Race and Dis/Investment in the Nation's Capital
September 27, 2021
Tanya Golash-Boza, professor of sociology at the University of California-Merced, shares from her research — Mapping Gentrification in Washington, DC — how the growth of home ownership among Black families in our nation's capital in the 1950s and 60s did not lead to intergenerational wealth, as it did for White families, but instead to Black dispossession. This is due to a number of factors including segregation and discriminatory housing policies, White flight, disinvestment in Black neighborhoods and schools, the rise of unemployment, incarceration and gun violence, and gentrification. She advocates for solutions such as affordable housing and home ownership programs, re-investment in Black communities, and de-commodification of housing.
Professor Golash-Boza is founder of the Racism, Capitalism, and the Law Lab and author of "Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor and Global Capitalism" (New York University Press, 2015) and the text book "Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach," published by Oxford University Press and now in its third edition.
