looks like you're a"half empty" glass guy -that's to bad! makes the day harder,I would imagine....
8
So sad; so true.
1
Sue wrongdoers. Use minority realtors.
1
What exactly is “Asian?” People from India? Iran? Vietnam? Japan? The Philippines? It is such an over generalization.
13
Some might say that only the people who actually do racist things are "racists." You'd find that you would have so much more suppport (and would, in fact, cause less people to engage in overtly racist acts) if you stopped implicating all white people as responsible for racism.
17
I'd like to see the Hispanic numbers broken down between Hispanics of color and white Hispanics. Why do I feel that immigrants from Spain face little if any discrimination?
4
Mr. Bouie is an “Opinion Columnist” so I guess he’s not expected to do reporting. But mightn't some Times reporter actually delve beneath the “racism” label to enquire - first, for what reasons do folks say they discriminate, and second, is there any validity to their beliefs.
People know about disparities in school academics and violence in communities of different ethnicities. It may be taboo to mention this in polite media, but parents who love and protect their children are not the hostile people called to mind by “racist.”
20
Everyone knows Long Island is segregated.
9
I read all the accusations of racism here and there in your article but where is the proof? Examples?
12
No one who lived on LI is going to be very surprised by this
6
I have personally witnessed 'racist' behavior and comments from Euro-, Asian-, and Latinx-Americans.
Directed 'at' African-Americans.
This group includes co-workers, family, friends, neighbors, etc.
I have also personally been on the receiving end of racist behavior and comments 'from' African-Americans.
That's the way it is in 2019 in America.
No amount of opinion columns in the New York Times will change that......sorry.
Or am I missing something here?
15
In Seattle a black group claimed blacks were being "displaced" from a neighborhood that was less than 10% black. They demanded millions for what turned out to be a black nationalist project: they claimed it was to "fight gentrification" but they were abuse to non-blacks who were 3rd generation residents of this neighborhood while welcoming with open arms blacks from other states and even other countries.
There were anti-Semitic incidents which were quickly dismissed as a "reaction" to this huge injustice with redlineing being brought up frequently.
So they got their millions.
Natives weren't allow to live in that neighborhood for close to a hundred years. Japanese were pulled from their homes and put in internment camps (that's how it became a black neighborhood). It was also a historic Jewsish neighborhood (who were also redlined).
All this was wiped out for the black nationalist narrative. And open abuse was condoned. Ditto for similar harrassment of a Jewish owned business in SF around the same time for making a pro-Israel post on social media.
Ditto for Freddy's Fashion Mart and the violence and extortion of Asian businesses in black neighborhoods.
This has been going on openly for 50 years. So, when are the Democrats going to stop funding it? When are the victims, not perpetrators, going to be allowed to tell about it?
But these
12
notwithstanding actual racism and perceived racism, it is still true that your destiny is determined by your character - as clearly illustrated by Obama, who was elected president twice and never impeached.
12
Who uses a realtor anymore in the age of Zillow and Realtor.com? It's like using a travel agent to buy an airline ticket. Is there any evidence that users of those systems are being steered by algorithms to segregated neighborhoods? Or that buyers who prequalify for mortgages are getting steered by sellers' reps away from buying the homes they find and want to see at Zillow? That's taking money out of the sellers' own pockets, and the agent's own pocket. It's asinine to imagine.
5
"I'm shocked that there is racism in New York!"
"Sir here is your gated community."
8
Racism? Seems to be a legacy hobby, a guilty pleasure, an addiction, pure illogic w/ nasty consequences.
Back in about 1961, there was one black family in our middle of nassau county town. when my parents put the house up for sale, they intended to move to a bigger place in the same community, a black family came to look. My father got threatening phone calls from” neighbors” telling him not to sell to a “negro”. It never became an issue, as that family never put in an offer, but it was pretty chilling. Horrible to know that housing discrimiation on LI (and probably everywhere) persists 50 years later.
41
Just to be fair and balanced, there are a lot of racist black people.
There are neighborhoods where a white person would be taking a risk of bodily harm, simply by walking down the street.
They might be one of the best, most loving people in the world, but many wouldn't even stop to consider that possibility.
I'm not talking about street crimes. I'm talking about people hating someone, just because of the color of their skin.
Racism takes many forms, some discriminatory, some violent.
By the way, there is no such thing as "reverse racism", just racism.
21
I'm not sure where to even draw the line between systemic bias and personal bias. People will tend to have stronger racial biases if they grow up in ethnically homogeneous or less educated areas. In that sense, we might say that ALL racism is structural.
Shaming racists and illegalizing racial discrimination are both effective tools in suppressing racism, which is a worthy goal in its own right, but in order to actually reduce racism you're inevitably going to have to think long-term and systemically.
There's also the practical point that nobody's going to be receptive if you accuse them of racial bias. You'll never persuade anybody to change their behaviour unless you keep the emotional stakes low, and keeping the focus on structural issues is a decent way to achieve that.
5
The racism in housing, the racist real-estate agency 'deceits' and the 'like,' as reported in Newsday and based upon significant investigations by its reporters, is/are every bit as unsurprising as reprehensible.
While 'actual' slavery has been prohibited, the hypocrisy of Jefferson's "all men are created equal" (and women, "white" and "of color" alike matter little and not-at-all, respectively) lives on.
3
Sounds familiar. I experienced the very obstacles in following job leads. I had almost no contacts at companies where the jobs were open. Definitely not many people in the corporate hierarchy that were like me. And my social network didn’t help because my friends were, well, like me. The inner city neighborhood I came from created an environment of stereotypes I needed to escape, not emulate. My family suffered hostile discrimination. The deck was stacked against me.
But this article was not about me - even though my grandparents had a cross burned on their lawn and were terrorized by the KKK. See, I am not black, or hispanic, or Asian. I am Italian American. So, since I don’t fit into those categories, I have white privilege, right? No difference between me and the descendants of the KKK. I’m lumped into the same category as them. I hope they are not offended by me.
13
Neither I nor any of my fellow white citizens will ever know whose opportunities were denied by a system that advantages us nor whose place we took and what benefits we received that rightfully might have been better deserved by someone from the African-American, Latino or Asian population.
3
This is why we have no love for the likes of Chuck Schumer and Andrew Cuomo. They claim to be liberal "Democrats," but they are disguised Republicans. All these institutional, status quo, racist Corporate "Democrats" must go. New York has never had the right to claim they are liberal, open-minded, tolerant, inclusive thinkers. They are the biggest fakes in the country. At least the people in Alabama are honest about it, so you know what you're up against. Wolves in sheep's clothing--keep your eyes and minds OPEN.
5
Long Island has always been incredibly racist and in deep denial about that. I dated someone in Long Island. Apparently the neighbors were not happy that I was around and started complaining to his landlord that he had 'undesirable people" around - he had been a tenant for some time before. Note that in the year we were together he never had a party, brought people over or anything. He wasn't a drinker or did drugs (neither am I). At the end of the day his landlord asked him if he would not bring me around so much.
It's the delusion of so many white people who think that if you're not carrying around a noose and white hood you're not racist that makes any change in this country so hard.
12
Everyone calls it the stain of slavery. Not me...I call it the stain of evil. That stain cannot be washed out, or sanitized. It is forever in the soul of America.
5
And what about renters? Just capitalist market forces at work?
I remember meeting with an apartment complex's rental agent who proudly told me they don't rent to minorities. -- Gotta love how some white people think that just because they are talking to another white person that it is okay to speak this way.
7
As a 48 year old black man who has heard this story over and over and over and over and over and over and over again since I gained some self awareness in the 1980's, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. This is not new. This has never been new. It has always been and always will be in this country. That's the problem with original sin, if it's there from the beginning there is no getting rid of it.
6
The realtor racket should be broken. Let the buyers pay the realtor. And with Redfin and Zillow information has been democratized. I don't know many sellers that would take a lower price so they could sell to a white. What we are seeing here in SC is that realtors want to see an approval letter before taking an offer because almost no one qualifies. But in a decade or two this will no longer be an issue as the baby boomers die out and people if color take their place at the top of the demographic pile. How are we going to support home values without whites and Chinese and Indians in Southern California is the real issue. We need to integrate and encourage Indian and Chinese immigration...not discourage it. It is our industries lifeline.
1
In the testing was the financial background the same. Also how many deals fell through for black and Hispanic buyers in white neighborhoods? White applicants would have better chance of coming down with down payment due to wealthy parents and relatives.
3
White folks, wake up! Most of you are racist, even though you don't think so. I am white, and know that I must be ever vigilant to counter what is systemic racism in my own self. I don't like it, but it is there, and I must fight it.
White folks - note this. I happily and proudly live in a middle class ( maybe upper middle class) neighborhood, with Chinese, Black, Vietnamese, and white neighbors - Jews, Christians, and probably other religions - all well blended and compatible. I assume each of them has some biases too, but like me, they are able to counter it and maintain a "proper" mental and social attitude.
Repeating - White people like me have inherent bias baked in. This is especially true in the south, but it is true everywhere in this inherently racist nation. And I assume that Blacks too suffer from inherent racism which they need to tend to as well. It demands our recognition and our constant attention, no matter our race.
6
Recommend if you haven't seen, the 1998 movie "Bulworth" starring Halle Berry and Warren Beatty. It speaks to the racial loop humans inhabit and gives hope for the future.
2
We all have a larger task before us if we are to effectively address systemic racism and discrimination.
In a world as polarized as our own, we bind our fealty to "our" side with every larger ropes and chains. We are imprisoned in a cage of our own construction. Our zeitgeist is one of good (us) and bad (them). Any deviation from the group's expectations is viewed as apostasy and sends the deviant into the wilderness (cf. Justin Amash).
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” - George Orwell, Animal Farm, 1945.
We must live one truth before all others: We are Them and They are Us. Only after this paradigm shift can we begin to untie the racist Gordian knots which tie us down.
2
I'm sure King Donald doesn't like this. The horror of it all.
1
It is certainly entirely possible that people who make their living giving people the house they want to buy, and who don’t get paid if they don’t find such a house, will permit their racism to deal themselves out of their commission. Or it might be that people who went into a “study” looking to find evidence to prove their own preexisting biases found what they were bound and determined to find.
It is also curious that the left, which demands that race be considered everywhere, at all times, decides it should not be considered by realtors.
Blacks (and, albeit less so, “minorities” generally) repeatedly self-segregate: at any college, there are explicitly Black organizations, sometimes separate dorms, separate Greeks, and even separate graduations. Just this week, news comes that Blacks at one college are demanding the right to choose room mates of their own race. Evidence indicates that even wealthy Blacks live in disproportionately, often overwhelmingly, Black neighborhoods, not because realtors steer them there, but because they want to. There are groups of Black lawyers, black churches, a Congressional Black caucus. None of these groups exists because the people aren’t welcome in “white” groups; they exist because Blacks want them to.
So, what’s a person whose livelihood depends on getting that sale to closing supposed to do when the Black clients, channeling the NYT, tend to demand that race be considered?
5
This is surprising? Or, are northerners just now realizing that they are as racist, or worse, than those south of delaware river? The tragic reality is that housing, and employment, discrimination is structural for all Americans. Homophobia, sexism, faithism...it's human nature to find identity in and with those like us. Are black, Asian, gay, Christian, Jewish, or Muslim realtors less likely to be free from prejudice? In your dreams. I live in an inner city neighborhood with posters on walls and telephone poles warning black residents that white people are moving into our neighborhood and that it's destroying black lives. How much of what we are seeing is racism or economic? Cultural? I suppose the point is that on the surface, it all smells, tastes, and talks like bigotry and prejudice, but how much of it could be economic, fear of change, and benign? Are rich blacks, Asians, gays, Jews, Catholics, Italians, Slavs, treated the same as those of poor or modest income? I bet they are, because at the end of the day, money talks louder than hate.
7
With regards to Long Island realty agencies, I'd like those wealthy Blacks who have chosen to reside in Long Island - including Beyonce and JayZ, Kanye West -- to consider that they are living in areas where their fellow Blacks can't buy a home. If you don't have LARGE money like them, realtors won't give a black person the time of day. I would be ashamed to live in Long Island given what has been exposed in this writing and the Newsday article. I don't care how beautiful the homes are, how majestic the view - stop buying in places that are known to discriminate against people of color.
1
No one who has been to Long Island can seriously be surprised by this. Long Island could rival Mississippi in the racism of it's residents.
2
This is so true. As Obama said (not exactly but close enough) if you do not think you are black, try to stop a taxi and you will know. If it was painful to hear it, I cannot imagine how painful it is to live it. I have hope that newer generations will shake us out of this negative feedback.
2
Thanks for that. Your article is part of the "continuing education" that this country desperately needs. The ignorance problem exists across the whole country; many white citizens are blissfully unaware.
Race history education in America (like Holocaust education in Germany for the last 75 years) is something our country
still needs alot more of. It's ugly. And it needs to be brought up and addressed over and over again.
No, no, no, don't look there for racially fueled inequality, look at the shiny racist pebble in Dixie! You can only find racism where you find Confederate flags and statues.
Who are you going to believe:
"Redlining" or your own lying eyes?
Turns out historically persistent racial discrimination was not geographically limited to the "South". While crimes against humanity such as lynching were endemic to southern half of US, economic and political disenfranchisement were equal opportunity oppressors. Brown v. Board of Education Topeka did not happen in Alabama. Long Island is not in Mississippi.
2
When speaking with a white person who doesn't believe in white privilege, I listen to their arguments and then I say, "So you'd gladly go back and live your life over again, but this time you're born as a black person?"
You can actually see the wheels turning in their head during the inevitable pause that follows.
1
Happens in San Diego too. My white neighbor real estate agent once said, when I opined that San Marcos would be a nice place to live, "No, that's just for Hispanics." And when he rented his house out, I said , "Who's moving in?" and he replied "A black family." When I said, "Where are they from?" he smacked me on the shoulder and guffawed, "Just kidding!" as if he had meant to scare me. To me it's horrible he can keep his real estate license... there should be tester who can yank the license away if an agent flunks a racism test of redlining and redirecting.
Jamelle, as you do understand and more Americans should understand, the most 'politically conscious' sector of Americans is the Black Community --- and Cornel West is perhaps one of the most politically conscious people in America.
"Never Trumpers" is an overly vague, flexible, distracting, and
"dividing" term used in propagandist narratives loaded with
faux-information.
However, "Never Emperors" is an accurate, insightful, and entirely
expository term to describe Emperor Trump @realemperortrump
As you conclude< Jamelle, "There are solutions — but the first step is to shake ourselves of the idea that explicit racial (and class) discrimination is yesterday’s problem." --- and to remember that this Disguised Global Crony Capitalist EMPIRE is the hidden cancerous tumor of all our 'symptom problems'.
https://www.salon.com/2019/11/03/cornel-west-on-hope-and-resistance-in-the-age-of-trump-we-must-find-joy-in-the-struggle/
2
The important thing here is to highlight that it is anti-Black racism. While other non-White racial groups are also discriminated they never have been to the same extend as Black people.
1
In my city (Portland) our historically black neighborhoods are being destroyed by gentrification. We are discovering that for black families, having choices about where to live is a good thing - but our black families are choosing to leave altogether. Having white families move into "your" neighborhood is NOT necessarily a good thing. Black families do not always feel served by the white owned businesses, real estate developers etc that move into these former redlined areas. What is happening to us is "black flight:" our black population is declining precipitously as black Portlanders LEAVE the city, never to return. It is devastating.
I spent the first half of my life in Texas and the second in Boston; two places where black communities are large and proud and have thrived under incredibly adverse conditions of systematic societal racism, in part because of vast and strong and interconnected communities, centered in neighborhoods.
Don't get me wrong: redlining and discrimination is terrible. But historically black institutions, chosen by and run by and for black people, are a source of success and strength. I remember being a highschool student and there being a big commotion about "why do all the black kids sit together....?" Voluntary communities of kinship are vital, whether that is sitting together at lunch, or houses of worship, or HBCUs, or neighborhoods. And yes, you can join them, once in a while. But always remember you're a guest.
35
Very depressing to know that in the year of 2020, NOTHING has really changed regarding white racial biases, in everything to housing, to employment....ugh.
2
"It’s a live force in American life that works in tandem with structural racism to recapitulate past injustice and reproduce racial disadvantage, a one-two punch that ensures its future."
Only for those who embrace the "victim narrative" and refuse to work hard to get their share of the American Dream.
Remember busing in the 70's to integrate schools?
Yes, I was that little boy!
Us white kids got bused to integrate a formerly black school.
Between the teacher strikes, racial unrest, and political upheaval, I learned one very important lesson.
The library is open to all regardless of race, religion or national origin.
Those who used it, excelled and got out of the neighborhood.
Those who didn't, and there were plenty, who got involved in drugs, gangs, and basically intimidated fellow blacks who wished to participate in class as "acting white," fell behind.
My black football coach treated us all the same. When a few black kids complained about drills and discipline, he reminded them that this was preparation for real life. He didn't favor anyone, white or black, just the best person for the position. He had one bad eye but he was color blind. He was a role model for me.
I sure miss him.
12
The primary reason for the suffering that many Black Americans experience in the 21st century is the failure of too many Black men to care for the children they are partially responsible for bringing into the world. If leaders in the African American community continue their hand wringing over 20th Century problems, and fail to address the destruction of their families that is the problem that must be addressed in this Century, the suffering will continue. Fortunately, there is a new generation of young Black leadership that is starting to rebel against that old way of thinking.
38
This is an old right wing talking point that many have been conditioned to believe through decades of biased media coverage (see the documentary The 13th) and centuries worth of misinformation fed to Caucasian majorities (regardless of country) meant to absolve the majority of any moral conflict over the well defended (through opinions like yours, as well as laws and innumerable cultural customs) system of free (slaver) and underpaid labor (Jim Crow and post Jim Crow, up to the modern day). Summing up an entire diaspora in such a clean way is proof of successful conditioning. If you are really looking to form an opinion, go out and get to know the actual people and do some real research.
13
A commenter below suggested that, today, discrimination is more about behavior than race. I would concur.
During the 1980’s, I worked in the foreign student office of a large university and had a lot of contact with graduate students from Africa. As a rule, they dressed, spoke, and carried themselves in a completely different manner than many of the African-American students.
Both of these groups were racially identical, but the general response to them as cohorts couldn’t have been more divergent.
14
I have no doubt that there is racial discrimination in employment and in housing. I am a white man and have experienced discrimination in housing and employment. In the past i applied for an apartment only to be turned down in favor of a married couple because they were "more stable". I was born and raised in Michigan and found it hard to rent in South Carolina, "oh we don't rent to Yankees". I am 70 years old, anyone over 50 other than CEO's will tell you that age discrimination in employment is so rampant that it would be impossible to gage its magnitude. One of my best friends who is gay can tell you of a lifetime of discrimination including having been terminated from a job he loved and in spite of his excellent job performance reviews because he was gay and therefore "a bad moral influence".
I don't need a study to tell me that there is racial discrimination both overt and subtle. The question Mr. Bouie is what are we going to do about it. I have written off the Republicans as a lost cause, so no help there. As to Democratic politicians, as Kamala Harris pointed out in our last debate, they often take the support of the blacks, gays and other minorities for granted. How do we get them to listen and how do we get them to act so that racial progress is not "static". What are your ideas, please.
14
Mr. Bouie: You state, "A good deal of this is the long overhang of past discrimination, the legacy of Jim Crow and redlining and urban renewal and the deliberate neglect of communities of color by authorities at all levels of government." I would argue that each and every piece of "the legacy" is still in force today.
4
Mr. Bouie's op-ed analysis is so seriously flawed that it vitiates his argument for the following reasons: 1) In making the strong assertion that he does, he confuses correlation with causation; apparently he has never heard of confounding variables, such as class, cultural variables. This is surprising for a man of the Left. Nowhere is there any discussion of the deleterious causal impact of ones class membership. I was born in England and lived there until my mid teens. Ones class position in England then and still does have a powerful influence on ones life chances, i.e education, economic resources, acceptance by the middle class. I lived in new working class housing that was adjacent to homes owned by middle class people. There was scarcely any socializing between the two classes; 2) I live in a neighborhood in Detroit that was formerly white and middle class. Now the neighborhood is overwhelmingly black and in decline because it is poor: property not taken care of because of lack of economic resources, decaying schools because of crime and minimal parental involvement because of their poor education. I have studied white flight in Detroit. Both in England (then overwhelmingly white) and Detroit a major factor promoting middle class flight was deteriorating schools, crime, and the social problems that poverty creates; 3) You haven't done your homework to disentangle the cluster of causal factors, particularly class, that bias people social perception.
18
@john-anthony The people seeking houses were visibly members of various racial groups. They did not announce their class membership or income levels. Thus, the outcomes reflected racial bias
Class is indeed problematic, but that is another story.
2
@john-anthony Are you suggesting that ALL racial disparity is actually class disparity in disguise, or that racial disparities don't matter because class disparities also exist?
Neither claim stands up to scrutiny, but the former seems more worth addressing.
The available statistics still show racial biases once you correct for things like wealth and education level. For example, black school students in the United States face disproportionately harsher punishments in school for misbehaving than white students do for the same behavior.
7
Exactly. It is only in the last few years I've seen black and Hispanic kids (OK I'm old) as wait people. It pleases me to no end. Its not a great job but its one that a lot of kids start out with in high school and college that seemed awfully white until the last few years. A lot more work needs to be done but hopefully this is a trend in the right direction.
Even the seemingly minor prompts are often overlooked. For example, one thing that really stands out are the crossword clues. The clue is often "a counting rhyme" and the solution is the word "eeny." What? As I see that word I always remember the rest of the line: " eeny meeny miney moe, catch a n....er
by the toe. If he hollers, make him pay, fifty dollars every day."
Whoever constructs these puzzles needs a swift kick in the you-know-where.
2
@Caroline VanTrease
The rhyme I learned as a child (in NY) was "catch a tiger by the toe/if he hollers, let him go..."
3
It’s catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers let him go. You seem to have learned a twisted version
3
I absolutely don't doubt the data on realtors and discrimination in this article, but I always have to wonder about methodology when I read such things. Having lived in a big city (Houston) only once, I'm curious at what point these practices kick in. Certainly in the small and middle-sized towns in which I have lived the market is too small to support discrimination of this nature. Moreover, the study doesn't seem to account for agency on the part of buyers. My family has always been active in identifying houses and neighborhoods that interested us, informed the realtor of such and expected them to incorporate those preferences in our purchasing process.
3
Really great work once again Jamelle. I hope for a better future for citizens of (relatively recent) African descent in your country (and mine). Besides being harmful to the individuals concerned, such discrimination is not in the general and national interest either (ironically).
4
Jamelle, how does your theory of system discrimination account for the disparity in life outcomes between African immigrants, many of whom do quite well in this country, and African Americans?
26
Racism is ubiquitous. I don't know if racism, even when subtle, can be entirely removed. But, most adults concerned with a moral position fight against racist dispositions.
I talked to a neighbor of mine who defended anti-immigration policies and tried to cloak her arguments in economics. She voted Brexit. At the same time, she considered herself a good Christian. She felt close to God.
I said, "We all have stereotypes under which we operate. We don't cloak them in arcane economic arguments."
But, her Christian beliefs were impeccable. She was comfortable in her views.
Do the Gospels allow anybody to be comfortable in hate?
She said, "Tom, you're just as much a racist as I am."
I said, "Precisely! Now, we can begin the work of combatting these racist tropes and beliefs because, if you do not even recognize them, then you will act on them."
She maintained her anti-immigrant position was based on economics.
There were too many Muslims and Eastern Europeans. She voted Brexit based on making England not-so-non-English. She used economics to defend her views.
Real economics contradicts such views.
But a Spectator and a Daily Mail reading public have been given arguments dignifying and cloaking racism.
Christians talk about redemption. How does the liar become redeemed if the person in question cannot accept their own humanity.
I don't think God waits on the proverbial judgment day to hear clever economics defending racism.
2
I was fortunate to grow up in a racially mixed area. I feel most comfortable when the room is diverse. Nonetheless, our culture imbues upon us biases, and I have no doubt that such lurks in my subconscious.
A neuroscientist took a test designed to look at the test-taker's bias. To his great surprise, he found that he was biased against his own race. No one who knew him would have guessed.
The good news is that those in my son's generation (he's 21) seem to have a race blindness that I've not seen before. I hope that impression is correct
3
What's interesting is that it's long been known that immigrants from Africa generally tend to do better than African Americans on a variety of measures of life outcome. For instance, the debate over affirmative action in college admissions is muddled by the fact that many of the black students at these schools are African immigrants rather than African Americans.
I'm not discounting that there exists residual bias even when relevant factors have been accounted for, but I do question the pervasiveness of "white privilege" and "structural racism" in terms of holding back certain groups. In particular, the immigrant experience serves a clear counterexample to the notion that skin color remains an insuperable barrier to success in this country.
As an aside, I'm always amused to hear about biases against "brown" people in this country, where brown is taken to mean Hispanic. Of course as we all know, Hispanic isn't a racial category and many Hispanics have a fair degree of European admixture. Some are virtually indistinguishable from white Europeans. On the other hand, immigrants from South Asia from countries like India are some of the "brownest" people I've met in America. Interestingly, Indian Americans are also by far one of the most successful groups in this country. But alas, I digress...
25
As long as the titans of power can reap a profit of the fact that a lot of people can feel better about themselves by looking down on other people, racism will continue drag human society backwards towards war and butchery. I still, irrationally by any count, believe that by reaching out our hands to one another we can build a much brighter future, where an appreciation of the possibility of shared goodness allows us all to lift each other up instead of constantly trying to put each other down. I will continue to promote that optimism in my daily interactions with other people, other than that I'm out of ideas.
1
I question whether this is enough information. I'd have to see videos and listen to live transcripts of interviews by black and white housing applicants. We are not told how they looked, how they spoke, how they dressed-- a myriad of things that could scew results if the researchers wanted a certain result. And guess what: the conducted their "test" in a area known to be racist, so what would you expect? Did they also conduct the same test in an area known not to be racist?
5
@Oxford96 You can watch the 45 minute video of undercover tests on Newsday's site and see that, as fair housing tests generally are, all of those variables were controlled. There is no difference in the testers other than their race/color. The tests were conducted over a long period of time throughout Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and while this article focuses on the disparities in treatment of blacks, the undercover videos revealed something else: many of the offending real estate agents steered buyers, regardless of race. So, a white man expressing an interest in "mixed" or "minority" neighborhood was suggested to look elsewhere; similarly, for a black woman seeking housing in a "white" area; and so forth. Also, the offending agents were not always white, but rather the typical ethnic mix you find in the outer ring NYC suburbs. So, you had, for example, an Indian real estate agent telling a white homebuyer to avoid a certain area because it was "mixed" and in the mix, he notes, Indians (as if this is a bad thing!).
So, anyone who thinks our society's growing diversity alone is going to solve this problem is likely to find that it only gets worse: implicit bias, overt racism, whatever you call it, the offending agents steered people based on their own prejudices, assuming the buyers shared them. This is what keeps communities segregated and this is why this type of testing is needed, along with the training and oversight to correct and enforce it.
3
@Oxford96 > Did they also conduct the same test in an area known not to be racist? <
I'm curious where you'd suggest.
The attempts to rationalize why a realtor treats minorities different demonstrates that all too many people still do NOT understand, or even believe, that racism continues to exist. I’m curious how many of you defending these types of realtors’ behaviors are actual minorities. You cannot truly understand the issue until you’ve been treated less than. I do, however, appreciate those of you who make a concerted effort to try to understand.
7
Yes, racism is alive and well. Though there’ve been incremental advances in various venues, there have been equally demonstrative status quo and even worse, regression, in some cases. There are many fingers to point in the direction of blame, but none more so than Hollywood. White folks absorb the most intake about non-white folks on television. It’s incumbent on Hollywood to do a MUCH better job of casting a fictional vision by which we can follow in real life. Having Charles Barkley, a know nothing ex-jock with a loud mouth and questionable opinion, host a show to a nationally televised audience on race relations in this country simply is not helping. In the immortal words of Elijah Cummings, “we can do better”.
3
A realtor makes his or her money on successful home sales. Therefore, they are going to show clients homes that they believe will have the best chance of selling to the client. That is not racism on their part, but good business. The time they spend showing homes that the buyer does not like is wasted, and most buyers prefer to live in neighborhoods populated with people similar to themselves.
While this may well be indicative of some level of systemic racism, it is more a case of the realtor knowing what the majority of clients want and utilizing that knowledge to most efficiently use the time spent.
10
If Bouie is going to review the findings of social scientific studies of housing and labor market discrimination against black Americans, then he has a duty to do so thoroughly and impartially.
For example, if he cites the paper by Pedulla and Pager, why doesn't he cite Pager and Karafin 2009 as well? The latter study goes right to the heart of the matter. It failed to refute the idea that employers' decisions accurately reflected attributes like productivity, reliability and willingness to submit to authority.
There is also a substantial literature that finds that the black-white wage gap primarily reflects a skills gap.
I don't claim to know what the state of the art is. But I am not the one throwing around charges of racism. Bouie is. My strong impression is that he is cherry-picking results that are congenial to his political agenda.
21
In 1984 I acquired a home in the City (NYC), and afterward a friend of mine from university came for a visit. He had been accepted to an NYU graduate program and wished to look around the city for a flat. He is black, and his family is well-to-do. He visited a real estate agent to view a place on East End street, near 89th. Unfortunately, the agent told him that it was no longer available. He tried for another place in the same general area, and met with the same result. Later on, after a third rejection, I knew that there was a problem. So I visited the first agent with my friend. He remained downstairs. I asked the agent to see the place on East End and was immediately told that it was available. I then explained how happy I was to hear it, and that I was there for a friend. I invited the friend and explained before the agent that there had been a mistake, that the place was in fact available. How did I know to do this? Because the exact same thing had happened to the same friend when we were undergraduates in Boston.
Back then, I suspected that if something like this had happened twice to me (and I considered it an assault upon me personally, especially since my friend, having cared for me upon the death of my sister, was and still is very dear to me), then it was happening across the States generally. I am disheartened to see that it is still a significant problem some 35 years later.
10
Agree racism is unfortunately alive and well. The reality however is that the constant reminders and attempts to shame white people from those who get the podium (like the author of this article), and the over the top political correctness in general, is just dividing our country further. The blow back, which had been festering for years - is Donald Trump. One personal example of the kind of thing that is maddening...my wife and I were very proud that our son "didn't see color" so to speak growing up. We didn't emphasize it, and so race was not important. But according to the far left, we should be ashamed, because apparently we were supposed to emphasize it more. The number of articles the Times puts out focused on race and gender is truly ridiculous. I stopped subscribing to the Wall Street Journal a few years ago because their articles and Editorial Board went so far right I couldn't take it any more. The Times is guilty on the other end of the continuum. Wish you authors would use the podium differently. (Before you dismiss my comments...I'm a democrat!)
18
Writer Bouie, you are preaching to the choir here, I believe. These are presumptions, but most NYT readers likely know that racial discrimination is systemic; most NYT readers vote democratic; and most NYT readers make sure to vote. We all have to make sure to get to the polls this year. Please write about why black Americans might feel righteous in not voting, because such an action is incongruous with changing this systemic racism.
1
Excellent points.
The quiet discrimination in employment and housing should really flourish now that we have a rascist so-called president.
Why, it is totally back in style! Witness Syracuse University. Blatant hatred now, with little to no ramifications.
4
Gosh, it must be fun to find racism around every corner?
Realtors do their best to make a sale as that is how they get paid, and likely their main motivation for doing the job.
My guess is that a realtor shows people the house they think they will buy based on price, style, size, etc. I would also assume that showing white people homes in ‘white’ neighborhoods and vice versa yields more sales and thus commissions, thus income.
It is articles like this that push people towards the President
21
Ignorant and proud. This is the poison of racism that impacts so many among our citizens who were educated before ethnic studies curriculums were integrated into common core education. Luckily younger folks (from Gen x’ers educated in integrated schools to Gen Z’ers) are more openminded, a success of measures to break down segregation.
@stan : So we should pander to bigots to continue their bigotry all in the name of realtors making money and bigots feeling comfortable?
4
How can there be a thoughtful discussion of discrimination in housing without a serious repudiation of the last governors race in Georgia? The building blocks of modern systemic discrimination were perpetuated once again by the voter suppression witnessed in GA. Governmental agencies that report, fight or hide systemic RACISM are funded by the same crooks in power.
Cue Stacey Abrams and her grace in a crooked defeat in GA.
That was the time to let voters know suppression should have been elevated to a cabinet level post in future governments. Missed opportunity once again. C'mon DNC Get your head out of your six!
Let's all be shocked that there is discrimination in housing in Long Island, NY. Gasp. Home rents and the American dream of home ownership are ridiculous and ridiculous in that order. The stranglehold, like SCOTUS, is here for our foreseeable lifetime. Get used to it.
"[B]ut the first step is to shake ourselves of the idea that explicit racial discrimination is yesterday's problem" - yes! As a parent of two elementary-aged children in a racially diverse district, I was surprised & dismayed when both kids came away with the idea that racism was "solved" after learning about Martin Luther King. Schools need to do a better job of teaching that struggling for equality is not a thing of the past, but an ongoing, critical effort. If there's one thing the Trump era should be teaching everyone, it's that racism - even explicit - is unfortunately alive & well.
7
For the reporting on the Newsday study to be persuasive to those not already assuming bias, we would need more information about the study, the controls that were used, and the alleged disparity.
I presume that realtors try to steer minorities and, less so, individuals of particular religions, to neighborhoods or towns where those minorities or religions are prevalent. While this is wrong and discriminatory, it also may reflect the reality that we tend to congregate with similar people, that realtors want to rent or sell as quickly as possible, and that realtors don't want to waste time showing properties that potential buyers or renters likely would not want.
5
Thanks again for an enlightened commentary. It should be noted that the Equal Employment Opportunity Agency is a mask for the inherent racism of the capitalist system. The system promotes racism because of the advantages it enjoys in maintaining lower wages for minorities despite the 'hoop-a-la' of racial equality in the workplace. The wages system is a necessary component for the enrichment of a small population of capitalists. It is through the exploitation of wage labor that the profit system exists. For more enlightenment go to www.slp.com.
1
The meme of "But that's been said before and nothing changed." has a point, but it's opposite of those posting it here. This news bears repeating as often as it can be until it is no longer true.
1
In a free society, the people (not the government) get to choose where they want to live and who they want to assemble with. These choices are informed by many variables including economic, religious, life experience, personal preference, etc. Based on what is important to the individual (not the government) is how these variables get prioritized.
With freedom though, comes bias, discrimination, racism; all in many forms.
A free society in an imperfect society but the alternative of a Statist society is far worse.
9
@BC : Funny, it's more fascist states that are more racist of late.
I think you're conflating anti-racism and totalitarianism, which can happen across the ideological spectrum.
Here's another nugget: free societies are not zero sum games. You can reduce harm of marginalized groups and not limit the freedoms of the dominant groups.
1
Does anyone depend on a realtor to find a house anymore? Most people know they can save a great amount of time by simply going to zillow or any other real estate site and find a home in the area and price range they want - along with multiple photographs and an abundance of other relevant information about the property. Find a home you like, call the listing realtor, and arrange a tour. It's really not that hard. And if the realtor refuses on the basis of race he or she is a) taking money out of their own pocket and b) very likely to lose their license for violating anti-discrimination laws.
6
Once again, Mr. Bouie ably explains the issues non-whites face in America. One added dimension is the resulting re-segregation (or failing desegregation) of public education. With people of color restricted from working or living where they wish, our public institutions reflect the consequences of racism in action. Everything we know about education suggests that children thrive most in diverse settings where their horizons are expanded and their hopes buoyed.
Once again America fails to live up to its promises.
1
To a realtor time is money. The vast majority of interactions that they have with clients result in no revenue, so they have to be efficient with their time. If an experienced realtor tends to steer buyers toward properties that she thinks that they are more likely to buy it is not necessarily a case of racism. She might simply be trying to maximize her income.
10
Housing discrimination is the type of systemic white supremacy that perpetuates the greater issue of economic racism that has continued unabated in spite of all the progress made in the last half century in civil rights and cultural racial perceptions.
Black neighborhoods may be just as expensive in rents and housing costs as the whiter neighborhoods blacks are intentionally steered from, but their schools tend to be worse.
It is very difficult to regulate the discriminatory behavior of individuals but extremely possible to assure that every student in the U.S. has access to equally high quality schools.
Maybe this is the "reparation" that should be focused on. It is hard enough in itself to accomplish because it is about where resources are invested and parents will always do anything they can to assure that their own children have an unfair advantage over their competition.
Fairness is not necessarily the strongest of human instincts.
@alan haigh If a school is bad it's because badly-parented disruptive kids have made it bad, it's very rarely a disparity in funding or better quality teachers. So then you should be asking why black parents are so desperate to get their kids away from other black kids.
9
I don't read the NYT real estate section all the time, but I have wondered about the range of choices available to the white couples featured, and whether Black, Latino or Asian couples were offered the same housing options.
1
There is ZERO science for implicit bias.....it simply does not exist and has been proven false in all studies.
8
@Billy : Then kindly post the refutations from peer-reviewed journals showing such evidence.
Until then, I'll believe peer-reviewed science over random commenting dude on the Internet.
5
The author of this text sees racism everywhere and in any given situation. That is his daily job. Reading his texts, one would think we are living in the post-civil war times.
Of course I am a white person, and I realize that that does not bode well on the pages on the NYT.
19
@ss : The author of this comment discounts any discussion of racism and in any given situation. It's in his favor to do this since it doesn't affect him at all, jsut makes him uncomfortable. Reading his comments, one would think we are living in post-racial paradise in America.
Of course, I'm a white passing Hispanic and I realize that that position doesn't bode well for many white people in America.
4
I'm white. Come from a well off family, well educated, good looking. I should have the world at my feet and absolutely no discrimination right? Here's the thing. I was a rebel in my youth, went against the grain, was homeless, had lots of black friends, carried myself in a "black" way. Was I discriminated against? You betcha. No call backs? Check. Security guards following me? Check. Ladies clutching their purses? Check. It's not skin color people. It's behavior. You can't blame people and companies for wanting to hire/be around people who have a good attitude and do the job effectively. The reality is many black people behave in ways that are counterproductive. Focus on this and things will change.
26
@Tony Studies suggest that even just having a black-sounding name on an otherwise identical résumé will measurably reduce your chances of an interview.
Are we now treating names as a kind of behavior that black people need to correct?
3
Here's another (possible & partial) solution- prohibit the US census from asking about or recording race. Treat everyone the same.
1
@Joe Public France tried that - made things actually worse. Racism is there - but there's no statistics or research to prove it.
2
Id like to know more about the studies and then the results. Sounds a little slanted to me. I also think we would all get along better without the constant drumbeat of how bad we all are. I know myself and the people around me and think the myth is stronger than the reality. We live in a blended society not a black, brown, yellow and white one. Discount the people making a living on racism and we might see a different view of who we are.
Now a religion bias Id buy right now.
6
There will always be racism, explicit, implicit, and charges of racism. Fair non racist people and decisions will always be criticized for being racist. The trick in life is to overcome racism, real or perceived.
If you are held to a higher standard, meet that standard and succeed.
3
But don’t forget - Trump claims he’s the least racist person in the country and a good 40% or more of the public believes him. So we know what the first step has to be, even without denying the many good points of this column.
1
Racial discrimination in America has always worked for the benefit of the majority, European Americans. But since they (we) won't be the majority much longer, it's in their (our) best interests to end it and end it quickly.
But it won't be as easy as just making the decision to do so.
The Times's recent article on Bedford-Stuyvesant included numerous quotes from African-Americans deeply troubled by the arrival of whites in their neighborhood, and by the cultural changes those whites were bringing. White people feel the same way about their neighborhoods.
Until we bring our cultures closer to each other we will never be able to blend into a single society. At best we will be left with the kind of nervous cohabitation that usually leads to white flight and community decay.
3
@Green Tea
While European Americans may not be a majority overall, they will be a majority in many parts of the US and because of incumbency advantages they'll continue holding a disproportionate share of wealth and political power. Look at South American countries such as Brazil where often a minority white elite runs all major institutions.
I sold real estate in central NJ for two decades, from 1987-2007. Never in my experience as a licensed Realtor did I ever show a customer a house in a particular area based on race, religion, or creed, nor did I hear of another Realtor ever doing this. It's called Steering, & it's a good way to lose your license. Before presenting an offer, it is customary to have a mortgage broker pre-qualify a buyer. Any seller would want to know if the buyer can afford to buy the house prior to accepting an offer. Realtors will do handstands to sell a house. Jeopardizing a sale would be beyond stupid. Realtors are independent contractors; we make money only when a house is sold. I don't believe this article. Realtors on Long Island are Steering their customers? Nah.
11
@RBR
Just because you're a "good guy" realtor and didn't discriminate against anyone doesn't mean that every other realtor out there on Long Island (and across the country) is the same.
If you'd asked most people before Harvey Weinstein's sexual predator accusations came out about that type of thing happening, you'd probably get the same response: "Nah." People like to think they're above this type of thing but the truth is that no one is. Human beings do evil things every day.
4
Racism in real estate has been de facto in this country since Emancipation. It happens every where in the country, no state is spared. It's practiced by not only whites, but it crosses ethnic lines. I've had close African American friends relate to me horrendous experiences they've had when they attempted to rent apartments and have been blatantly discriminated against by Eastern European immigrants, Asian Americans, and others. Racism and discrimination spreads like a virus, and in real estate it's an epidemic without a cure.
1
@Marc Castle
This merely demonstrates that individuals from all groups can discriminate against one another. Have you read about the horrendous attacks against Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn committed disproportionately by African-Americans?
It's interesting though that you've highlighted one of the negatives of immigration in that individuals from some immigrant groups will bring their prejudices with them across the ocean. Eastern Europeans, for example, generally come from homogeneously white countries and therefore are likely to carry certain attitudes and stereotypes of groups of people they are unlikely to encounter before immigrating (such as African-Americans or Hispanics).
4
Because so many people believe the problem is resolved, particularly white people, the problem remains unresolved. Many say they are tired to hearing about racism and don't understand why it needs to be discussed any more. The general grasp of the continuing difficulties racism causes is shallow, stripped of any depth of historical knowledge and not informed about the current situation. Unfortunately, many prefer to keep it that way, which is one source of backlash.
3
Buyers are not self segregating when realtors consistently steer them to neighborhoods matching their race or ethnicity or refuse to show minorities homes in white neighborhoods. Or when white buyers are regularly steered away from homes in minority neighborhoods. This is discrimination and needs addressing by government officials who are committed to enforcement of the Fair Housing Act. This enforcement is important on the level of individual buyers and to communities and the country as a whole. As long as there is discrimination about where we can live we will never have equal opportunities.
Thinking people would not deny the structural and 'quietly' explicit racism that clearly exists. There are people that do so, and we need to be reminded of that. It's fine to shout it out loudly and often.
My issue with Mr. Bouie's essay is the lack of solutions he offers and the failure to connect the problems to (IMO) are realistic solutions. For example, unemployment rates are higher and educational achievement levels lower for black people. Yes, identify and enforce anti-discrimination laws. But for God's sake, fix the roads in poor neighborhoods, build and stock better schools, pay for the best teachers, subsidize and target school and home loans, get rid of gerrymandering, make voting easy, train job seekers.....etc,etc, These are the solutions that are under our control and WE ALL KNOW they will improve the employment gap. Solve racism if you can, but fix the school roof.
1
Racism will always be an uphill battle. Improving the quality of formal education is one way to address our silent national scourge. The late senator Thad Cochran figured that out.
1
Long Island has been that way for decades. This "revelation" is nothing new.
I'm sure that this discrimination has absolutely nothing to do with how certain people tend to behave and do their jobs, aka their actions, and absolutely everything to do with skin color alone.
5
"Not every instance of workplace discrimination is reported to authorities — far from it"
And, Not every claim of workplace discrimination reported to authorities is legitimate — far from it.
15
From the August 2017 issue, "Trump Administration Puts on Hold an Obama-Era Desegregation Effort...The rule would have helped poor Americans move to more expensive neighborhoods with better schools."
While most people see this as Trump being a racist, this is the obvious case of the government, liberals and the Obama Administration fixing what they perceive as wrong. Now, I don't understand how the government planned to get low income families into high income neighborhood. This may be one of those programs that is put in place for appearances. And, extra points for Trump cancelling it.
However, the people that live there, because they want to AND can afford to, this was an attack on their freedom of choice. Who isn't pro-choice? If their property values go down, it is for the common good. And if they protest, they're ignored, because, after all, they're just a bunch of racists.
Then, Trump comes along and cancels the program. Therefore, Trump is a racist. The people that vote for Trump are racists. They are racists because because they disagree with the Obama program. And, they will vote for Trump again. Even if they aren't racist, they are property owners that take home ownership seriously.
The leading Dem primary candidates are still out of touch with the concept of personal freedom.
3
@Mike
High income neighborhoods don't allow low income housing to be built. That is wrong. If you own property, you should be allowed to build whatever you want on it.
1
Yes, it's the networks.
People hire people like them. They seek out neighbors who are like them. The seek out schools where children look like them.
White people have held much of the power in hiring, real estate and education for the entire history of the United States. The legacy of that is persistent and insidious.
At the end of the day, Black people get blamed for not "valuing" education, or having the networks that lead to high paying jobs, or being willing to pursue living in neighborhoods where they are not wanted.
1
@Cousy If white people only hire other white people, how have Asians, including many dark-skinned Indians, been so successful?
3
This is why the social sciences are so important. Good social science teachers explain institutional racism and how it was created so a new generation of voters can work for change. STEM is important but not critical. When the GOP discusses killing the social sciences, beware!
@Anthony STEM isn't critical? Why do you think you have electricity and running water in your house? Who's maintaining the internet you're posting on right now? The fact that you think STEM isn't critical is emblematic of how much people take modern life for granted. Without STEM we'd be living in huts. I'd say that's more important than social scientists, the high priests of the woke religion.
7
I thought nowadays potential homebuyers go on Zillow and Redfin to research houses, set up their open house schedules and then demand their junior REALTOR (if they even use one) unlock the door at the right time for their schedule.
5
Zoning laws are the Jim Crow of the North. They exist to keep poor people, especially minorities, out of a municipality. Courts need to start striking down these modern day poll taxes.
"Right Before Our Eyes".
Bouie is one of the frequent Opinion writers in the Times who portray Black Americans, as a group, as "separate and different" than all other Americans.
Then these same writers complain , that Black Americans, as a group, are viewed as "separate and different" than all other Americans.
"Right Before Our Eyes" these writers strengthen the very damaging stereotypes and discrimination that they complain about.
The goal should be to portray and treat Black Americans, as a group, the same as all other Americans.
20
@jck Perhaps they portray black Americans as separate and different because they are too frequently treated as separate and different. I have seen, firsthand, this sort of subtle but devastating discrimination by whites against blacks, for no other reason that skin colour. I have seen it more than once. I have also heard it from business associates, acquaintances, even friends and family. A three year study, with video evidence, showing that discrimination takes place against blacks in one of every two engagements is nothing that can be reasonably dismissed. We should be careful here not to blame the victim, and use this information as an opportunity to take a hard look at our societies so that we might improve them.
8
Yes, the goal should be to treat blacks the same as whites. But how is this going to happen? Just wait another century or two until white people come to their senses, or through race-specific and race-oriented activism? Too many people on the right condemn the latter as “racism,” but what alternative is there?
2
Thank you for shining light on one of the myriad ways people who look like me ( white) benefit from a system designed to make life easy for white people at the expense of black and brown people.
As someone who tries to work on my own implicit bias and racism, I have found it helpful to look around me frequently and ask, “ Who is in the room?” Who is not? Why not?” The ‘why not’ often exposes the truth that the laws around racial discrimination are given dutiful lip service, but are rarely enforced.
One more reason I pray a blue wave brings a flood of younger and browner people to replace the cadavers in suits who currently pose as our representatives.
218
@Carol Weiss Excellent suggestion! When you are not personally affected by bias, it is easy to overlook the rampant bias all around. My town is almost exclusively white but I see minority workers mistreated.
12
@Carol Weiss , Don't think there is no subtle discrimination in blue, even bluest of blue, states. The article clearly states that - Long Island, NY.
16
@Joe Not The Plumber
I also look around the room to see who is not there, and wonder why not. In many cases, people select themselves out.
6
In the early 90's I conducted a small Discrimination in Housing testing program in Montreal, Quebec which at the time had the most tenant friendly housing regulations in Canada. We modeled the tests on a previous large study testing hiring practices in Toronto. The results from both were similar to the findings here.
A black housing applicant/tester with parallel qualifications and attributes as a white applicant/tester (eg.verified income, employment, credit, references, demographics), invariably black candidates were illegally refused housing far more often than other population groups we tested. Offending landlords were brought before a human rights tribunal. Here we are almost 30 years later.
1
I was looking to buy a house here in NC while living in Calif. A realtor was recommended who showed me many houses and urged me to spend a little more for something better which I refused to do because I was on a strict budget. A couple of years ago it hit me that she only showed me white neighborhoods. I was unfamiliar with the area in general. What to do? Now I realize that I'm not all that happy in my white neighborhood. I am selling my house now and will be searching far and wide for another on my own.
I know that historically immigrants tended to reside in the same neighborhoods. Polish neighborhoods in Chicago are one example. The 21st century is different and it's important to diversify our thinking on this and to push the envelope. We will all be the better for it.
2
Mr. Bouie makes the classic mistake made so often among social justice activists: assimilating different types of racism. It’s very hard to convince someone, say, that they’re practicing racism I by accusing them of racism II.
We’re at a place in this country when much racism starts with deceptive innocence, based on unspoken assumptions: broker A thinks black people want to live in black neighborhoods, and white people want to live in white neighborhoods. Broker A wants to make a sale, but would be embarrassed to confirm this assumption explicitly with a particular couple, and fears s/he might get into trouble. Hence A might caution a white couple considering a black neighborhood ‘you should read about the gang violence there’, nominally race-neutral, without similarly cautioning an otherwise-comparable black couple, who A assumes would already know or expect it.
Small, pervasive racist assumptions aggregate into large racial disparities. It’s too much to ask A to stick their neck out; the brokerage firm, backed by legal protections and/or requirements, should mandate a form with questions: “do you want to live in predominantly black or white neighborhood, or one enjoying other specialized demographics?” And keep the anonymized answers in a public database for further research and review.
Calling people nasty names based on insufficient evidence relieves stress if you’re already angry, but it also makes the people whose support you need angry, and defensive, too.
10
How do we fix this? One person at a time, the same as how it happens.
Years ago, a black man and a white woman moved into the house directly across the street from my parents. They did not marry, because of family issues for both of them -- more racism.
My parents welcomed them with the usual gift, and talked at the street, and invited them over to their Fourth of July party.
But their next door neighbor was from a part of the South where an unmarried black man living with a white woman next door as An Issue and upset them. At first we laughed at their discomfort.
Then they called the police on their neighbors for having one too many (well behaved) dogs. I didn't even know we had that limit. Then they called the police on their neighbors for flower gardens out of code. I sure didn't know about that rule, and they seemed to me rather like most other attractive flower gardens around our homes.
So my Dad the retired cop went across the street to that next door neighbor, and had a Come-To-Jesus talk with him. That is just Not Done.
The man spoke to his wife, and the cold war went silent for the next twenty years. Never good neighbors, but they behaved themselves. You'd almost not know, if you didn't already know. We could laugh at them for it, again. It couldn't have been so nice for that very nice couple, but one step at a time.
That is how racism will finally be cured. One person at a time, one step at a time. We have to step up, each of us.
5
I want to take this a step further from Mr. Bouie, "data redlining." I do not know if such a thing ACTUALLY exists, but the way technology progresses and how data is harvested and analyzed... it can very well become a reality for millions of people.
Many companies are obsessed with personalization and customer experience... there algorithms upon algorithms to "read" people to deliver the "best" possible product. But what happens when companies use that data to purposefully withhold products, services, etc... because someone is deemed unworthy, or less than, of what the company is offering? Maybe we have gotten a preview of it when Steve Wozniak (the "other" Steve in Apple) claimed that his wife was not given a comparable credit line on the Apple Card (backed by Goldman Sachs). If the data algorithms are reading that rich white women are not worthy of high credit lines... what does that mean for the rest of us? Does that mean a whole segment of society is completely shut out because the Goldman Sachs robots claims it so? Because if this is what one of the newest credit cards are doing... just imagine how others may follow suit?
3
This issue is a little more complicated. I live in a city which many Americans would consider very liberal. African Americans are free to live anywhere they want. Yet many of them tend to self-segregate, living in predominately black residential areas. I also notice that other ethnicities Hispanics, Asians, etc. do the same thing. If you look closely you will find self-segregation by religion too. One of my friends is an Orthodox Jew. He lives in a small self-contained Orthodox community. Anyone could live & be welcome where he resides but none choose to. Which is the crux of the problem, if there is indeed a serious problem. Left to our own devices we as Americans tend to self segregate by race, religion, gender, class, sexual orientation,& a host of other things. The real estate industry is simply reflecting that. The work on commission. The faster they can sell a house, the more money they can make. They are incentivized to steer clients to areas that past experience tells them they will be more likely to purchase a home. Not everyone wants to live in a diverse community. Nothing wrong with that. And here's the dirty little secret that no one wants to talk about. The Fair Housing Act can't force us to start integrating, especially if we freely choose not to. Clearly many of us have chosen to live where we feel comfortable. The only way to change this is “mandated social engineering.” But that isn't the answer it goes against our nature. Let's don't stress out over this.
146
@Bill Brown. As the article pointed out, studies have found that people of all races who seek to live in an address where they would be a minority are actively steered away and not given this option by reactors. This is a problem. When people do choose to self-segregate, we have to ask why. It's not without real, systemic causes.
75
@Bill Brown People may "self-segregate" socially to some extent for a whole host of reasons, but this article demonstrates that it is not a matter of "free choice" when looking for a house. A realtor who filters out options for non-white clients and does not give them access to the same range of choices that white clients are given is enforcing segregation. It is a documented fact that our neighborhoods are segregated because of a legacy of racist legal codes, redlining, and behavior like what is outlined in the article. You may feel uncomfortable living around people who don't look like you, but it is the real estate system that protects your comfort by enforcing segregation to this very day. It is not "personal choice" on the part of African Americans.
70
@Bill Brown
But at the end of the day, you aren't likely to purchase a property you weren't shown. People absolutely self-segregate by racial identity, but it sure isn't helpful to have the real-estate industry reinforcing it. It also potentially forces people into buying more expensive properties than they initially wanted to, especially if your real-estate agent is "warning you" away from certain communities.
37
Great column. My wife's family is from Long Island and clearly it is one of the most segregated areas in the U.S. For years I never understood why Long Island has hundreds of small public school systems with bloated costs passed onto homeowners as very high property taxes. The motivation was and is discrimination. Long Island should have two public school systems--Nassau and Suffolk County wide. Public schools should be more integrated; poor areas given more resources, and high income areas less. This works here in Northern Virginia in Fairfax County, Arlington County, and Prince William County. It reduces school segregation and reduces property taxes a lot.
123
@john NY State organizes most of its school systems by school district. The system has many problems (for example, teachers cannot transfer to a different district without losing seniority), but it was not intentionally set up to be discriminatory. Individual communities started schools on their own in the 19th century, when the curriculum was the “3 Rs” and the majority left school following 8th grade. It needs to be reformed to reflect the very different needs of 21st century education.
10
@john: Westchester County is similar. Imagine the uproar if it were proposed to have a county-wide school district.
4
@john LI has has hundreds of districts because of the way it "came into being" Little enclaves separated from eachother. The desire of most people to "live with their own kind", something that is being mostly ignored, that certain areas were inordinately expensive in the first place (North Shore for example),these vastly different enclaves came into being. But one cannot ignore the Levittown experience either. Bottom line, these individual districts became holier and holier. I disagree on county wide districts for a variety of reasons, but since each county has many towns, the districts should be town wide. This would enable the more equitable distribution of funds you seek.
1
Does the Newsday investigation surprise anyone out there? It is so well known just how segregated Long Island is that its appalling to hear all these politicians up in arms. We all know the truth. Every State Senator and Assembly member representing Long Island knows and knew of the racism and discrimination that exists. Why the outrage? When will our elected officials wake up and look at themselves in the mirror. I read the investigative report and with my 40 years experience in law enforcement on Long Island, I can assure you that is was professionally executed. But, the story has been done numerous times before. Over and over. Nothing changed and no dialogue took place to understand the issues and try to do something about. So, kudos to Newsday but, segregation on Long Island shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone if they are truthful to themselves.
215
@Unbelievable I know! I had a serious case of deja vu reading this story, which I feel like I have read over and over again, approximately once every ten years. It's the groundhog day of stories. Very frustrating and sad.
10
@Unbelievable It reminded me of why I couldn’t wait to get out of Suffolk County as soon as I finished college.
2
@Unbelievable
Fun fact: Suffolk County, NY on Long Island had the biggest number of votes swing from Obama 2012 to Trump 2016 of any county in the United States.
2
Anecdotal evidence of discrimination is not a reliable way to measure patterns, yet I find it instructive, even given its limits. My former personal trainer is a white man, mid-Westerner, and a US Marine Corps veteran, having survived several tours of duty in the Middel East. He was decorated for valor. While training clients he earned his baccalaureate degree with Latin honors. He was then excited to pursue jobs in the corporate world. He sent out resumes, and we both thought he would receive many call-backs. There were none. And then it hit me. He spelled his name, J'son, a creative spelling often perceived as indicative of blackness. I suggested that he change the spelling to a more conventional Jason -- to appear non-black. He did so. He lost count of the number of call-backs, and he has been employed by a large corporation -- climbing the management ladder -- for over 6 years now. The confirmation was -- and is -- deeply distressing. Racial discrimination in employment is real.
393
@Riley Temple This isn’t racial discrimination. It’s weirdness discrimination. It also works against people who show up to interviews with massive body piercings or facial tattoos. For some reason, weirdness is associated with lack of judgement and inadequate social skills, which employers tend to dislike.
29
@Global Charm
I think you mean class discrimination. Take for example a resume with the first name "Moon," which is a massively white name but will still likely be rejected due to its class implications.
In this case J'son has both class and racial discrimination working against him, as that particular style of apostrophizing normal names is mostly used in black communities.
18
@Global Charm while there are many statistical reports to support Riley Temple's observations do you have any links to support your claims that a black sounding name is actually weirdness discrimination and not racial?
13
The more I study American history, the more I see the ways systems and structures have evolved to offer advantages to white people and disadvantages to non-whites, but do so in ways that are invisible to those receiving the advantage.
So, from the 1930s through the early 1960s, the federal government could build a strong welfare state and there was a rough consensus to support it as long as it mostly helped white people. In that era, Congress allowed the government to provide FHA loans to build a huge suburban white middle class, as long as the loan arrangements supported redlining and racial segregation. It approved generous GI Bill benefits as long as southern schools were permitted to keep refusing admissions to blacks, who found it far harder to use their benefits. It established a Social Security system but excluded domestic and agricultural workers who were disproportionately non-white.
In other words, America crafted a comprehensive and truly wonderful system for building the middle class and growing intergenerational wealth -- and then largely restricted it to white people whose children now happily say their families earned everything they ever got.
(Disagree? Don't just tell me you don't like hearing it. Provide counter-evidence.)
5
@Bill Camarda ......you win comment of the day! This is exactly what happened!
1
Yes, it is always individuals. It always come down to two people, one of them behaving badly.
My wife is Filipina. When first we moved here to the town in which I grew up, she went out for a walk, to get oriented. Sure enough, she got lost.
She went up to an elderly lady out watering her flowers, on a corner lot. She asked for directions. The lady looked at her a moment, and then turned her back, refusing to give any directions or help.
I knew that lady and that house. She'd been there decades. My wife fortunately had a phone with her, and called for me to come get her. When I did, the older lady was still out watering her flowers. My wife was shook up, not by getting lost, but by the open hostility of that lady.
That is "nice" suburban racism, "defending" real estate values.
16
Just to be fair and balanced, there are a lot of racist black people.
There are neighborhoods where a white person would be taking a risk of bodily harm, simply by walking down the street.
They might be one of the best, most loving people in the world, but no one would even stop to consider that possibility.
By the way, there is no such thing as "reverse racism", just racism.
22
@Raz Do you have any hard evidence to prove your statement? I am white and have never had any fear walking down any street in my hometown. I have walked Hispanic and Black neighborhoods and have always found the people to be friendly and helpful if necessary.
9
@Joseph Wichita sounds nice, but there are plenty of neighborhoods in Baltimore, DC, and NYC where such an experiment would not go as well.
14
@KM
Don't forget LA (where I used to live) and Chicago.
I was riding a bus in Chicago and having a conversation with a very friendly black woman, and I made the comment that I thought Chicago was a friendly town and she told me to stay by the lake and not go west, at least not alone.
13
Jews were forced to wear yellow stars on their chests so that targeting them for their race was easier. I cannot imagine, as a person with light skin, how horribly treated I would be in every phase of life if my skin were dark, and therefore targeting me for my race was easier. And how insane is that?! Shame on us as a country for continuing this horrible nonsense! If we were colorblind this wouldn’t exist! That’s what it is!
5
Just to be fair and balanced, there are a lot of racist black people.
There are neighborhoods where a white person would be taking a risk of bodily harm, simply by walking down the street.
They might be one of the best, most loving people in the world, but no one would even stop to consider that possibility.
By the way, there is no such thing as "reverse racism", just racism.
10
@Raz
Apples and oranges. The article discusses racism in housing. You are not describing racism, you are describing street crimes that can and do affect all people regardless of race.
@Lynn in DC
I'm not talking about street crimes. I'm talking about people hating someone, just because of the color of their skin.
Racism takes many forms, some discriminatory, some violent.
3
It’s even worse than that Mr. Bouie. I recommend you revert back to a feature that appeared in your paper recently that reveals systemic predatory lending in black neighborhoods in Brooklyn. I can assure you, Brooklyn isn’t the only place it’s happening and has been going back decades.
5
True story: White family sells home to black family. Next door neighbor on one side puts up “ No trespassing” signs along his property line.
4
What's more, many white people see black neighborhoods as dangerous and crime ridden. An interesting conclusion until you realize that TV news shows and local newspapers are more prone to showing police mug shots of black criminals more often than mug shots of white criminals.
4
@Stephen Beard
You are correct that some news outlets are bigoted, but the reason Americans have this perception, is an unfortunate reality. Many black neighborhoods are extremely dangerous.
Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other majority black cities have some of the highest crime rates (particularly murder rates) in the first world. This isn't the media playing tricks on naive Americans.
7
@Stephen Beard Mug shots are of people who committed a crime. To edit the mug shots to show only white faces would be dishonest reporting.
2
Years ago I bought a house in Texas. In the closet of the house I found a very thick abstract. In it were pages listing racial and ethnic groups, as well as nationalities, that were excluded from purchasing into the neighborhood. There were 20 or 30 groups listed. I was shocked. The house had been built in the 1940's. I told the realtor I did not want to buy the house if those rules applied to the property. She assured me that there was no need to worry as those "restrictions" had been negated by Civil Rights Act and other legislation. Not long after that, my sister and her husband sold a piece of property in Nassau Co., NY, to a man of Italian heritage who said he had been trying to purchase a house in that particular village for years. Hint: it is really close to West Hempstead. Apparently the same list of "undesirables" from the Texas list was on the Long Island list. I found that if you do a title search of many, many properties across the US, these lists can be found in ledgers of property registry. The history of discrimination is plainly visible. Unfortunately there are many who still wish to abide by the old rules. And, even more unfortunately, there are people in positions of power who want to put those discriminatory rules back into law. We must resist.
12
@chichimax
This was common in the Pacific Northwest also, which has an appalling history of racism and exclusion.
1
Realtors know that it is illegal to "steer" clients or refuse to show property in white areas to any minority. They may lose their license for doing so. BTW, the term Realtor should be capitalized, since it is a registered trademark. There are people selling real estate who are not Realtors, they are simply agents.
If there are persons who "steer" clients, there may be unconscious bias, or they may be acting based on the client's stated preferences.
There is also a systemic bias, for instance, in basic appraisal standards called "Neighborhood conformity". People like to be around other people like themselves. If you've ever walked around Manhattan, you will notice that there are different languages spoken from distinct neighborhoods. It's that polyglot that makes this American nation a great experiment.
Housing is a basic human need, and current gentrification programs and low wages are pushing people into more affordable areas or into homelessness.
We need a serious revamp of our entire approach to housing and availability by policy adjustment to create more affordable housing in order to reduce the crisis of homelessness.
4
@Svendska8: BTW, whether to capitalize the word "Realtor" is controversial. The word had a plain meaning long before an industry group trademarked it. "A person who acts as an agent for the sale and purchase of buildings and land; a real estate agent." I think it's silly, and it looks odd and pretentious, to capitalize the word.
1
Is this supposed to be ironic? Your thesis is the importance of overt acts of racism vis-a-vis structural racism, and yet your entire article is an outline of broad gestures in underlying social mechanisms. This could be taken as a microcosm of our national attempt at a racial discourse that often makes pointed statements supported by suppositions and too much reliance on statistics.
4
As a child in 1940's Chicago apartments for rent columns in the newspapers were openily and blatantly divided between white and colored columns, thus casually assuming that whites and blacks by nature as it were lived separately from each other. In 1960's New York a black friend and I decided to share an apartment. We obtained an apartment only after I, a person of the caucasion persuasion, went alone to the the realtor's office, thereby avoiding any suggestion of race mixing. (Somehow we got away with my taking the lease home for his signature and he didn't need to appear in person. I suppose the ending of "white" and "colored" apartmens for rent columns in the newspapers is, at least, one small piece of evidence that open racism is no longer tolerated. Mere tolerance, however, must grow into genuine acceptance and mutual respect, however, beforewe can say that all men are treated equal.
1
Inspirational piece of writing on a very important topic. Racism is an obstacle in promoting brotherhood and development of societies.
3
This is like telling us the earth isn't flat.Here we go again pretending this is a new revelation.The next shoe to drop is to set up a commission to study this.Racism exist in housing,healthcare,education and employment. Tell us something we don't know please.Long Island has looked like it this for generations. On Long Island discrimination is a way of life.
5
@Steven McCain And yet, and yet, opinion polls declare that a majority of whites believe that racism against blacks is a thing of the past and the current problem is racism against whites.
I am glad that you recognize this current situation is the same as it ever was and yet you feel entitled to be dismayed at being forced to hear it again. That is the essence of white privilege; being aware of the problem but focusing on being annoyed that you have to endure
the necessity to inform others.
@Andrew Elliott
I am not white and was raised on Long Island. I am tired of hearing about something no one ever does anything bout. It does take a column to tell Long Island is segregated. Really great if people would stop assuming about other people.
2
Mr. Bouie, Thank you for raising so well the racist plague in our society, which by the way carries the right-wing to unchecked corruption and abuse of power in the White House, and connivance in the Republican Senate. The only point on which I disagree is with your statement that racial bias "is not as visible as it once was." Wrong. I have comforted three minority women after they reported abusive racial taunts from some white-wing nut. These were vile episodes inflicted upon good, gifted and idealistic young women who have earned respect and kindness in their social relations and who should never, ever have had to face shocking racist episodes. I say this as a 71-year-old (white) man who lived through the '60s, and remember well George Wallace and his ilk. Today it is as bad and it is open and the racists are aided and abetted in various ways by public media that empower the infectious disease of racism in our country. This is a very sad time in America.
5
@Armand Beede
I am your age, and i recall that it was Ronald Reagan who invited the racists out from under their log and into the warm sunlight of social acceptance and validation.
His "gentlemanly" racism --- including launching his campaign from a tragic locus of hate in the deep South to his "welfare queens" and "buck" language transcended even dog whistles and were actually an announcement that proud racists were welcome in the Republican party.
Before Reagan, racists at least concealed their attitudes no matter how they manifested in real life. Racism was something to deny and be ashamed of. But after Reagan, it became respectable, and the consequences were ascribed to minority people themseves.
Reagan presided over a major transition in American social history, in which racim took its permanent and entitled place in the fabric of America rather being treated as a a shameful atavism that we all had a mission to eradicate. I am shocked at how pervasive and persistent it still is. It's like a second demise of Reconstruction. Reagan's shadow is indeed a long one.
2
@Trista : Ms. Trista, You and I see it exactly the same way! Reagan began his Presidential campaign in Philadelphia, and it was not, definitely not in Philadelphia PA, but in the same Philadelphia Mississippi where the Civil Rights workers had been murdered. Trista: Thank you for saying it so well!
1
@Armand Beede
It is not fair to blame the GOP for institutional racism- it was the Democrats that put it all into place......
The 2000 census reported that in Seaford, NY a community on Long Island 99.8% white identified as and 0.31% as African American. By 2010, the black population had risen from 0.31% to 0.48%. And, since more Asian and mixed race families had been admitted to this neighborhood, the percentage of white residents had "plunged" to 95.42%.
This is where Peter King lives, member of a Congress which should have played a role in preventing that sort of segregation. But, at least in King's town, not Congress nor the government on Albany, nor the people and real estate agents of Nassau County did much to put things right in Seaford.
3
Housing discrimination has to be the most insidious but also consequential forms of bias even compared to other forms in our society. Much of America's racial problems can be traced to the fact that too many of us don't reside in integrated neighborhoods, and our white and minority children don't attend the same schools. This failure to integrate socially severely exacerbates the lack of understanding and empathy on the part of white Americans.
The key to a better future for our children and grandchildren is to fight harder to do away with the sort of barriers to social integration in our nation highlighted in this article.
4
Every time I go to LI, it seems nice, beautiful, and clean. The people are friendly enough. I enjoy the restaurants. However, I do not want my kid growing up in racist schools nor do I want the kid exposed to gang mentality. We live in a tough and unjust world.
1
As an LIer myself, I was and still am grateful for the elementary school education I received there. I had small classes in which many racial backgrounds existed. There was no racial nor religious majority in my grade, and making friends with people of color was not a rarity, but a norm. I grew up in that environment and expected it to be common throughout the rest of Long Island. Only when I was older did I learn that this integrated environment came from a private school, and that public schools still largely had overwhelming racial majorities based on the demographics of the school districts.
Racial integration is good for education and quite frankly, helped me to grow up into the person who I am today. To see proof that the LI housing market is actively preventing experiences such as these appalls me. It will lead to children growing up with misguided beliefs and/or inadequate experiences with those of different backgrounds. This deserves our outrage.
4
As an LIer myself, I was and still am grateful for the elementary school education I received there. I had small classes in which many racial backgrounds existed. There was no racial nor religious majority in my grade, and making friends with people of color was not a rarity, but a norm. I grew up in that environment and expected it to be common throughout the rest of Long Island. Only when I was older did I learn that this integrated environment came from a private school, and that public schools still largely had overwhelming racial majorities based on the demographics of the school districts.
Racial integration is good for education and quite frankly, helped me to grow up into the person who I am today. To see proof that the LI housing market is actively preventing experiences such as these appalls me. It will lead to children growing up with misguided beliefs and/or inadequate experiences with those of different backgrounds. This deserves our outrage.
Here is one people may not realize. Doing yard work sometimes I grab a beer. Cops drive by no issue.
My neighbor though was harassed because if his color. Maybe it’s not “correct” to have a beer in your own yard but I’m ignored.
We have a lot of rules like that which our system looks the other way for us folks in the privilege circle and is enforced for those outside it.
This adds up. It’s hard enough in life just imagine if you are constantly being kicked but your reference is the white. I’m just doing what they are doing but for some reason I’m being punished and they aren’t.
5
Over the last few days the polling for impeachment and removal from office has weakened. This is in the face of devastating proof of Trump's bribery, mendacity and corruption. And he is a historically unpopular President.
I read this article talking about racism and attempts to keep minorities out of opportunities for housing. It might as well be the sixties or the seventies. Trump and his father were discriminating against black people and found guilty then. So where are we? Can we ever get what is a majority to put measures for anti-discrimination in place so they can't be averted. What kind of country do we have here? The majority clearly supports this why can't they be energized into using it and stopping what is the downward spiral of democracy we are now witnessing. Is the formula Trump offers of racism, xenophobia and juicing the stock market for people's 401k's enough for people to look the other way and accept it. It sure looks that way.
5
When my family was looking for a house on Long Island last century, a real estate agent told my mom “this area isn’t exactly prestige.” Knowing exactly what that meant, my mom replied “anywhere *I* go is prestige.”
5
I certainly acknowledge that their is racism in the housing system and regrettably, other systems, like that which administers criminal justice.
However, this study is grossly inadequate. To be blunt, I am surprised that this paper would rely on a report which is riddled with anecdotal evidence. So just one white prospective buyer is told about a dangerous area? The realtor surely told other possible buyers of other races of this issue, but with studies predicated on anecdotal evidence, inconvenient (ie incidents which cut against the hypothesis) can be easily omitted. Also, don’t you think maybe we should ask the realtor what he meant by the comment? This is hardly racist.
More important, this part of Long Island is 80 percent white. When you consider 70 percent of American adults are white, this is fairly consistent with the national average. And when you factor in that this community is upper middle class and African Americans are disproportionately poor and thus unable to afford a home, it sounds like this town is just a normal hardworking community, not the Jim Crow South reincarnate.
What the author fails to discuss is that African Americans have a dismally low workforce participation rate and barely 10 percent even graduate from a four year college.
If you controlled for education/income, disregarding race, you would see that the highly educated, regardless of skin color, lived in the same areas. However, that would undermine these preconceived liberal studies
20
Mark—
Right in a way, but why state this point so as to imply that black people don’t deserve to live in Long Island? The reality is more subtle: upwardly-mobile people want to move away from neighborhoods that they perceive—often correctly—as poor and disorderly. This trend furthers the downward forces affecting black neighborhoods, so these demographic trends worsen the situation that the white people are fleeing from. It’s a classic vicious circle.
2
We really needed a three year study to come up with this one? New York City schools are the most segregated in the nation. Long Island has been segregated since I was a child. This is not news it is a way of life on Long Island.Try buying a house on City Island if your not the right color.
2
A white Republican friend recently told me that his neighbors in a vacation community pulled their house off the market to avoid selling it to an African American couple. The neighbor confided that she did not want to upset the community by allowing blacks to move in. A few months later, presumably after the couple had bought elsewhere, the house was up for sale again. My friend was shocked. He had no idea this sort of discrimination still existed. Not sure what rock he has been living under.
5
It's tragic, but the truth is that most white people in the U.S. don't even like to think about nonwhites. They want them to be there when they "need" them for entertainment or unpleasant work, but otherwise, mostly they'd prefer for the whole world to be white, and for the existing nonwhite population just to disappear. Many of the assumptions of white Americans are based on an implicit belief that white people are the majority of the world's population, and so the only "normal" people. These beliefs continue even among people who've been educated to know on a formal level that most people in the world aren't white. We're not even remotely close to overcoming white racism.
1
The republican party does not embrace science and facts. It is obvious that racism in the real estate market is rampant. But 40% of America will do everything they can to prevent anything being done about it.
3
The comments here from many decrying how minorities "chose" to segregate themselves reveals just how little Americans understand about the history of discrimination in the US.
99
@Betty
Can't racial discrimination AND racial/ethnic group affinity BOTH be reasons for segregation? Individuals choose their neighborhood for a variety of reasons. (And don't forget the biggest driver of neighborhood choice: Income and budget.)
8
@Betty
If the thesis here is that white people don't want to live around other groups AND this is accepted without argument why should one not infer that "minorities" as you describe them, would not be equally interested in living among others like themselves? It is a known psychological characteristic off ALL humans that they have an IN GROUP BIAS. This means that it has been scientifically proven that ALL PEOPLE prefer living among those who are more similar to them as opposed to those who are more different.
9
@TRF fully agreed. This is a complicated issue, and one or two factors are never the only factors. My bet: it's a combination of 'active actors' (people actively discriminating), systemic / institutional bias, and so many other factors.
You make a great point too about income & budget being driving factors. When you are a minority and you grow up in an area with higher crime, lower income, and less effective education, your prospects of achieving higher income are diminished. Add into that, that some employers actively discriminate making it even more difficult to achieve higher incomes, and then you end up with a lot of minorities who are financially trapped in the same low-income, high-crime, poor-education neighborhoods from which they came.
This is a vicious cycle that is well proven and documented.
If we're not addressing issues like this, then how can we truly be claiming to make this country great?
2
Wouldn’t it be great if an alien came down and it would be human against alien, no labels, just human vs aliens.
1
Hey Jamelle,
Want to add another category to your list for job discrimination, older folks! I bet we lead in the that category!
10
Racist discrimination such as the acts described in Mr Mouie's opinion is wrong, illegal and must be stopped. Those who perpetrate it must be held accountable. That accountability must cause the perpetrators to lose their professional licenses at a minimum.
No question about it.
The underlying issue of the gulf between quality of life outcomes for blacks and whites is not going to change absent sustained social and cultural change.
As a nation, inclusive of people of color and whites, we have squandered the opportunities created by the decades of civil rights legislation. We have seen the nearly complete destruction of black two parent family structures accompanied by a rapidly changing job market. We have seen an accelerating destruction of white two parent family structure accompanied by the same changing job market.
Neither blacks nor whites in the affected demographic segments appear willing to change their cultural or social beliefs and actions in order to deal with the changes.
Instead, those white segments assume the national averages of crime and educational lassitude associated with blacks will grow in their neighborhoods should blacks move in. Those black segments assume that whites systemically cause all of the social and cultural dysfunction that plague poor black communities.
Change will only come when both focus on the need to stabilize their families, focus on education, work and respect each other.
We're a long way from that.
4
This is nothing new for ADOS/Black people. We've been fighting this for decades if not a century. The one thing that remains constant is the rationalization and justification of housing and racial discrimination by White people. Some will find every reason imaginable and some unimaginable to justify their racism.
3
Realtors absolutely channel the wishes of the seller.
Does not ring true - like so many 'magical' racism studies.
Real Estate agents will sell to anyone with a pulse and a downpayment.
With a limited number of listings and limited number of opportunities every year, the average real estate professional simply wants a quick close and a commission cheque.
20
Too right, of course. But no one is stuck with a realtor. Find one who understands our priorities and be proactive about what you want in a house and in a neighborhood.
It's a buyer's market.
5
Much respect to Mr. Bouie for attempting to illustrate the degree to which an alarming amount of public policy still exists for the manifest purpose of perpetuating inequity.
As for Long Island, I can’t even recall the number of times I’ve been called a liar for trying to explain who Robert Moses was.
1
Dear Mr. Bouie,
These words in your insightful article popped out at me as they are so true: "the deliberate neglect of communities of color by authorities at all levels of government".
By the way, I am a white woman who lives in Hempstead, a minority community in Nassau County. The government officials smile when you confront them with the truth about their neglect, and hope you go away (similar to real estate agents). The only way that change happens is if people organize and protest along with articles like yours and the Newsday investigation. Even then. the powers that be hope that time will make you fade away so that they can go back to "business as usual".
Protest and honest discussion - not easy, but necessary.
4
I live in a highly progressive, diverse community. Our particular neighborhood is all white and very affluent.
When my Black spouse is shoveling our walk, sometimes people ask what his hourly rate is to shovel them out. It is inconceivable to these people that there is a Black person living in their midst (with a graduate degree and a professional job).
129
@Cousy
Or it’s possible that your neighbors might think it inconceivable that a homeowner in an affluent neighborhood...regardless of race or ethnicity... would have the time or inclination to shovel their own walk.
38
@Susanna
You truly can't believe that. Nobody in affluent communities shovel their snow?People can always find a way to explain away racism.
38
@Steven McCain
I grew up in an middle to upper middle-class community on the cusp of affluence. Nobody shoveled their own driveways... rather they hired the job out.
17
“...black job seekers are less likely than white job seekers to (1) know someone at the companies to which they are submitting applications, and (2) have their network mobilize key resources on their behalf, specifically contact an employer on their behalf...”
Why is this? My experience as a white woman in the South is that the segregated churches are to blame for this. In states like Alabama and Mississippi, where white religious organizations like the Southern Baptist Convention could be called “the official state religion,” their influence trickles down into business, industry and state government organizations. While historically black Baptists in these states share the same roots as their white Southern Baptist cousins, and they have a huge influence on African American life and culture, they don’t enjoy the same political power.
So let’s ask the obvious question: why are these churches still racially segregated? Everything else in society has been integrated but the churches. Where does the manager of say, the local hardware store, look for new employees? Church. Implicit bias. As a white person, if you aren’t involved in the church where influential people attend, you’re at a disadvantage in the job market. But you can change churches. But when you’re black? A black person walking into a white Southern Baptist church in rural Alabama? The bias becomes explicit.
Just look at a map of the reach of the Southern Baptist Convention — nearly identical to the Confederacy.
4
I guess it's nice to have scientific studies to back it up, but yeah, you don't have to tell me that there are plenty of racists out there. I can't fathom how anyone believes that equal opportunity exists in America. Even the most conservative Republican ought to be in favor of equal opportunity.
58
@tanstaafl you mean sort of like Republicans are for free and fair election? Why is it that Republicans (not all) keep trying to pass laws that make it harder instead of easier to vote or keep shouting the reason they purge voting records is to combat "voter fraud". Yeah there are probably many (not just Republicans but my guess is majority of those in the group) should be in favor of equal opportunity. In this and many other cases I'd say look at what laws they vote to pass and issues they promote or currently, how blindly they support this corrupt administration. Just the facts......
1
All one needs to get a real estate broker’s license is to pass an exam. No higher education degree necessary, no substantial training in imagination— a necessary component to developing an open and malleable mindset. I wonder how many realtors have read The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein or have even heard of it.
2
I worry much more about misogyny. Racism to me is a trope used to keep women from uniting. Inequality, less pay in the workplace, less respect over all. American blacks in a curious way are in a worse position than African blacks.Sadly, it is American black men of a certain economic status who have most problems.
I also am very concerned about income inequality, the lack of full time jobs with benefits and automation in the private sector. t There are also plenty of poor unprivileged whites out there-- in Appalachia in Scioto County (opioid crisis center of Ohio again in the paper), which used to be a pretty nice place but continues to die, due to the continued nonsense that CEOs have a the function of providing the greatest possible return to their shareholders -- and who have systematically moved all factory jobs out of the US (where there is a minimum wage) to places where they can truly exploit other human beings. Frankly, it's immoral to invest in the stock market, the FED-- the government is a major tool of the market-- offer better interest rates.
How about more bashing capitalism and misogyny IMO talking about racism in the abstract simply is more subterfuge. Meantime, the pillaging of all with certain exceptions mostly the rich and connected of various races, religions, continues.
4
@Auntie Mame
Please feel free to write the article you wish this one was. We can actually deal with more than one issue and racism in employment and housing is NOT trivial either.
@Auntie Mame
“Racism to me is a trope used to keep women from uniting.”
And conquering their evil overlords? Sexism was the first political lever. Race came much later.
1
I don't believe racism is at the heart of this. Brokers are interested in one thing - money. I'm struggling to find a rational explanation for this behavior, but there must be one.
11
Racism in the Long Island housing market? Isn't that a misprint? Shouldn't it read racism in Mississippi or Alabama? Thank you Mr. Jamelle Bouie for this editorial.
When I was growing up in small-town Missouri during the 1960s, racism permeated that community though as a child I was unaware of what racism really was. My best friend was Ogis Davis an African American; we were in the same classrooms together; we played together. Ogis even sold me a ring-neck snake we used to scare the girls with. Years later as adults Ogis told me the C&W Cafe a restaurant on the square in town was segregated; black people like Ogis and his family were refused service there. And growing up I had no idea this was true until my best friend told me so later in life. Yes racism is predominant in America sad to say. We are better than this people. Take an African America out to lunch or dinner. Buy him/her a cup of coffee. Doing so you will make America greater than it already is.
1
When will The New York Times do an expose on the deplorably racist practices of realtors on the island of Manhattan? Try to rent or buy an apartment in NYC if you are black; your income, social/professional status won't get you very far!
3
I think it’s absolutely brilliant that the houses in the picture look like Klan hoods! Anyone else see that?
1
Maybe find a black or Latino real estate agent.
7
Jamelle, thank you for sharing the statistics that reveal what we know, but especially in exposing for some the false lie and idea that everyone and anyone can succeed in America today. The repeated repression cycle and lack of advantages fulfill a need by a society that professes equality and opportunity for some and then continuously supports mechanisms to deny and prevent that same equality and opportunity for groups that are "different" and undeserving as they and their kind are not like us. Are we making progress here? Yes. But that progress is closer to a start than it is to a finish in 2019. In my 64 years as a white male I can see this reality, and although I dislike where we are, the GOP and this POTUS have generously done what they can to bring out the ugly, mean, and un-American people into our view. Our task is to support each other and work for a better America that is a place of equality and opportunity.
5
Is the continuing discrimation an overhang from Jim Crow or from a continuing claim that there has been no change since say 1954? The current discrimination is illegal as it wasn't in before Brown and the Civil Rights Act.
2
There is no way to prove that you weren't hired for some suspect reason. If there were, this over 65 white male with an Ivy-League graduate degree and 20 years of college-level teaching experience would have an actionable complaint. Given my resume, if I were to go by what I "feel" (the criteria in the survey cited here) then I should have open-and-close lawsuits for age-discrimination, gender-bias, and racial-discrimination.
But I don't, for two reasons:
1) Because feelings are subjective, and can be consciously or unconsciously used to rationalize one's own shortcomings.
2) Because In this era where Whiteness itself is suspect in key circles, there is no sympathy for an older, white male who can't get employed in his chosen field--even one with a stellar track record.
If we are going to lodge a broad critique regarding other-than -white bias in hiring, real estate, or whatever else people manage to dig up, and we're going to use statistics, then why use only certain (pro-argument) statistics? If, for instance, the statistics from Maine (>95% white) and Georgia (<60% white) were compared, you'd find very different results in hiring statistics.
I think that articles like this generate more heat than light, relying on accusations which can never be proven. Does the author seriously imagine that the situation would be any different if the racial numbers were inverted? If the US were 12.7% white (2017 US Census) would it be any less "racist"?
It's about human nature.
18
@Allen
Racism is socially and structurally conditioned. It’s not human nature. Even if it were, there’s no excuse for it.
I’m in virtually the same situation you are. White, male, 65+, academic with research and teaching awards, etc.
Easy to understand, however, why a university might not hire a retirement-age, White male, even one with a “stellar” record, when they are trying to diversify, expand perspectives, and invest in new employees for the long haul.
Let’s remember as well that white male academics have benefitted from White Privilege for ages. The patriarchy and a racist society have given enormous advantages to white men for centuries.
Not hiring an aged white male is hardly the same type of discrimination as not hiring a qualified female minority.
We have to recognize there are historical inequities that need overcoming and respect that those from oppressed groups bring to their positions new elements of excellence — different experiences, different perspectives, different knowledge and research interests, better connections with a diversifying student body, etc.
Of course, an even deeper problem is the corporatization and bureaucratization of higher education with the emphasis on money making, numeric metrics, administrators, and hiring low-wage, non-tenure track adjuncts.
Good luck with your job search!
1
@Marty Segune
"Not hiring an aged white male is hardly the same type of discrimination as not hiring a qualified female minority. " It is EXACTLY THE SAME THING!!
4
In my experience, the primary color that motivates real estate agents and just about everyone in business is not black, or white, or brown, or yellow, but green. You make your money by making sales, not by not making sales.
16
@J
Exactly, but your answer that money drives the realtor’s actions does not fit the narrative that racism is everywhere
2
Thank you Mr. Bouie for offering some good insights and recent statistics into the ongoing discrimination faced by African Americans and Latinos. It is good to be reminded that we still have a lot of work to do.
8
@Kris Agree with your comment, but get hung up on the reminder that we have a lot of work to do.
Who has work to be done? Who ensures that it is done, etc., etc.?
Sure, regarding housing, laws can be enforced to curb redlining, and it's hard to disagree with Mr. Bouie's recommendations in his final paragraph.
With more homework than that provided by a realtor, qualified minority buyers can certainly choose to live in predominantly white neighborhoods. That's the market at work.
But the rest of it? Realtors not showing prospective buyers homes in white neighborhoods? Steering white or Asian buyers away from largely African-American or Hispanic neighborhood? How do you address that? There are more than 2 million registered realtors in the US. Do you think training will make a dent in how they do business? As someone pointed out here, realtors are in business to make their 6% commission, not engage in social change or engineering.
It will be interesting to see how things change as the demographics shift from a majority white population in roughly 20 years.
I do wonder how much of the housing issue is more about wealth than about race?
On the housing side, I'd be interested in the experience of Mr. Bouie and other successful African-Americans and Latinos in their home searches and how it may have changed, for better or worse, over the past 10-20 years. This would be anecdotal, of course, but it might provide additional insight.
Good column.
2
I believe that, today, social divisions are more the result of economic divisions, as opposed to racial. Human nature is such that people generally feel more comfortable living amongst like-minded others...and these days, that suggests either level of education, profession, or income...regardless of race or ethnicity.
We live in an upscale enclave, but we’re not nearly as wealthy as our neighbors. We don’t golf and we’re not members of their ‘club’. Many of them are neither welcoming nor friendly towards us...but it has absolutely nothing to do with race and everything to do with money, honey.
35
@Susanna
For some reason people will do anything to deny that racism is a real thing. The class argument is a favorite of these people.
1
My mother who is white, now deceased, used to do this same kind of testing in Dallas Texas in the 1970s. It is sad to see that the same discrimination is still going on. And being a Realtor myself, it is hard to believe a Realtor would say “ that’s the wrong side of the river” In my opinion that realtor should lose their license.
29
Part of the problem is the conventional way that real estate agents intermediate the housing markets. Consumers should be empowered to see any housing they want without having to be exposed to this bias.
The place to start is with reforms to a very flawed marketplace, that gives little power to consumers.
17
You must have slept through the emergence of the many web/mobile apps (zillow, streeteasy, too many to name) that have completely transformed house hunting from an agent-led activity to buyer-led activity. Agents are a dying species.
6
I think if you were not Chinese and trying to live in Flushing, you may have trouble with realtors there. If you are not Afro-Caribbean and want to live in St. Albans or Springfield Gardens (all of the places I've named are in ethno-nationalist Queens) - forget it.
Realtors cannot be part of that game - but at the same time: try living in a hasidic building in hasidic neighborhood, and not be hasidic.
Of course, realtors have to be fair. I can say, from my own personal experience: green, and great credit, and a clear "google" history - is the stuff that matters way above anything else.
14
@tbs
So your argument is that other ethnicity groups are racist too, and in your experience there is no racism...
Like most all social ills, racism is both systemic and individual. The realtor who channels whites to a white neighborhood, or quietly refuses to show homes to a family of color is in a tradition of long-standing social prejudice -- but is also making an individual choice to include or exclude, which is a moral decision each and every time.
When we moved to Atlanta several years ago, our realtor immediately steered us (we are white) to an upscale, almost exclusively white part of the city. Atlanta has some great features. It is publicly touted as diverse and black-friendly, but is also broken into largely black or white geographical sections, though there are some great neighborhoods where that is changing.
We had to talk very hard to be shown houses farther from Buckhead (wealthy and white) where we could have a larger home (three young children then), in a more diverse neighborhood, where we ended up living.
Racism cannot be eliminated. But simply defining it as systemic avoids the harsh reality that individual human beings comprise that system -- and the individuals who hold the power are obligated to do something about it.
31
I've discussed housing discrimination with a few realtor friends, and there's another side of this that at least needs to be acknowledged.
Realtors make their living through commissions. They are not public servants providing a public service for a salary.
In practice, realtors learn that most buyers ultimately choose a house where their own racial/ethnic group is the majority, if not exclusive, group. So, not wishing to waste their own time going through a futile process, they show folks homes their experience teaches them are likely to be bought.
Of course, realtors run into clients who expressly state a preference for a diverse neighborhood, or who expressly state they are looking for a home in a location where they will be a minority. Most realtors are perfectly happy to show people what they say they are looking for. Money talks.
So, a realtor need not be consciously bigoted, or even indifferent to racial issues, to steer clients towards homes that reinforce, rather than disrupt, our racialized housing patterns. Realtors are responding to the market, the wishes of the majority of their clients, and their own self-interest in earning a living.
If we want to change racialized housing patterns, we need to make public investments, not scapegoat salespeople simply trying to earn commissions.
73
@Sam I Am
My impression from the article was that there were realtors who refused wishes of the minority testers, which I think differs from what you have mentioned here, which sounds more like an assumption based on personal experience and implicit bias.
39
@Natalie agreed. Rather than making stereotyped assumptions and steering, a broker/agent (I’ve been) should merely ASK their clients’ desires and do all they can to fulfill them: that’s their JOB, as is showing more than one or two properties. It can take varying lengths of time for clients to learn market realities. A broker/agent’s responsibility is to their clients’ best interests, not their own.
19
@Natalie
I don’t believe realtors do anything that may affect their ability to make $
3
I work in a human resources department -- close to 2,000 employees to track. I have nothing to do with hiring/firing, only data. Right now 4.5% of our staff is African/African-American. That's the highest it's ever been, and it got here only after a concerted effort to bring in Black and Latino employees (the Latino numbers are better - but relegated disproportionately to more menial jobs).
So, to say "...Black and white job seekers receive job leads from their social networks at similar rates..." strikes a chord. Here's how I've seen this work over the years.
A senior administrator, white, is involved in his church's activities. A couple in his church (also white) have fallen on hard times, down-sized out of jobs, jobs eliminated by the new, internet-driven economy, etc. Our administrator has this couple come in to apply for work, and on his recommendation, they are hired. The couple have taken a pay cut, but they've got good, secure jobs. They had zero experience or qualifications, still, give them credit, they learned. However, I could throw a stone from where I'm sitting at work and almost reach a predominately Black enclave. Nobody in that community has the connections to get this "hand up." Getting job leads at similar rates means very little. I've seen what I describe above happen a lot, over the course of more than 20 years.
137
I left Long Island (Nassau County) around 30 years ago and moved to the Triangle area of NC. I am saddened, but certainly not surprised to learn about the Newsday investigation. Apparently nothing much has changed. It was an entirely different experience here in NC. I never felt the "temperature change" I felt on LI when looking for an apartment. Here you can buy and rent anywhere that you can afford.
In terms of jobs, yes, networks matter but I suspect that when confronted with multiple applicants for a job, nebulous things like "she fits in with our office better" or "he seems to have the [insert some vague term]" that we need are used in hiring decisions. The reason may indeed be race, but we often do not acknowledge our own biases. The answer is to deliberately choose to hire the "other". People have to be active in changing discrimination.
11
Are the names of the agents listed? They should all be referred to their "professional" organization for censure or worse.
On second thought, the publicity just may actually aid in their finding new clients.
5
Shameful practices by the real estate agents. To be fair, and scientifically accurate, the following needs to be noted:
1) Newsweek is not a neutral arbiter conducting a study, their editorial board is significantly left of the populace and thus they are biased towards making the conclusions of this study
2) Disparate treatment is a fairly subjective endpoint, what's important is did this disparate treatment prevent a race neutral purchase of houses?
By comparison, in the Harvard lawsuit, the systemic bias against Asians has caused a large disparity in their actual admission rate Leaving aside whether this attempt at diversity is appropriate or not, one can objectively say that Harvard's bias has hurt the Asians. In this study, we have no such clear conclusion. There certainly was a bias in the showing of properties, but how did this affect the actual purchases?
22
I get the structural and inherent challenges argument made here and don't dispute its validity. Yet, in my business, which is financial services, diversity and inclusion has never been more important and valued. We literally cannot find enough candidates of color and those who we do find now have a leg up on other candidates because of the value being placed on diversity. I can't speak for every other firm, but I can say with conviction that demand is high and competition is fierce for those candidates. It's a sign, at least to me, that the structural and inherent challenges are breaking down, to some degree.
16
@John
I'm so glad to read this. I'm public librarian and our Anti-Racism Task force was instrumental in our decision to remove overdue and processing fines, because we found that it disproportionately disadvantaged patrons of color. Our city has an ugly history of redlining and so people of color were kept in specific neighborhoods and now are less likely to be financially secure, even generations later, as opposed to white homebuyers who were able to build wealth in other neighborhoods. It's all connected.
11
@Natalie
It disadvantaged people who are poor, not any particular race. And really it did not disadvantage anyone as I am assuming it worked like all libraries do and it was free until something was overdue.
2
My wife and I - both white, both professionals with advanced degrees - bought a house recently in South Bend, Indiana.
The location may seem a bit more significant than it usually would, given our Mayor's presidential aspirations.
As we were driving around town with our realtor, I looked across the St. Joseph river (that the town is named after) and asked if we were going to look at houses over there. Without a trace of awkwardness, she told us that that neighborhood was on "the wrong side of the river." My wife and I looked at each other. What in the world did *that* mean?
Of course, a few second later, it dawned on us: black people.
We have since learned that, around here, and I'm sure in many other places around the country, neighborhood chat-groups / email-lists etc are often dominated by panic-posts that boil down to "I saw a black person walking down the street."
I've had black canvassers come to my door for school board elections, and when they realize that our home has changed ownership, I can tell the conversation immediately goes into "triage" on the off-chance I'm about to bark at them like a lunatic.
What is most striking about South Bend is that people here think this is normal. Maybe they're not wrong, but it certainly wasn't normal to us. It makes you wonder how many places take this sort of thing for granted.
(Also, the Mayor's relationship to this context is not easily summed up)
58
@Anonymous Is that racist? It's a known fact that there are 'bad parts' in most cities/towns. Those are areas with known high rates of crime. Whether or not those are directly correlated with people of a certain race I think can be tracked down. I don't think pointing out bad parts of town are racist and that's the annoying thing with people's thinking. Everything needs to be couched in racial terms.
5
I did a paper in college in 1961, about housing discrimination. At that time there was already proof in studies by Urban Institute and others, of "red-lining", a 60's term for discrimination by banks in giving out mortgages; and "steering" by realtors. How sad that very little has changed, despite some changes in law.
I blame this on stubborn "Jim Crow" attitudes, still very much present in both north and south. I believe these attitudes will destroy our country.
Shame on us.
12
As someone with a name that for some crazy reason reads black to HR, (though to be fair my education adds to this belief) I totally believe this.
And when we first searched for houses only a realtor who was intent on keeping to the letter of the law showed us houses in the more hispanic neighborhood that was near the train, others kept pushing us out into the suburbs further from the train (which had been a dealbreaker). So I believe that too.
4
Mr. Bouie - Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world. While the ecosystem has undeniably improved over the last 50 years thanks to the efforts of many visible leaders like King Jr., Nelson Mandela and others who are invisible but play just as important a role, implicit bias still persists. Just as unfortunately, i don't see that going away any time soon.
Let me give you a very recent example of implicit bias where nobody cared and even the African American community thought it fit that such a practice continue to exist because the bias, in this case, works in their favor. I am talking about the decision by certain Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale to limit the number of admissions provided to kids of Asian heritage (China, India, Korea, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Japan etc).
While the example might sound elitist, many do not justifiably or unjustifiably care whether your child made it into Harvard or not regardless of the reason, it still illustrates a point where privileged America (the Ivy Leagues) made a rather bold assertion about being exclusionary and it seems that everybody except the victims, the Asian community, seemingly and simply shrugged it off.
However, had that decision by the Ivy Leagues included a decision to exclude kids from the African American or the Latino community, then i can almost bet that many would be up in arms about it.
Thoughts ?
35
@Plato
I see your point, but the difference between the Ivy League problem and the housing problem is that the Ivy League schools seem to be trying to balance the student body in terms of ethnicity, prospective majors, specialized talents, ability to pay (at some colleges, at least), etc. We can argue until the cows come home about whether that's a worthy goal, but there it is. In the process, Asian students whose applications are certainly strong enough for admission end up excluded. In an upside-down world where Latinx students were becoming an overwhelming majority at Harvard, I'd like to think that there would come a point where some otherwise eligible Latinx students would be excluded.
Housing discrimination is different -- it's aiming for all-or-nothing. Let's get all the white people in one area, and all the brown people in another. The "merit" in question should simply be your ability to pay for the property, yet even if you're able to pay for a house, you'll be steered away from it if you don't "fit in" with the community. Some communities (Maplewood, NJ, for instance) have tried to maintain certain percentages of different races. I don't know whether that has been successful, but it's a little bit similar to what universities are doing when they form their freshman class.
7
@Reader - Wrong ! Harvard's exclusion is based on precisely the same arbitrary perceptions of people that Jamelle is arguing about is wrong. Their (Harvard's) argument is that Asian kids are not socially adept. It is not that admitting more deserving Asians somehow reduces the diversity mix of the schools. If the latter were the case, then they would be working toward admitting fewer Caucasians or fewer Jewish kids.
Jamelle's second point, although implicit, is that we are an Equal Opportunity society, i.e. everybody gets a fair shot. In ruling against Asian kids, the Ivy Leagues in essence said that such kids DO NOT get a fair shot whatever the merits of their resume. Imagine the uproar if Harvard said it would restrict admissions to people who are Jewish.
I am not saying that maintaining an ethnic mix in our schools / resident communities / workplace is right or wrong. Instead i am observing that engaging in social engineering, even if it is to achieve an ostensibly good outcome, is fraught with peril.
Secondly, i am expressing a profound disappointment with the lot of you that did not step up to the plate when Harvard said that the likes of my son might be overlooked simply because he is of Asian origin. Instead, you are simply arguing it away as a non-issue. Why ? Because it is the fashion of the day to argue for some while ignoring others?
9
@Plato
Stop complaining. Recent statistics for Harvard admissions are that Asians make up 25.4% of students accepted for the class of 2023. That doesn't sound like exclusion to me considering that Asians make up about 6.9% of the U.S. Population. African Americans would be dancing in the streets of they had those kind of statistics either in housing for desirable areas, good jobs, or college acceptance. Asians need to stop whining and be willing to share the fat. I say this as a person who is part Asian.
7
Three years ago, I hired a Realtor to help me find and purchase a house in my favorite city neighborhood. She sent me listings in other city and suburban neighborhoods. In the end, I used an app to find my house and demanded she show it to me, which she did. (Probably realized it was the only way she was going to get a commission.)
This past summer, I learned that my neighborhood was redlined in the 20th century. I had no idea what that was -- had to read the newspaper article that accompanied the map. I love my house and my neighborhood. How sad this bias still exists in subtle ways.
10
There is always a superstar person. The one who through crazy hard work, tremendous luck makes it out of their circumstance. Barack Obama is one. The problem with "ones" is that person is pointed to and is the "see, if he did it, you can, too."
But the "one" theory doesn't hold up. As this article points out, there are forces applied against people -- usually, but not always against minorities -- that prevent progress. No matter how hard this person works, he won't break through. The data support that conclusion.
As a person who is now in a job because of his network, I know that networks matter more than ability. There are a lot of equally qualified people who applied, but I KNOW that I'm in the job because of my contact.
As Mr. Bouie points out, networks matter. Getting into a network takes more than leaning in, it takes being invited in, too. And minorities are not invited in.
To every liberal or non-racist thinking person I ask this question: when have you had a person of another ethnic group to your home for dinner? Or vacationed with them?
25
This is common practice all over our society for propaganda. How many rich people tell us they started with nothing and worked their way up? As far as I can tell all of them. The justification for income inequality even to the absurd levels that people earn thousands of dollars a minute because they “work” so hard.
3
Nice column, imporant issue, and great columnist, and I'm not pooh-poohing the racism is Long Island, but I can't help but notice the Bouie doesn't even try to make a case for the central claim of the piece, namely that these inequities are the result of conscious, deliberate racism rather than institutional, implict or unconscious bias. None of the examples he presents give much reason to suppose that conscious racism rather than implicit bias is at work. In particular, consider the final example: "black job seekers are less likely than white job seekers to (1) know someone at the companies to which they are submitting applications, and (2) have their network mobilize key resources on their behalf, specifically contact an employer on their behalf." How could whether or not you already know someone at the companies to which you are submitting an application possibly be due to conscious racism at those companies--they don't even know you!
Given the importance of the issue I think that Bouie should a) look inward and have a think about why he wants it to be the case that overt racism is at work, b) think about why it would be important, how it would advance the debate, and so on to recognize its importance, and c) come up with a real argument and some evidence that overt racism is more important than implicit bias. That would be an interesting column.
12
Mediators like Realtors and their agents are deeply manipulative. They validate themselves by exactly the kind of steering you suggest. Sure the bias here might be racism, but the goal is greed, to serve the market-shaping play of the local realtors. The same is true of HR (who like to think they are following company culture), bank loan officers, and business dealmakers.
In all these cases, there's collusion to maintain market power, and they adopt rules of exclusion to maintain that power, mainly focused on identifying people who will go along and not be trouble. Anyone unique or different will not pass the filter; assertiveness is permitted only when filtering for beta's, whose job is to hold the line against others.
In real estate, there's a simple solution: be assertive. See any property you want and make a better offer; never commit to a buyer's agent until you're sure they're yours. It is extremely rare that the seller rejects a better offer.
Unfortunately, there is no such solution for business loans and deals or getting a job. Getting a job is getting better (because laws), but having a job is not the path to success for anyone in the last few decades. Business loans and deals have no such protections.
The vast majority of wealth is held as real estate or stock; wages are a tiny proportion. Until the mediators are driven out of the markets and monopoly/monopsony power beaten back, racism will continue to play a role.
4
@we Tp But the point of racism itself is greed (ie. I'm going to make a lot of money with slaves and then later with underpaid sharecroppers and servants) so I'm not sure what you mean in this distinction.
This could be an unfortunate happenstance, I guess.. Or it could be (at least on Long Island) a deep seated form of tribalism that dates back to the ethnically polarized NYC neighborhoods of the 1800’s, or the ‘old world’ where they came from. One hundred years ago, an Irish girl would be forbidden and publicly shamed if she married an Italian (or Jew, or Pole, etc.). Everyone lives together in NYC, but within their own separate areas (Yorkville was German, the Lower East Side was Jewish, Bensonhurst was Italian, Greenpoint was Polish, etc.). Everyone lived by the rules and knew what they were. All the large industrial cities of the northern US (Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago) had a similar arrangement.
And then, beginning with the Great Depression and post-war era, a mass migration of black and Hispanic workers moved into northern industrial cities looking for jobs and upended the ethnic balance these cities had developed. Seemingly overnight, old bastions of ethnic neighborhoods were cast aside as the new economic migrants moved near to or in their neighborhoods totally upending the old rules. Panic ensued, and the great “white flight” of the 1960’s and 1970’s commenced. There was a mass migration to the suburbs by the old neighborhoods (Manhattan and the Bronx went to Westchester and points upstate; Brooklyn and Queens went to Long Island). Resentment and nostalgia for the “stolen” old neighborhoods was passed down as a life lesson to future generations.
9
@FitBit
Yeah, but the realtors and lenders aren't acting to keep Italians, Irish or other whites out. This argument is pure red herring in nature.
Education is the only solution to discrimination and the reason may be a surprise to many. Few people seem to understand that 98% of our thinking is unconscious. We were born this way from evolution, so it is automatic, unconscious "thinking". A survival mechanism that should surprise nobody. If you were living in cave 20,000 years ago, your species had to be awfully paranoid in order to have survived the previous 200,000 years or so. You'd be afraid of anyone that did not look exactly like you. We inherited that basic fear. Yes, conscious hatred exists today, but the vast majority is unconscious. Since we were born this way, there is little that can be done about it except education. We need to be taught every year in middle school and forward why we think the way we do. It may take generations, but it is faster than evolution.
6
Diversity, equity, and inclusion training is not just done as a one-off and is not something solely relegated to the 'C-suite.' It takes a concerted/purposeful and strategic plan of programming (in perpetuity) intended to continually immerse employees (at all levels) with each other and build a deeper bucket of equity through inclusion/immersion. DEI, as a 'hand-out' done once at orientation, does nothing at all. Even organizations that work in a gig/independent contractor economy should see it's 'non-employees' undertake continuous DEI training. Localities and municipalities should create ordinances and regulations that form the structure in-which DEI is a requirement of a business.
5
@Kurtis Edwards Forced DEI unenforceable. If localities and municipalities created ordinances and regulations that form the structure in-which DEI is a requirement of a business they would be found unconstitutional. But as a practical matter, it's a stupid idea. I have a friend who has a small Tech company in Silicon Valley. The overwhelming majority of the people doing computer coding are either Asian, Indian or Filipino. This is common at a lot of small tech companies. Mandating DEI training would be totally absurd in this situation. Even worse it would a terrible waste of time. This issue if it is indeed a serious issue will work itself out over time.
2
Majority (or "majority") ethnie in every and any society are, always have been, and always will be --- dominant.
We don't have to cherish this human trait, but it is one of the many ingredients of democracy.
5
@boroka "Ingredient of democracy"? What is your basis for that statement? Surely the democratic project is about rising above our worst selves, not simply sighing and blaming some deterministic ideas about biology.
Sadly, yes. Each of of us can start by acknowledging this reality and changing our individual behavior.
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He is talking about structural not individuals. It’s part of the machinery not driven by a specific individual and not really changeable by an individuals actions alone.
I had a sales agent tell me once, many years ago when I was looking for an apartment, that I would fit in perfectly in their building because I was white. Walked out and did not rent an apartment there. As long as there is a profit motive in maintaining property or rental values, sales agents are going to try and manipulate their territories so in the long run they do not lose money. The underlying bias is that minorities dampen property values. I live in a racially diverse neighborhood and this has simply not been the case. What destroyed our property values was banks, and their profit-driven sales people and real estate agents, giving out mortgages to anyone who had a pulse. Of course the banks got bailed out, and we are all left with destroyed property values. I survived, but believe me, when the foreclosure crisis hit it affected everyone.
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Choosing housing is your choice, not theirs. They are there to open the door because they have the key code.
Yes, real estate agents profile. That’s how they make their living.
They profile you from first contact until they hand you the keys. They want a sale fast and easy. They want you to buy the most expensive house you can afford, with zero effort on their part.
When that is your business model, that is the result you get.
Should real estate agents take it upon themselves to take a different approach? Maybe. There may be money to be made with an upfront policy of “This Agency is focused on integrating housing.” I am sure tons of woke people would use their services, it could be another virtue-signaling commercial service.
A worthy endeavor perhaps.
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@Revoltingallday Most of the agents I know and have used want to do exactly what you mention: the least amount of work required for the fastest sale. I had to call an agent off the golf course once when we had a showing.
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Thank you for drawing our attention to this story.
The left would be much more effective if they could clarify distinctions between various kinds of structural vs attitudinal racism. Many Republicans simply tune out when they feel accused of racism or “privilege” because they (incorrectly) assume they are being accused of conscious personal animus toward others, and it makes them, understandably, angry. Highlighting specific cases like this is more powerful.
I also think that you can’t separate racism, structural or not, from economic injustice. Extreme economic inequality is built into our laws & policies, and its perpetuation of poverty & wealth will reflect existing racial divisions in that regard, whatever peoples’ attitudes are. But by attacking racism without attacking the laws & policies that make white people, as well as people of color, disadvantaged, we poison the dialogue we want to foster.
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@Martin
Excellent, thoughtful comment.
@Martin
The left is also late to the discussion - as in MIA - on the unacceptable endemic racism, misogyny and homophobia within black and latino and Asian populations in America, while paintball splattering all whites with those biases.
Welcome to why many whites have for 40 years of fois gras-like stuffing of identity politics down the throats of the nation, hold their nose and vote not necessarily for Republican candidates but against Democrats in local, state and national elections.
::not holding breath::
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It's an advantage to be a member of the majority demographic group in all nations, not just the United States.
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@William Case This is certainly true to some degree, but to use this as a reason to overlook our particular history of slavery and Jim Crow is lazy and toxic, and damages our democracy and our communities. You can understand a thing is true and also work to change it, and that if you don't, you are just enabling MORE racism, MORE inequality, MORE hatred.
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@William Case: I'm sure that was the case in South Africa.
NOT.
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@William Case People in South Africa, Iraq, Syria and Rwanda, among others, disagree with you.
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It seems clear to me that this action identified specific realtors that engaged in illegal activities in their business methods. So, where is the list of those realtors? Do we have access to the penalties and fines imposed on them?
People accused of crimes such as breaking and entering or fraud are routinely named in the press when arrested -before they are convicted.
So, let's have the media begin naming those who have been shown to violate the rights of our friends and neighbors whose right to buy the house they want and can afford have been routinely and deliberately violated.
These are not 'white collar' crimes; they are crimes that speak directly to our stated American values and cannot be tolerated or ignored.
I for one need to see the names of these realtors so I can be sure to never list my property with them.
c
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@jb I think this is what you are looking for: https://projects.newsday.com/long-island/real-estate-investigation-results/
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@jb
That would be insane to list their names if they haven’t been charged with a crime.
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@jb It's in the original article from Newsday.
This is indeed a problem, but legal enforcement is not solution. The investigation itself notes that they could not prove anything illegal. And except for the one realtor who made racial comments, it's hard to tell whether this disparity was explicit discrimination or just implicit bias (e.g. it seems quite possible that the realtor who was asking blacks for more financial verification was subconsciously stereotyping blacks as poor without consciously thinking about race). And nobody wants to feel like they are on eggshells, the law watching their every step.
I think most people are acting in good faith, and it is a far better practice to teach people ways to set up their dealings to reduce racial bias. For example, when you sell a house, you can just give it to the highest-bidding buyer without paying attention to the buyer's identity. You can develop an online service for minorities to easily look at housing themselves, bypassing brokers entirely. You can have anti-nepotism policies at work. You could hire based on tests that don't ask for applicant names but only identifies each applicant by number (and research shows that tests are better at predicting future job performance in many jobs than human interviewers anyway).
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Redlining and steering were outlawed by the 1968 Fair Housing Act, but it hasn’t really been enforced.
The persistence of housing segregation despite an increasingly diverse population is a testament to it.
We saw the same discriminatory results with the job-hunting experiment a few years ago, when they sent identical resumes with different names to hiring managers (Emily vs Lakisha, Brett vs Jamal)
Anti-discrimination laws can’t change people’s bigoted hearts, but they are completely meaningless without enforcement... making them purely symbolic.
On racial discrimination, it’s always been “Wolf in the South, Fox in the North” indeed.
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We have the tools to reduce racial discrimination in the housing market but we have failed to use them. Why?
I was once a board member of a not for profit called The Open Housing Center. It's mission was to conduct tests, similar to the one done by Newsday and refer cases to state and local civil rights enforcement agencies.
The Federal Fair Housing law is unique among our civil rights statutes because testing evidence is allowed and has been fully accepted by the courts.
The goal of testing wasn't only to target biased landlords on behalf of clients victimized by discrimination. Funds were available to do education for brokers and landlords and follow up studies to insure that bad actors didn't return to their old ways.
But funding became scarce and eventually they went out of business. But the discrimination continued.
Republican administrations defunded the not for profits arguing that they could do a better job with HUD.
Democrats offered some funding, but not enough. The real estate industry is powerful and spends lots of money on political campaigns and Democrats were reluctant to stir up too much mud in their own districts.
People of color in greater New York have for years been left to fend for themselves and this study shows the shameful result.
History tells us there will be a flurry of government activity and then things will return to normal. And normal means lots of good rhetoric, but not enough money to make civil rights protection a reality.
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Too many see social programs as more giveaways but fail to recognize or acknowledge current and past disparities rob many minorities of wealth. Our school districts are funded through property taxes and have keep most minorities in grossly inadequate schools, and this dilemma is a vicious circle that is rooted in years of discrimination. Education is often the path to end poverty yet we continue moving forward in the same manner. African Americans are four times more likely to serve jail time for the same offenses; young live spirals down from there and rarely recovers. Our moral compass is set at a very young age and often influenced by the diversity around us or lack of. Yes it can change but only through 'significant emotional events' that shapes you going forward. What changes most often is your awareness of the need to say things differently using Dog Whistles and such, or just simply refusing to face the truth or become aware of our history; see Republican Party, Fox News, Rush, Laura, plus. Republicans are not alone and it is rarely about what is good for America, but what is good for me.
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@MT Almost every state in the union has top up funds for poor school districts. Many large cities have per-pupil budgets higher than swank suburbs. The results are still dismal, and no loving parent would send their kids to those schools if they had another option. Throwing money at schools won't magically fix them, it's been tried and failed, since schools can't make up for terrible parenting. You should abandon easily-disproven talking points.
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@KM There is throwing more money at schools and then there is educating children. Your argue seems to suggest we can't figure out how to do the latter. Schools should be tailored to the needs of the community and children. If you think this is too expensive, look at the 'child' years later when we happily invest in our prisons. Unions are a big obstacle but partly because we look to teachers as the lone solution; police unions work the same way. We have 'broken parents' and we expect them to magically figure this out when they have children. Our world reaps the benefits of educated children but the opposite is also true.
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@MT I'm fully in favor of children being educated. How do you propose we do that? The only thing you suggested was throwing money at the problem, which has been tried and accomplishes nothing. Look up the Abbott schools in NJ or the Kansas City schools decision if you don't believe me.
2
What's been pointed out by this article is that most of the people selling real estate are white. I'm really not sure why that is but I note that President Trump himself was sued by the Nixon Administration because his apartment complexes had something like 1% of tenants who were non-white.
My regard for the real estate profession that while many in that industry are loathsome people, there are some out there who are fair-minded and honest (sort of the reverse of my regard for the police). Just look at what the real estate industry, and its "partner in crime" (although it is often literally that), the banking industry, has done for the country. The Great Recession was largely the result of greedy real estate deals that should have never been made. There seems to be a high correlation between wealth created in real estate and low ethical standards, so I regard it as a credit to people of color that they have largely avoided the real estate professions but perhaps that should change; more people of color should become licensed realtors. I In the process of purchasing 2 pieces of real estate in my life--I'm 58--I had to endure an inexhaustible crowd of people who for the most part seemed to be making things up as they went along, so there's room for people who take it seriously, do their homework and act professionally.
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What we are experiencing--and have since Reconstruction--is a "genteel" form of Jim Crow. America has never outgrown its structural racism; the system was designed as a giant "keep out" sign, in both the North and the South. And in every direction in between.
For much of my life, it was convenient to beat up on the South. It had the black eye and living history of segregation and the public opprobrium of disapproval while enjoying the quiet, secret approval of those whose words and deeds deliberately said otherwise.
In my native Boston, the social upheavals of neighborhoods and schooling and housing and policing mirrored those of Birmingham, Alabama. The red-lining in Boston was as direct as the practices in the South. Philadelphia and Chicago and Los Angeles were--and are today--no different.
It doesn't begin with local politicians who have favors to hand out. Governors and Congressional delegations and presidents have all, in their own way, contributed to the perpetuation of a segregation that been America's lifeline since the end of Reconstruction. Who, today, thinks that Dr. Ben Carson, Donald Trump's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, is alive to--or is even aware of--the imbalances of advantage and disadvantage in employment and housing as to constitute its own raison d'être?
Are there enough Americans of good will to begin to try to arrest the slowly-turning wheel is is what America is all about? I have my doubts, "Christian" country that we are.
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@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18 Very sagacious comment! All I am asking for as an African-American is for honesty and transparency regarding how rigged the political economy in the United States is. All the socio-cultural advancements are important, but are rendered inefficient by systematic oppression in the U.S. economy. caused by redlining, predatory lending, etc.
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@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
It should start with the church. Why should there be different churches for different races? Are there Jesus of different races?
2
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18 Good post, but I have to comment, since I grew up in Boston, that the Red Sox team whose logo you sport has its own very racist history. Recently Pumpsie Green, the first Black player on the Red Sox passed away out here in Oakland, where Pumpsie lived. I could be wrong, but I'd guess a lot higher percentage of Oakland A's fans knew of Pumpsie's place in baseball history than did Red Sox fans. The Red Sox were the last team to integrate, and that legacy died hard. My point is, you might think about dumping the logo.
I'm often in the company of Black people, and I pretty much cringe every time a Black person hears me talk and asks where I'm from. The history of the 1970's busing "crisis" is well-known among all Black people. And calling it a "crisis" is a sort of literal white-washing of what happened.
Back to the Red Sox, to his credit, Bill Lee was one of, if not the only, white athlete in Boston who spoke out against the racist attacks on Black children back in that period.
Networks are everything. It still took my (white male) son 7 months to find a job. It took knowing someone to get in the door. Finally.
It's sad to still hear of employment and housing discrimination. I heard it first hand 32 years ago. The dentist dismissed a call from a hygienist answering an employment ad, saying "she sounded black." And I don't think most people understand how devastating redlining was to generations of African Americans.
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