Headlines and History - Oct. 18, 2020

Deborah Barfield Berry and Kameel Stanley wrote in the USA Today article “In New Jersey’s Most Segregated County, Racism and Coronavirus Made a ‘Vicious Circle,’” “Housing segregation made Essex County ripe for the virus’s spread, dozens of public health experts, community activists, researchers and housing advocates said...Today, Essex County is home to some of the most segregated and impoverished communities in the U.S., where some residents jam together in cramped apartments, multi-generational homes and housing projects. This reality, experts and local officials say, has contributed to an alarmingly high number of the county’s Black and brown residents catching the virus and dying from COVID-19...The pandemic laid bare inequalities that still exist, including segregation and overcrowded housing...Housing is one of the primary social determinants of health, experts said, and homeownership is the primary driver of wealth. ‘COVID was never the great equalizer,’ said Michellene Davis, executive vice president and chief corporate affairs officer at RWJBarnabas Health, a network of independent health care providers in New Jersey. ‘It was the great magnifier. And so it has been magnifying inequity, lack of access, health disparity, all of it.’”

In the Forbes article “History and Housing Discrimination: Why Neighborhoods in the United States are Still so Segregated,” Rakeen Mabud unpacked the history of racism in housing. She explained, "Housing discrimination is not new. Racialized housing, especially for Black Americans, goes back to the institution of chattel slavery, and remained a part of the post-emancipation legal reality. Federal housing policies in the New Deal enabled discriminatory mortgage lending practices called 'redlining' that facilitated segregated neighborhoods, all while also subsidizing builders to build communities that expressly excluded Black homebuyers. The practice of redlining continues to this day - as the result of the Newsday audits make clear - even though it's no longer legal. The United States' historical policy choices have created a society that accepts - and at some level expects - discriminatory behavior in the housing market. If federal policies had not sanctioned this kind of behavior with policies like redlining, American society may be less complacent with the same kinds of outcomes today.”

Our present is intertwined with and informed by our past. We must understand the history that shapes our headlines to make progress for the future.

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