JUST ACTION - Excellent Book!
Just Action: How to Challenge Segregation Enacted under
The Color of Law, Richard and Leah Rothstein’s 2023 book is an important
book – deeply relevant - today! The
intensifying dangers of Fascism clearly point our failures to seriously
confront Racism over the past months, years and decades (and beyond). The Rothsteins- Father and Daughter - together
make real many of the ways we need to deal both structurally, as well as
locally in case specific ways, at housing and schools and more.
A simple example of the relevancy of this book is the last
paragraph:
High quality, middle-class black communities do exist and
are attractive places for those who can afford them. But as they become attractive to middle
income blacks, middle income whites and other ethnic groups tend to follow.
(p.259)
The Rothsteins point out both how a lot of what they suggest
is: “win-win” and how (generally) white, often wealthy/ upper-middle class
resistance makes positive, lasting change extremely difficult to achieve. We tend to want simple, immediate “fixes”,
and they rarely, if ever help significantly, and can often cause further harm.
The quotes that follow help clarify some of the relevant
issues.
Driven by pandemic-induced high demand, low mortgage
interest rates, and a national housing shortage, most homeowners saw a rapid
increase in home values between 2020 and 2022.
While this benefited both black and white homeowners, it only
exacerbated the wealth gap, since fewer African Americans owned homes and
benefited from this surge in value. The
resulting high costs made home ownership even less attainable for those who
didn’t already own. (p.65)
Related to affordability and down payments:
Black households are more than twice as likely to have
student debt than white households, resulting in less ability to save in
adulthood. Making community college free
would narrow the racial wealth gap for families of low- and moderate income
students who are disproportionately enrolled in two-year institutions. (p.66)
More investment is necessary in low-income segregated
black areas, including construction of higher -quality low- and moderate income
housing, more African American families owning their own homes,
home-improvement grants, better retail outlets, reformed policing, well-maintained
parks, upgraded school facilities and curriculum, well- funded early childhood
and afterschool and summer programs, access to good jobs, clean air, better
public transportation options, supermarkets sell fresh foods, local bank
branches, and responsive public services.
But these improvements have a cost.
…
When lower-income areas become more attract, middle-class
households (including white) will also want to move in and may displace long-term
residents in the process. (p.97)
With few exceptions, the methods that cities use to calculate
and collect property taxes have racially discriminatory effects that have
persisted for years. (p.146)
The center then conducted “paired testing” of Old
National’s lending practices. It sent black
and white potential home buyers with similar credit worthiness to contact the
phone by bank and in person in search of loans. Mortgage loan officers provided inferior service
and less detailed information to black, than white testers… (p.164) …
With the merger still pending and no prospect for an
agreement, the Indiana fair housing center sued, alleging that Old National’s
lending practices violated the Fair Housing Act. (165)
It should be noted that these kinds of issues come up (to
this day) with banks closing branch offices, which disproportionately impact less
wealthy people, who are disproportionately BIPOC.
Elimination of restrictive land-use results is a
necessary first step to undo residential segregation. Single-family zoning may be the most powerful
policy that perpetuates racial inequality.
(p.172)
Yet both Democrats and Republicans depend on suburban voters,
and most in both parties, regardless of professed commitments to the abolition
of needlessly restrictive zoning, rise in opposition whenever they confront actual
proposals for reform. (p.172)
In discussing changing the harm caused by real estate agents
over decades maintaining residential segregation,
Sincere those these steps may be, they do little to
redress segregation for which the industry is responsible. The new efforts aim to prevent future
discrimination but evade the industry’s obligation to confront its past. (p.209)
In this highly significant book, The Rothsteins, give a lot
of examples of both how some efforts are great, but not (necessarily) sustained
over time, as well as how systematic, persistent efforts are needed to
Systemically end Racism, particularly related to housing and public
schools. They make clear how
well-meaning individuals, both do good things, as well as can not, by themelves,
undo the dominant forces of money, the past, the fears of white people and much
more that helps keep Racism alive and well in our country.
“Reparations” are an important part of this. Justice does not, and will not result from us
throwing some money at the problem. We
do need to spend more money. Mark
Zuckerberg made a major effort to help the Newark Public Schools some years
ago. His efforts symbolize how money
doesn’t necessarily help, and can even move us backwards. The majority of the money he put forward, went
to white consultants. Little money
actually helped the poor Black People of Newark.
True Reparations require us deeply acknowledging the harm We
have created, and working more than Nominally over the Long-Term to build
equity and move towards equality.
My father emigrated to Cincinnati from Berlin in 1927 at the
age of nine. He graduated from Cincinnati’s
best public high school then (and now) in 1935. He got bachelor’s and master’s degree from
the University of Cincinnati and his Phd in Mathematics at New York University.
I was born in Ann Arbor Michigan in 1951, and grew up
primarily in West Lafayette Indiana, a few blocks from Purdue University, where
my father taught until his death in 1964.
My alma-mater West Lafayette High School is an outstanding public high
school.
Nobel laureate Moungi Bawendi grew up in France, Tunisia
and the United States, living in West Lafayette while his parents taught at
Purdue University. Now the Lester Wolfe Professor of Chemistry at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology…
Professor
Bawendi is not white.
The James
R. Guy Academic Wing at the West Lafayette Junior/Senior High School officially
opened in August 2021 as students returned to school. This outstanding new
facility adds four new state-of-the-art science labs, new classrooms, new
technology labs and a new library. The space addresses overcrowding issues and
allows the school to offer more high demand Advanced Placement STEM classes.
https://wlsef.org/rdp-project/james-r-guy-academic-wing/
My high
school was all white when I attended from 1965-1969. The wealth of my classmates over several
generations helped make Professor Bawendi’s path at least easier. Given that his parents were professors (and
immigrants), their lived experiences weren’t likely a pathway through Slavery,
Reconstruction and the Segregation that The Rothsteins eloquently document and
describe.
Do my
classmates in my graduating class and those of other generations donate
substantially to the public schools of Gary, Indiana, where:
AI
Overview
Gary
Community School Corp in Gary, Indiana, serves a student body that is 100%
minority, with a notable 89.5% Black and 5.4% Hispanic/Latino
population. Additionally, 62.5% of its students are classified as
economically disadvantaged, and the district's 21:1 student-teacher ratio
exceeds the Indiana state average. Or:
Those of
Indianapolis, where:
Indianapolis
Public Schools contains 57 schools and 22,027 students. The district’s minority
enrollment is 80%. Also, 51.0% of students are economically disadvantaged.
https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/indiana/districts/indianapolis-public-schools-105982
I highly
doubt it! We, who are white, and upper-middle
class (or upper-class) rarely “do the work”, especially those of us who are
male.
AI Overview
+2
West Lafayette's student body is about 60% White and
21% Asian, with significant minority enrollment (40%) and 16.2% of students
identified as economically disadvantaged. The district has a lower
student-teacher ratio of 14:1 and 7.1% of students are English language
learners.
|
Faculty Race/Ethnicity |
Number |
Percent |
|
White |
9,152 |
83.27% |
|
Asian |
722 |
6.57% |
|
Black or African American |
328 |
2.98% |
|
Multi-Ethnic |
107 |
0.97% |
|
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander |
5 |
0.05% |
Purdue University’s 6.57% Asian faculty’s children make
up a substantial proportion of my alma mater’s Asian-American students.
Indiana’s population per: https://data.census.gov/profile/Indiana?g=040XX00US18
is:
White: 5,241,795
Black: 648,513
Latino: 554,191
Asian: 167,959
AI Overview
Indiana's state law prohibits employment
discrimination on the basis of race, along with other categories like
disability, national origin, and religion, with complaints needing to be filed
within 180 days. While laws against discriminatory acts exist, Indiana has
recently passed legislation and issued executive orders to limit or
eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives
within state government and educational institutions, replacing them with
"merit, excellence, and innovation" (MEI).
Read This Book! It was highly relevant in
2023 – when published and is even more relevant today September 10, 2025.
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