OUR TURN: Jones Walker Wiley on the Rothstein Solutions

We now conclude our look at Richard Rothstein’s The Color

of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.  His book shows, without real room for debate, that governmental action created the substandard housing African Americans have lived with and in for over 100 years.  We reported his solutions last time with little comment on what we think of them other than recognizing, as he does, many are controversial and have little chance of enactment in our divided political environment.  Still, he’s put good ideas out there and they merit discussion. 

Henry’s thoughts

As Rothstein notes, “We have greater political and social conflict because we must add unfamiliarity with fellow citizens of different racial backgrounds to the challenges we confront in resolving legitimate disagreements about public issues. …[R]emedies that can undo nearly a century of de jure residential segregation will have to be both complex and imprecise.  After so much time, we can no longer provide adequate justice to the descendants of those whose constitutional rights were violated.  Our focus can be only to develop policies that promise to fully untangle the web of inequality that we’ve woven.”  

Nevertheless, two suggested solutions at least attempt to fray the Gordian knot.  If we can explode the myth of de facto residential segregation, focused remedies might lead to informed understanding.  Development of transportation infrastructure allowing citizens to flow in and out of urban and suburban areas without currently existing barriers might

reduce suspicions based on unfamiliarity.  If we get to know one

another we can move toward dialogue, understanding, shared interest, and solutions.  A minimum wage that provides economic stability, and other incentives and remedies suggested below, might also produce progress.

Woodson’s ideas

I have White and African American friends who believe America’s ghettos, and the poor housing many African Americans live in, result from genetic and sociological pathologies inherent to African Americans. They remain unaware laws – local, state, and federal - made it illegal for lenders to loan money to African Americans in communities where property values would appreciate. These friends do not know for more than a hundred years it was illegal for most African Americans to live in integrated neighborhoods, though the major method for wealth building in America has been and remains the freedom to buy a home where the value of that home appreciates over time.  White and African Americans must know these facts, if we are to have any chance in enlisting both in the fight for equality.

Ultimately, this information must make its way into primary, secondary, and college curriculums. I suggest the President of the United States should, by Executive Order, create a commission that would travel the nation, holding hearings on where and how governmental policies have impacted housing in minority and majority communities and exploring the impact of de jure and de facto segregation.

I would model this commission on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) created following the end of apartheid in South Africa. The TRC took testimony from victims of apartheid and its beneficiaries. It sought to reconcile historical adversaries so they could find a path forward, correcting the wrongs of the apartheid past. Similarly, the American commission could examine housing discrimination, educate the public on its history, and analyze solutions. The commission’s end goals: (1) correcting the history books; (2) affecting the curriculum of public and private schools; and (3) helping and encouraging legislative bodies in addressing past injustices.

A remedy that might come from this process involves a calculation of the monetary damages African American home buyers suffered by being denied FHA financing and the opportunity to buy homes in integrated neighborhoods. A simple mathematical calculation defines this point. The commission could identify homes of African American home buyers and calculate the current value of those homes had African Americans been able to purchase homes in white neighborhoods with FHA guaranteed financing. The federal government would pay the damage claim. The devil is in the details, but that’s the case with all damage claims.  Congress is unlikely to appropriate money for such a program  unless and until the public more completely understands the government’s complicity in damaging the African American home buyer, making the educational piece all the more important.   

   

Rob’s View

I am most intrigued by zoning reforms Rothstein suggests.  Substantive and practical

reasons make me think those ideas might achieve something.  Substantively, banning exclusionary zoning ordinances that require very large lot sizes for single-family homes in neighborhoods could and should open more areas to moderate income people and, therefore, make those neighborhoods less racially homogeneous.  I also see the merit in “fair share” zoning proposals that provide developers incentives to build more housing for moderate and low income buyers.  

Practically, I find these proposals attractive because zoning-based solutions don’t require changes in federal law.  State and local action could get such programs in place.  Cities and towns prove every day, on energy and environment matters, federal disinterest or hostility doesn’t have to mean nothing gets done.  Given Washington’s current dysfunction, little chance exists for meaningful federal action on housing discrimination.  States and municipalities can enact zoning measures on their own.

As we said at the outset, we see Rothstein’s book as essential for understanding how we got to where we are on race in America.  Housing discrimination isn’t, of course, the whole story, but it’s a big part of it.  We hope our exploration of The Color of Law will encourage our readers to read it themselves and reach their own conclusions.  What say you?