the mind that more programs should be privatized (still with government oversight/accountability) and this history just reinforces that.
at p. 35
As much as the codification of segregated housing appalls me, what's worse is how the communities responded to the courts overturning it. Ceasing to build housing altogether, providing vouchers for private housing to whites, giving local groups the ability to veto proposed projects, etc. Obviously the culture in power was rejecting integration and refused to accept government intervention--which makes me wonder, how does a government legislate ethically what a people reject? Do you give some space and time for the people to come around, but prosecute any violation of the law? Do you give in to the racist majority? Do you try to strong-arm through it and risk the rebellious response of the group you're trying to reach? I never took a public policy class in college, so maybe I would be able to fathom this if I had. It seems to me (from both personal experience and as a student of history) that forcing / controlling people doesn't really work, but I don't think a government or court is justified in giving in to unethical laws, either. Ugh. What I do know is that division is ugly and I know it offends God.
One of the best books I've read so far on race in the US. I prefer a historical / fact based study as opposed to lectures and sermons, and this one absolutely delivered. It's a highly focused, compact account of official and unofficial housing, unionization, and property tax policies that boxed out African Americans during the most significant era of suburbanization in the US—effectively locking in segregated communities—and restricted their comparative ability to increase wealth. Humanity's obsession with status and exclusion is on full display here. This book definitely turned upside down many of my casual assumptions about segregated neighborhoods and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to study the politics of race in the US.
Some of my personal Notes:
At p. 76
While some may argue that the refusal to insure / grant FHA loans to non-whites was simply based on property values/risk assessments, or at worst just reflective of the cultural norms, what I find most infuriating is that, in my opinion, one of the chief roles of government is to regulate what human incentives get wrong—some (unrelated to housing) examples: restrict pollution and other negative externalities; standardize nutritional information on processed foods, and so on—and in this case where they should have been regulating against discrimination, they were instead fostering and promoting it. Seems like it would have been better for the government to have not been involved with housing at all. They should have just stayed out of housing (except for regulating non-discrimination policies). I'm definitely of the mind that more programs should be privatized (still with government oversight/accountability) and this history just reinforces that.
at p. 35
As much as the codification of segregated housing appalls me, what's worse is how the communities responded to the courts overturning it. Ceasing to build housing altogether, providing vouchers for private housing to whites, giving local groups the ability to veto proposed projects, etc. Obviously the culture in power was rejecting integration and refused to accept government intervention--which makes me wonder, how does a government legislate ethically what a people reject? Do you give some space and time for the people to come around, but prosecute any violation of the law? Do you give in to the racist majority? Do you try to strong-arm through it and risk the rebellious response of the group you're trying to reach? I never took a public policy class in college, so maybe I would be able to fathom this if I had. It seems to me (from both personal experience and as a student of history) that forcing / controlling people doesn't really work, but I don't think a government or court is justified in giving in to unethical laws, either. Ugh. What I do know is that division is ugly and I know it offends God.