Are We Really Doing Something? An Examination of Mitigation Strategies by Policy

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to assess the effectiveness of current policy to mitigate segregation. The research of Massey and Denton (1993), Dreier, Mollenkopf, and Swanstrom (2001), Sharkey (2013), Desmond (2017) and Rothstein (2017) inform this focus group agenda. There was a consensus in the conversation that the goal of the 1968 Fair Housing Act of eliminating segregation in America had not been even remotely achieved. The continuation of racially biased real estate and banking practices, unchecked suburban growth, and the use of low income tax credits were reinforcing de jure pre-1968 segregationist policies further entrenching segregation. The participants argued the development of affordable housing in high opportunity areas with easy access to employment, education and other basic services was necessary to break the cycle of segregation. In the accompanying essay, “Separate and Unequal: The Lasting Legacy of Segregation and the Problem with Integration,” Daffney Moore mantains that the alleged embracing of integration as a policy objective has only excused white America from adopting policies and programs that would address the social and economic disparities that segregation has produced. She argues that city, state, and federal governments need to make a fiscal commitment to ensure equity for black Americans.

Bedspring Triple is a scene of neighborhood joy, where a bunch of young kids are doing backflips on bedsprings. Many a neighborhood youngster would like to join in, but the background is nothing to smile about. There are vacant lots littered with discarded bed parts and surrounded by condemned and abandoned houses. But there are no playgrounds. Yet, these young children made the bedsprings a playground and a happy ground. When my mother saw the picture, she recognized the abandoned building in the background, as the one she looked at from her own window across the street. She knew that the boy was jumping on the very spot where her family had rented a flat in a house that no longer exists, a house that had been demolished.

Cissy Lacks