To honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and as part of our Building the Beloved Community initiative, we’re reading the Pulitzer Prize finalist and National Book Award Longlist title Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.
Last year, we read Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. In many ways, the two books complement each other, as they paint a sobering picture of how the American government and businesses collaborated to enforce residential segregation (PDF) throughout much of the 20th century.
These policies and practices have continuing implications for who owns homes (PDF), which neighborhoods they occupy, how much value their homes accrue, how much of their income must be dedicated to home-related expenses, and whether they can begin to build generational wealth for their families.
These issues inform and direct the work we do at Habitat for Humanity — and they’re part of why advocacy is so important to our mission, so we can continue to address systemic inequities and barriers.
We encourage thoughtful reading and discussion of Race for Profit. The evidence Taylor presents can be overwhelming and demoralizing, regardless of whether your family has been harmed by the practices she discusses or whether you and your relatives have benefited from them, likely without even realizing it. You might not agree with all of her conclusions, but she raises important points for us to grapple with.
Action is often the best antidote to despair, so if you aren’t already, please consider becoming involved with an organization such as Pikes Peak Habitat that works to redress inequities in our community. Attend our upcoming interfaith dialogue Sunday, Feb. 4, 4-6 p.m., at UCCS’ Berger Hall, to hear from the City of Colorado Springs Mayor’s Office and participate in an interfaith discussion on the concept of neighborliness. And read some of our homeowners’ inspiring stories for concrete evidence that change is possible and that together we can build a more hopeful future!
Questions for Thought and Discussion
“Predatory inclusion” is a term Taylor uses frequently. When you first see this term, what does it mean to you? How does your understanding of “predatory inclusion” change and expand throughout the book? What cycles of financial exploitation does she describe that Black homeowners and renters experience?
Taylor explains how both explicitly and subtly segregationist policies were shaped in response to concerns expressed by real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and White homeowners about their properties losing value. Have you heard similar attitudes expressed in your neighborhood or community? How might you counter such views?
Habitat views homeownership as a vital catalyst to wealth-building (PDF), but Taylor argues that “the insistence on homeownership as the solution to economic or racial inequality actually leaves African Americans behind” (p. xvii). As you read subsequent chapters, including her discussion of the higher costs and lower home values often encountered by African-American homeowners, do you agree with her conclusion? Why or why not? What solutions does she suggest for stability and generational wealth-building instead? What do you think of those solutions?
At different points in the book, Taylor calls out both American political parties as being complicit in residential segregation and inequities in housing. How do you see contemporary politicians either continuing or pivoting from these approaches?
How and why did housing inequities contribute to stereotypes about African-Americans and inner cities? How did such discourse serve to enforce and deepen those inequities? Have you internalized any of those messages, and if so, which ones?
Taylor lauds the role of Black women in bringing attention to unjust housing practices. Who are some of these women? Is there one story or example that particularly stands out to you? Why?
What economic benefits does she highlight that resulted from segregation? Who sees these benefits? Who pays the costs? Given the “economic racism” she describes, do you think a solution is possible within free-market capitalism? If so, what might that look like? If not, do you think there is a viable alternative? What might that be?
Whose responsibility is ending racial discrimination in homeownership?
Thanks for reading with us! Please feel free to share your insights and thoughts in the comments.
