Reproducing Racism: How Everyday Choices Lock In White Advantage

Reproducing Racism: How Everyday Choices Lock In White Advantage

Daria Roithmayr

Language: English

Pages: 205

ISBN: 0814777120

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


This book is designed to change the way we think about racial inequality. Long after the passage of civil rights laws and now the inauguration of our first black president, blacks and Latinos possess barely a nickel of wealth for every dollar that whites have. Why have we made so little progress?
 
Legal scholar Daria Roithmayr provocatively argues that racial inequality lives on because white advantage functions as a powerful self-reinforcing monopoly, reproducing itself automatically from generation to generation even in the absence of intentional discrimination. Drawing on work in antitrust law and a range of other disciplines, Roithmayr brilliantly compares the dynamics of white advantage to the unfair tactics of giants like AT&T and Microsoft.
 
With penetrating insight, Roithmayr locates the engine of white monopoly in positive feedback loops that connect the dramatic disparity of Jim Crow to modern racial gaps in jobs, housing and education. Wealthy white neighborhoods fund public schools that then turn out wealthy white neighbors. Whites with lucrative jobs informally refer their friends, who refer their friends, and so on. Roithmayr concludes that racial inequality might now be locked in place, unless policymakers immediately take drastic steps to dismantle this oppressive system.

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“phase transitions.” In a phase transition, change occurs suddenly and dramatically, after long periods of steady or uniform behavior. After a long period of heating peacefully, water suddenly boils and then escapes into steamy vapor. After a period of building in value, the real estate market unexpectedly crashes. The racial composition of neighborhoods changes quickly once the numbers reach a certain threshold or “tipping point.” Often, these phase transition patterns are created by something

times as many black children remain in the bottom decile as at the top. In contrast, twice as many white children remain at the top decile as remain at the bottom. Only 17 percent of white children born to the poorest 10 percent of the population stay in that bottom bracket, compared to 42 percent for black children. These statistics help to explain why racial poverty persists even though average black and white incomes have converged slightly in past years. A note of caution is in order here.

generated from such significant taxes could be used to finance society-based transmission of wealth, like baby bonds or children’s trust funds. Likewise, policy makers could limit feedback loops in job referrals. To limit the impact of network benefits to whites, policy makers could ban informal network hiring in all-white institutions, at least until the institution had amassed a critical mass of workers of color on site. Once the institution had a critical mass, it could begin again to use

enjoyed for years—a head start on accumulating wealth. As detailed in Chapter 2, historically government provided middle-class whites with help in buying suburban homes, via FHA and VA home loans, and excluded people of color from participating in such loan programs. Generating parallel niche networks also offers a promising possibility. Economist James Rauch has suggested that minority retailers make use of independent buying companies that match retailers with vendors, other retailers, and

the same situational circumstances—unemployment, substandard schooling—as do their parents. Third, critics argued that many of the so-called pathological practices described by experts were in fact rational responses to poverty. Take for example the common choice by families of color to insulate themselves and their family members from outside networks and institutions. Sociologist William Julius Wilson has pointed out that for people who live in violent neighborhoods, being isolated makes a

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