Wondering What White Supremacy Looks Like?
The Boston Globe reported on July 1, 2020 on the results of a study by Suffolk University Law School, “Qualified Renters Need Not Apply” (link downloads the PDF of the study)
from the Globe report:
An undercover investigation released Wednesday found that Black people posing as prospective tenants in Greater Boston were shown fewer apartments than whites and offered fewer incentives to rent, and that real estate agents cut off contact when the renters gave Black-sounding names like Lakisha, Tyrone, or Kareem.
The white “testers” in the study posing as would-be renters, on the other hand, easily secured tours of properties, were wooed with discounts, and got preferred treatment — such as the opportunity to view additional units — when looking at apartments.
In subtle and overt ways, Black renters experienced discrimination by real estate brokers and landlords in 71 percent of the cases tested in the study by Suffolk University Law School, titled “Qualified Renters Need Not Apply: Race and Voucher Discrimination in the Metro Boston Housing Market.”
Researchers expected “outrageously high” discrimination in Boston, said Catherine LaRaia, director of investigations and outreach at the law school’s Housing Discrimination Testing Program, which conducted the study. But they were flabbergasted, she said, by what they uncovered.1
So, here we are 52 years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and as with most of the structures of white supremacy nothing has changed at all. Still wondering how white supremacy works?
An Introduction to How Segregated Housing Flourished Thanks to the Federal Government
Richard Rothstein, long time researcher and author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2017, gives a brief introduction in this 8 minute video:
More about Rothstein’s book The Color of Law in a July 2017 post, “Creating Segregated America in the 20th Century – Government in Action“
