by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Author)
One of my reader introduced me to this book.
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
FINALIST, 2020 PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, reeling from a wave of urban uprisings, politicians finally worked to end the practice of redlining. Reasoning that the turbulence could be calmed by turning Black city-dwellers into homeowners, they passed the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, and set about establishing policies to induce mortgage lenders and the real estate industry to treat Black homebuyers equally. The disaster that ensued revealed that racist exclusion had not been eradicated, but rather transmuted into a new phenomenon of predatory inclusion.
Race for Profit uncovers how exploitative real estate practices continued well after housing discrimination was banned. The same racist structures and individuals remained intact after redlining’s end, and close relationships between regulators and the industry created incentives to ignore improprieties. Meanwhile, new policies meant to encourage low-income homeownership created new methods to exploit Black homeowners. The federal government guaranteed urban mortgages in an attempt to overcome resistance to lending to Black buyers – as if unprofitability, rather than racism, was the cause of housing segregation. Bankers, investors, and real estate agents took advantage of the perverse incentives, targeting the Black women most likely to fail to keep up their home payments and slip into foreclosure, multiplying their profits. As a result, by the end of the 1970s, the nation’s first programs to encourage Black homeownership ended with tens of thousands of foreclosures in Black communities across the country. The push to uplift Black homeownership had descended into a goldmine for realtors and mortgage lenders, and a ready-made cudgel for the champions of deregulation to wield against government intervention of any kind.
Narrating the story of a sea-change in housing policy and its dire impact on African Americans, Race for Profit reveals how the urban core was transformed into a new frontier of cynical extraction.
By not speaking the language, I will not be able to read a very revealing book on how racism, in all its forms and patterns, breaks into home sales to people of color. With your review, it is enough to realize that they always have the club in hand to attack where minorities of color least expect it. It seems to be an endless evil. The description of how these actions are handled within the real estate center is interesting. Happy weekend.
Manuel Angel
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Yes, when I read it, it opened my eyes to many things I never heard of. Things like the lending practice of giving a mortgage hoping the person fail and if they do not fail the crooks arrange their life so that they fail. This is repeatedly done to single African Americans mothers. The house that was little more than a hovel is repossessed several times and resold several times to women desperate to find a place to live. Each time it is resold the owner and the mortgage company get a big lump sum. To top it all off, each of these buyer resuscitated the Zombie house more and more and when it’s finally brought up to code by several people fixing on it, the owner and bank take it back and then sell it for much more. Each time FHA was paying to cover the mortgage on the same house just a different buyer.
There were accounts of rats in infested houses killing the kids and making people sick.
James Broyhill of North Carolina drawled, “the rat smart thing to do is to vote down this civil rats bill, rat now.” Several representatives insisted that .
The rat issue led to rioting in Detroit.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/article/republican-party-and-the-long-hot-summer-of-1967-in-the-united-states/312C869604A4F19259F289526A26CE34
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A very unfortunate situation that has been dragging on for many years without a clear solution.
At the mercy of everything, I take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for you and your family. A big hug.
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There has been a clear solution only if those in position to implement would do so.
I, too would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Yea. And a big hug. 🙂
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Thanks a lot.
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You are welcome.
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Happy Christmas Weekend to you too.
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The same desires for you.
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The low-income housing program should have never been left in the hands of the private sector.
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this has become an international issue, in all capitalist countries, affecting all marginalized people of all stripes and colours, but especially the lower class elderly.
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I agree.
After reading this book I wish the subject had been addressed more fully when it was first mentioned back in 1866. Some of the conditions of the housing make you shudder.
The predatory lending practices effect the elderly and mainly single African American Women.
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