Wealthy Black Families Still Suffer Segregation Fed Study Says | Hacker News Reader

Wealthy Black Families Still Suffer Segregation Fed Study Says

bloomberg.com

5 pointsnewscasta4 comments

>Some wealthy Black families still live in U.S. neighborhoods with relatively low incomes and high rates of unemployment, suggesting other factors such as housing discrimination are at play, according to a Federal Reserve study.

I'm confused...this simply states that "there must be some other factor like housing discrimination" without actually showing it. There have been many studies that show large cities are getting less diverse neighborhoods as people prefer to live in areas where they are more represented (Blacks live in majority black neighborhoods, Chinese live in majority chinese neighborhoods, etc). With the large gap in much fewer wealthy black families to poor black families that would mean on average they live in poorer areas. This "study" doesn't really show anything.

I've read articles discussing the trend of minorities, especially blacks, moving into poorer, segregated communities despite having the financial means to live elsewhere. (Though I doubt it's a new trend.) Suffice it say that, yes, a simple desire to live among people you're more socially comfortable with is one motive. It's not the only motive; mixed motives tend to be the norm, not the exception, which only begs the question of what the but-for motive was, if anything, and the extent to which it was driven by racism.

There has been quite a lot of black scholarship discussing the benefit of, and even quite a few recent (not to mention historical) initiatives regarding building, predominantly black communities. Critical Race Theory in particular has a lot to say about this, AFAIU, and I'm pretty sure CRT-related discourse is how we got "safe spaces". But of course all the nuance gets lost in translation. And there are fundamental contradictions that are conspicuously left unresolved, perhaps because they're unresolvable given the background constraints imposed by our political culture.[1] (Such contradictions abound in every political culture.)

[1] CRT would say it's those background constraints that are racist. But I don't think CRT theorists really appreciate the depth of our shared culture. In its specifics CRT is almost completely non-sensical outside American academic circles.

I would agree that there are mixed motives in any individuals reason for where they chose to live, but this "study" is being reported as proof that there is housing discrimination despite no actual evidence other than associating one statistic with racism and no research that proves actual causality.

This could also be explained due to wealthy people inheriting property in affluent neighborhoods while wealthy families of color are still building their wealth.

To get a proper conclusion here, the study should look at the factors that contributed to the wealth of these families. Assuming housing discrimination is a factor just because of skin color is deceiving.

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