Blog Series: Critical Race Theory: Housing and Land Ownership

Blog Series: Critical Race Theory: In Housing and Land Ownership

There are several issues involved in studying the impact of race and discrimination in Housing and Land Ownership. I will discuss a few here in this post.

One of the most important issues that must be understood when examining law and race in housing and land ownership is redlining. Redlining is the term used to describe what the federal government used to decide the creditworthiness of applicants for federally-backed mortgage loans which generally classified neighborhoods where African Americans lived as not worthy of investment, and specifically that were denied federally-backed loans, and also higher insurance rates. Banks and insurance companies used these same maps to decide where to build and invest and where not to build and invest, which also corresponded to African Americans not being able to obtain loans for mortgages and other financial assistance in their neighborhoods. The effect of these maps and the activities of banks and insurance companies was to create large swaths of concentrated poverty in inner cities, particularly in the South, and later the North, after the Great Migration. Unfortunately, as discussed in a recent book, White Space, Black Hood, by Georgetown Law Professor, Sheryll Cashin, many of these same lines that were originally drawn in the 1930’s still exist today, as does the considerable gap in the affluence of black neighborhoods and white neighborhoods today. As a result, in order to truly understand critical race theory as it relates to housing and land ownership, one must have an understanding of redlining and other tactics that have been used to deny and depress advancement by racial minorities, particularly African Americans in this country. A subtle but related point here, and one that Professor Cashin recognizes in her book, is that the narrative around this issue has and continues to be that this difference in housing and economic development in African American neighborhoods, is the result of mere circumstance, or chance, or worse, poor choices. Instead, the truth is that in many cases this result is by design, and in other cases, as will be discussed elsewhere, the land that African Americans once owned was stolen from them, by force or threat of force, like many of the people from indengenous backgrounds.

Another practice that was successful in creating separate neighborhoods based on race, was the practice of blockbusting. Blockbusting is the practice of real estate agents using African Americans to scare whites into selling their property for less than what it is worth, on the fear that African Americans would soon move into their neighborhood, thus driving down the property values in the minds of whites. Then the real estate agents would sell the property to African Americans for more than it was worth, based on the low supply that was created by the real estate agents.

Another important piece that must be touched upon in terms of critical race theory and housing has to be the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s efforts, or rather lack thereof, in eliminating the disparity among African Americans and whites, in housing opportunities. In particular, Nikole Hannah Jones authored an amazing article, on the rift between George Romney, the father of former Presidential Candidate, and Current U.S. Senator from Utah, Mitt Romney, and President Richard M. Nixon. In particular, Romney, while HUD Secretary, realized that neighborhoods across the U.S. were getting more and more separated by race, and that he had the power as head of HUD to try to stop this from happening and create more diverse neighborhoods. President Nixon reported acknowledged that racial segregation was proliferating but was not a proponent of what he termed “forced integration.” As a result, he stunted Romney’s efforts, and eventually Romney ended up leaving the administration. Even more startling than this rift, is the fact that according to Nikole Hannah Jones’ reporting, since the enactment of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, as a swan song for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated the same year, both Republican and Democratic Presidents have refused to use the enormous power of HUD and the the tools provided by the Fair Housing Act to significantly address the problem of racial discrimination in housing.

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Continue in your activism

Brian