Learning to Listen #5 - The Color of Law

 This week I read excerpts from "The Color of Law" by Richard Rothstein. (Please note that this author is white). It's a dense read with lots of legal references, but chunked into pieces that make it easy to read shorter excerpts and still understand the concepts.

The subtitle of the book is "A forgotten history of how our government segregated America", and certainly my eyes were opened to how legals systems have been unjustly used and even abused in order to prevent Black and people of colour from advancing economically in America.

A few examples:

- the Fair Labor Standards Act established minimum wages, but excluded industries in which African Americans predominated (like agriculture).

- Cities created laws forbidding white people and black people from living in the same neighbourhoods

- the Federal Housing Administration refused to insure mortgages for African Americans in designated white (wealthier) neighbourhoods

- As a response to the Supreme court striking down laws of racial segregation in neighbourhoods, cities tried to bypass it by creating zoning laws based on racial habits, which reinforced racial segregation under the table

I was also struck by the amount of regression these laws created. There are many examples around the turn of the century where desegregation was beginning to finally happen naturally. In fact, when zoning laws were brought in, it created more havoc in some areas that were integrated and now suddenly trying to figure out if they were allowed to live in their house any more (white and Blacks). Phrases like "the progress came to an end when..." and "approved the implementation of..." and "it's time to start..." I started to understand how local and federal governments with personal agendas used their power within the legal system to implement new forms of oppression once slavery was outlawed.

This is a good place to learn about how deeply systemic racism runs. It discusses why the failures of most civil rights laws are not in concept, but in implementations and enforcement. It lays bare the realities of generational economic class, and why we don't generally rise above that which our parents had. And it uncovers dark stories of personal oppression and struggles, of both Black Americans and their white friends and neighbours who tried to stand up for them. (Like the Bradens, who bought their Black friends', the Wades, a house in a middle income White neighbourhood because no one would sell their house to a Black family. But then Carl Braden was sentenced to 15 years in prison for "related" charges.)

We have a lot of history to undo, and sometimes it seems that one person fighting against government power can be exhausting. But it's important to know the beast with which you are fighting, so we can learn how to finally slay it.