Read on Twitter
1. I'm participating in the #ScholarStrike by creating this Twitter teach-in to talk about the racialized violence experienced by Black, Latinx, and Asian communities in Fresno as a result of segregation and housing injustice. Join me, and contribute your stories. Part 1
2. First, some groundwork – we need to understand the intersections of housing injustice and this explainer of intersectionality by @tanyaboza is great – housing justice is not just a problem of racism, it’s also a problem of patriarchy and capitalism.
3. Some fundamental structural causes of housing injustice. First, segregation. One of the more persistent manifestations of structural racism in our society. The boundaries put in place through decades of deliberate policy choices allow for durable forms of inequality,
4. Visible boundaries are assumed to be a natural feature of our environment, making it easier to now get away with racist place-based policies without ever saying it’s about race. Douglas Massey called segregation “the forgotten factor.”
5. In Fresno, the spatial racial divides were deliberately created to both exclude people of color from growth and prosperity and subject them to oppressive violence and surveillance.
6. This Atlantic piece on Fresno describes racist covenants that shaped the boundaries and references the work of local historian Chacón and the violent history of Chinatown: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/fresnos-segregation/567299/
7. Op-ed by former Fresno State student (soc major – heyyy) and community leader @bmocfresno Efrain Botello gives an account of how men of color are surveilled and harassed by police in Southwest Fresno: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/op-ed/article231236803.html
8. How does segregation remain so durable? Deliberate policy choices. Along with many other cities, Fresno neighborhoods were appraised for loan risk in 1936 at the time that the federal government was generously subsidizing homeownership under New Deal policy
9. They relied on racial composition, resulting in already segregated South Fresno neighborhoods receiving the riskiest ratings, effectively shutting residents of color out of opportunities for homeownership and socioeconomic mobility. This is redlining. https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/
10. Here is what they had to say about neighborhoods in South Fresno - D4, West Fresno, marked "Hazardous" (i.e. redlined)
11. And another neighborhood in South Fresno - D5, West Fresno, marked "Hazardous" (i.e. redlined)
12. Map any form of spatial inequality in Fresno today, and it will look like that old HOLC map. This where those neighborhoods are on a current map of Fresno.
13. Here are the "best" (i.e. green) neighborhoods and "hazardous" (i.e. red) neighborhoods overlaid on racial composition, coded by plurality (by the racial group that makes up the largest share of the neighborhood composition) - still racially segregated today
14. Here are median home values (divided up into quantiles)
15. Here is percent homeownership, which for many ordinary households in the United States is a primary source of wealth and wealth accumulation
16. And as Fresno has developed outwards and northwards, the new areas are Whiter...
17. Have higher home values...
18. And higher rates of homeownership
19. The new areas are Whiter, wealthier, and healthier and always reap the benefits of development and resource distribution
20. Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law is a great read on how redlining did not create but rather capitalized on and solidified segregation: https://www.epi.org/publication/the-color-of-law-a-forgotten-history-of-how-our-government-segregated-america/
21. Second policy choice is post-Civil Rights housing policy. @KeeanghaYamahtta ‘s Race For Profit gives a horrifying account of another expansion of housing opportunity gone bad because racial capitalism: https://uncpress.org/book/9781469653662/race-for-profit/
22. Homeownership was extended to Black urban residents, but with heavy influence from private real estate industry and racist stakeholders who saw an opportunity to profit while protecting White suburban life. Predatory inclusion has had devastating effects on Black households.
23. Third policy choice, the aftermath of the housing crash. The housing bubble burst in the faces of Black and Latinx homeowners and had a tremendously bad impact on the racial wealth gap. Bailouts were plentiful for the banks, not so much for families. https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/discrimlend_final.pdf
24. Fourth policy choice happening now – inadequate housing relief during #COVID19. Once moratoriums are lifted, rent will be due and #evictions will come in waves. In Fresno, this means Black, Brown, and Southeast Asian communities will be hit hardest because of high rent burden
25. On the topic of #COVID19, @thePhDandMe names residential segregation as one mechanism by which racial capitalism is a fundamental cause of COVID19 infections in Black communities https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1090198120922942
Here is Part 2 - I am bad at Twitter threads! https://twitter.com/acrowellsoci/status/1303397289705132032
