SHAPIRO: Your book also explains one way in which black neighborhoods became undesirable. He returns to Milpitas, California, where a group spent several years struggling to build an integrated suburb for Ford Motor employees in the 1950s. Earn Transferable Credit & Get your Degree. African-Americans, working class families could have bought those homes. Paralegal: Overview of This Law Profession. And housing has always been overpriced in African American ghettos: throughout the 20th century, landlords knew black tenants would pay several times more in rent, compared to white tenants. Teachers and parents! A former manufacturing town, Richmond grew rapidly during World War II. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. In Chapter Eleven, Rothstein asks what it would take to address housing segregation in the present day, which will be a difficult feat because it “requires undoing past actions.” While the 1968 Fair Housing Act removed all legal barriers to integration, the United States remains just as segregated as before, and moving into the middle class remains exceedingly difficult, especially for African Americans. Log in here for access. Stevenson was out of luck, because it was impossible for black people to live in Milpitas: Federal Housing Administration (FHA) funds were only allocated to all-white neighborhoods, so while housing options multiplied for white people in places like Milpitas, nobody built housing for African Americans. You described zoning laws in which black parts of town were officially zoned for industrial plants, waste disposal, other things that we would consider a blight. The FHA refused to insure those homes refused to provide the capital for construction because the 400-member co-operative had three African-American members. The great American novelist Wallace Stegner got a job right after World War II at Stanford University. They're no longer affordable to working class families. flashcard set{{course.flashcardSetCoun > 1 ?
345 pp. , The Color of Law, A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, Richard Rothstein, 9781631492853 The central premise of his argument, which calls for a fundamental reexamination of American constitutional law, is that the Supreme Court has failed for decades to understand the extent to which residential racial … - Definition & Principle, Public Law vs. For the purpose of Section 242, acts under "color of law" include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within their lawful authority, but also acts done beyond the bounds of that official's lawful authority, if the acts are done while the official is purporting to or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. Now, new public housing continues to be built in what are already the poorest and most segregated neighborhoods, and government programs like Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers only exacerbate these neighborhoods’ isolation, rather than funding residents’ integration into middle-class areas. And that's a price that we have to pay to rectify a serious constitutional violation. Log in or sign up to add this lesson to a Custom Course. SHAPIRO: Richard Rothstein is with the Economic Policy Institute and the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Instant downloads of all 1360 LitChart PDFs Get examples of violations and learn about real cases where rights have been deprived under the color of law, then take a quiz to test your knowledge. The central premise of his argument, which calls for a fundamental reexamination of American constitutional law, is that the Supreme Court has failed for decades to understand the extent to which residential racial … - Definition, Fields & Theories, What is Criminal Law? -Graham S. Rothstein again emphasizes that American political correctness is often really a way for middle-class white people to avoid confronting the reality of racial caste and inequality in the United States; by refusing to speak the truth, they can avoid confronting it. To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. In Chapter One, Rothstein illustrates the problem of de jure segregation with the representative story of Frank Stevenson, an African American man living in Richmond, California in the mid-20th century. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. Contact the Webmaster to submit comments. It argues that government policies, designated as Anti-Black, were the root causes of the racial divide in the suburbs and cities all across America. This continues into the 21st century: the extension of predatory subprime loans to poor Americans was the principal cause behind the 2008 economic collapse, and government investigations have shown that banks specifically targeted black buyers. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. (including. To learn more, visit our Earning Credit Page.
Additionally, officers of the law are not permitted to plant evidence or coerce individuals who they supervise to make false reports. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. It’s been widely praised for its no-holds-barred look at American racism. Create an account to start this course today. You tell the story of progressive, idealistic developers who wanted to build integrated housing communities and were absolutely unable to do so.
Return to the Criminal Section Home Page {{courseNav.course.mDynamicIntFields.lessonCount}} lessons The second program that the federal government pursued was to subsidize the development of suburbs on a condition that they be only sold to white families and that the homes in those suburbs had deeds that prohibited resale to African-Americans. Although the Supreme Court outlawed this practice in 1917, cities continued doing it for more than half a century through more underhanded tactics like banning the construction of apartment buildings in white neighborhoods and zoning African American neighborhoods for “industrial” development (or even “toxic waste”). | {{course.flashcardSetCount}} The co-operative tried to resist the FHA's demand, promising the FHA that the number of African-Americans in the co-operative wouldn't exceed the percentage of African-Americans in California as a whole. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts.