Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Color of Law, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
De Jure vs. De Facto Segregation
Segregation and the Preservation of Racial Caste
Racism, Profit, and Political Gain
Separation of Powers, Legal Activism, and Minority Rights
Summary
Analysis
Rothstein declares that “unconstitutional segregation” in the United States has not only devastated African American people, but also negatively affected white people by isolating them from their “fellow citizens of different racial backgrounds,” which has contributed to the racialization and “corrupt[ion of] our politics.” Low-income white and black Americans fail to see the political interests they share, and white people either try to avoid thinking about America’s “inequalities and history,” or fall into “a dysfunctional cynicism” about the contradiction between America’s “values of justice” and the “racial inequalities that belie those values.” Besides, diverse teams consistently produce better results in the workplace, which means that segregation is also harmful to economic productivity.
Rothstein’s argument that segregation also harms white people is powerful, but should not be taken too far: while it is true that integration clearly makes for a more harmonious and just society, Rothstein does not mean to say that white people’s fears about integration are completely unfounded. Rather, he emphasizes that the demands of racial justice trump these fears because African American people have a right to equal, integrated housing, and white Americans have no corresponding right to live in segregated bubbles or gain from the unfair distribution of property, as they do now. The institution of slavery offers a good comparison: slaveowners refused to give it up without a fight, but that fight was not justified, because the demands of justice outweighed slave owners’ (non-existent) right to own human beings. Rothstein thinks that white people must confront the fact that they have no choice but to integrate: it is a moral obligation, whether they like it or not. Rothstein suggests that lying to white people and promising that they will benefit in every way from integration is likely to invite a backlash that would reestablish segregation even more forcefully.
Themes
In Part I of this chapter, Rothstein explains how segregation is harmful to children. Not only does it deprive all children of exposure to diversity, but it also puts significant “handicaps” on black children at school. Because students share these disadvantages, teachers cannot remedy them by giving “special attention” to individual students, and all students’ learning is negatively impacted.
Inequalities in the education system were what drove Rothstein to begin studying housing inequality in the first place—the educational “handicaps” created by attending lower-quality schools in poor minority neighborhoods in turn lead to a lack of income and economic mobility later in life, which is another element of the self-perpetuating cycle of inequality.
Themes
In Part II, Rothstein admits that it is simply too late to “provide adequate justice” to make up for the unconstitutional segregation imposed upon several generations of African American people by the government. Instead, policies should pursue integration and equality, while realizing that both are “impossible to fully” achieve. For one, integration requires giving many African American people the chance to build wealth and live middle-class lives, which requires changing policy to improve the working and living conditions of all low-income workers in the United States. Rothstein notes that he “hesitate[s] to offer” specific desegregation policy ideas because no such policy will ever pass so long as people “continue to accept the myth of de facto segregation.”
This analysis explains why Rothstein warned against the white luxury of “dysfunctional cynicism” at the beginning of this chapter: by saying that segregation is a done deal and can never be reversed, people make the perfect the enemy of the good and dissuade themselves from taking action. As within the government, for bystanders, inaction is equivalent to complicity. Because full integration and restitution are impossible, pro-integration activists and lawmakers must do everything possible and imaginable to pursue them—not give up because their goals are unachievable in principle. In this passage, Rothstein also clearly explains where his book fits into the necessary pro-integration activism: in order to build a movement for housing justice, people first need to unlearn “the myth of de facto segregation,” and the central purpose of his book is to make them do so.
Themes
In Part III, Rothstein does look at some “promising programs” currently under way and concrete steps that can be taken to combat segregation. For instance, a number of history textbooks completely fail to mention the government's role in producing segregation or the discrimination written into the New Deal, and one falsely calls segregation “de facto” and blames it on “unwritten custom or tradition.” It makes sense that everyone believes in the myth of de facto segregation, then, because “students are being taught a false history.”
Rothstein identifies these misleading textbooks as the most influential and dangerous perpetrators of “the myth of de facto segregation.” To simply get these sentences changed in major high school textbooks would be a huge victory, and probably a relatively straightforward one to achieve. Even Rothstein’s readers can write to their schools and state boards of education to campaign for these changes; textbook writers and publishers have no excuse for peddling “false history” to future voters.
Themes
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In Part IV of this final chapter, Rothstein notes that President Barack Obama’s administration planned to truly enforce the Fair Housing Act’s mandate that local governments “‘affirmatively further’ the purposes of the law.” But the government never got around to specifying how they would enforce it, and as of 2017, Republicans have tried “to prohibit enforcement of the ‘affirmatively furthering’ rule.”
Obama’s mandate represents a landmark shift in housing law because it changes the responsibility of government from not discriminating (which allows segregation and inequality to gradually worsen over time) to actively fighting discrimination and segregation (which Rothstein considers the only legitimate course of action for the government to take).
Themes
In Part V, Rothstein notes that the strongest push for integration happened in 1970, after a string of riots across the country. George Romney, then Housing and Urban Development secretary, planned to withdraw government funding support from segregationist suburbs—but his Republican colleagues were so outraged that he was forced to resign. Rothstein notes that Romney’s proposal would probably win even less support today, since people have largely forgotten “the extent of de jure segregation.”
The case of George Romney demonstrates that a broader, collective movement is needed to truly change policy, because so long as executive agencies maintain an institutional culture that promotes discrimination and segregation, individuals who fight for integration are likely to be silenced. But Rothstein again emphasizes that “the myth of de facto segregation” has not always been so prominent—rather, it has grown rapidly over the last half-century, largely as a way to resolve the cognitive dissonance between recognizing segregation as unjust and knowing that it was put in place intentionally. (Before the 1970s, when Americans widely knew that segregation was official government policy, many simply considered it acceptable.)
Themes
In Part VI, Rothstein explains that he has a few ideas for how “to rectify the legacy of de jure segregation,” although none are “politically possible” yet. His first, most just, and least realistic is that the government should buy a proportion of suburban homes equal to the percentage of African American people in the population, and then sell them to African American people at the rates they would have paid when those suburbs were first built (but segregated). For instance, the government would buy “the next 15 percent of houses that come up in Levittown” and “resell [them] to qualified African American borrowers for $75,000.” Rothstein notes that this would be constitutional, legal, and correct—but impossible to do now, since most Americans believe in “the de facto segregation myth.”
Rothstein’s hopes for policy change lie far in the future—first, “the myth of de facto segregation” must be broken and the public and lawmakers must prioritize affirmative integration on their policy agendas. Still, his proposals can provide crucial guidance for these earlier-stage efforts. Crucially, they follow the model of what’s known as reparations: African American people must be actively given the opportunities that their parents and grandparents were unconstitutionally denied. Taken in isolation, this policy would seem to give unfair priority to African American people—but its purpose is precisely to balance the scales of historical justice by correcting past discrimination.
Themes
In Part VII, Rothstein emphasizes that “black middle-class town[s]” need desegregation, too. Such neighborhoods are often near ghettos, and their youth must struggle to “resist the lure of gangs and of alienated behavior,” as well as learning how to deal with America’s “predominantly white professional culture.” An easy way to promote this integration would be “federal subsidies for middle-class African Americans to purchase homes in suburbs that have [historically] been racially exclusive.” But this would not happen either in the current political climate. One way that individual neighborhoods can start to help is to ensure African American people feel welcome there—that the police are trained properly, and that real estate agents will show houses in the area to black buyers.
Federal subsidies would be a less heavy-handed way for the government to explicitly champion and promote integration, but Rothstein also emphasizes how local governments and even individuals can pursue the same values on a smaller scale. While these programs would be more palatable to policymakers and those still invested in “the myth of de facto segregation,” however, Rothstein emphasizes that it is crucial to remember the direct, reciprocal link between discrimination and integration: the same neighborhoods that blocked African American people from homeownership should be the ones where they are encouraged to live, for instance. Pro-integration policy, in other words, should directly target historical sites of segregation.
Themes
In Part VIII of this chapter, Rothstein proposes banning zoning laws that limit areas to relatively large single-family houses, or that deny mortgage-related tax breaks to people who live in such neighborhoods. Either policy must be accompanied by “a requirement for inclusionary zoning.” Massachusetts and New Jersey already do this, forcing affluent suburbs to build or reserve housing for low-income families, but these states base their calculations entirely on income and ignore race. Evidence from these states shows that new low-income residents do not deteriorate the quality of life in such neighborhoods. Certain municipalities elsewhere have similar laws, but they are ineffective unless “implemented on a metropolitan-wide basis.” One Maryland county does this, and low-income children who benefit from this subsidized housing show “measurably higher achievement” in school.
While these proposals only address one element of the multifaceted problem of housing discrimination, they also cleverly turn the technique of segregation around, converting it into a technique for integration. Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Maryland offer promising evidence for the efficacy of such strategies—however, they require coordinated, local campaigns for integration, rather than sweeping federal policy. The “measurably higher achievement” of Maryland children attending integrated schools points to how the effects of poverty and the effects of “neighborhood poverty” are independent and separable.
Themes
In Part IX, Rothstein summarizes law professor John Boger’s proposal for “a national ‘Fare Share Act’” to mandate that localities be racially and economically diverse, and revoke their tax deductions when they are not. This “would give citizens a powerful economic incentive to press their local officials to take reasonable steps toward integration,” and the additional revenue could go directly to subsidizing anti-segregation programs.
Like the plan to use zoning laws for integration, Boger’s proposal also turns one of the most crucial motivators behind segregation—“powerful economic incentive[s]”—into a strategy for promoting integration. Rothstein recognizes that citizens respond to their economic self-interest and politicians respond to political pressure from citizens, so this policy can organically make change without forcing white people to accept integration in all cases (so long as they are willing to take the financial loss involved in maintaining segregation in their neighborhoods).
Themes
In Part X, Rothstein mentions some “innovative programs” that have arisen through lawsuits and pushed for integration. After losing a lawsuit, Baltimore’s local government started giving a comparatively higher Section 8 subsidy to African American people who rent in integrated, middle-class neighborhoods, and it also provides them with “intensive counseling […] to help them adjust to” these new neighborhoods. Dallas and a small number of other cities have similar programs, but few reach any significant percentage of people with public housing support.
Adding to Section 8 subsidies is advantageous because it does not require governments to create a totally new program, but rather only to devote more resources to one that already exists. While this still would not be viable without a strong public push for integration, it shows that meaningful change truly is within reach—even if it would be far from sufficient.
Themes
Rothstein also proposes that the rest of the country should follow some model cities and states that ban landlords from discriminating against families with Section 8 vouchers. He also notes that only a small portion of the people who qualify for vouchers are actually given them, and argues that this is unjust and that the program should be expanded. In a parallel example, Rothstein points out that no middle-class family qualifies for homeownership-related tax deductions, but does not receive them. In short, the Section 8 program needs more funding, to ensure that recipients can afford apartments outside poor neighborhoods and expand the reach of the program. Builders and landlords should also be rewarded for promoting integration, rather than for building housing that only “reinforce[s] segregation.” Revitalization must happen without displacing local communities and must involve “surrounding community improvements,” rather than gentrification that displaces poor residents to “newly segregated inner-ring suburbs.”
Unfortunately, as throughout the 20th century, programs intended to promote equality and legal provisions against discrimination are on the books, but not adequately funded, supported, or followed to achieve their intended effects. Rothstein points out that the government continues to disproportionately provide these promised benefits to the (disproportionately white) middle class, while denying them to most of the poor (who both need them more and are more likely to be racial minorities). So even though it has theoretically committed itself to providing benefits to all members of both groups, the government continues to discriminate in the provision of services, and private interests in the real estate industry continue to take advantage of loopholes to capture benefits that are intended to serve the poor.
Themes
In Part XI of the final chapter, Rothstein returns to the story of Frank Stevenson and his wife Rosa Lee, who ultimately raised their children in Richmond’s segregated school system. Their daughters went to an overcrowded, all-black school that was nearly integrated by a court ruling—but Richmond then “elected an anti-integration majority to the school board” that changed very little. To this day, the elementary school that Stevenson’s daughters attended remains under-resourced. The area’s high schools were segregated in a more complicated way that required students to make long commutes, but this still had the same effect: Stevenson’s daughter Terry never finished college, and all of his grandchildren work relatively low-wage jobs. Rothstein asks “what might have become of” them if they had grown up in an integrated suburb, and what obligation “the American community” has to them and families like them.
By coming full circle, Rothstein forces the reader to consider the layers of discrimination that have structured not only Frank and Rosa Lee Stevenson’s lives, but also those of their daughters. Stevenson worked the same job, with the same pay, as numerous white Ford employees who got to live in comfortable, better-served suburbs like Milpitas. Despite being middle-class, Stevenson and his family had to deal with the effects of “neighborhood poverty,” which are still highly visible two generations down the line. Rothstein makes it clear: when all else is held equal, even income, residential segregation frequently makes the difference between who grows up to be middle-class and who grows up to be poor. And because that segregation has primarily been imposed by the government along racial lines, it is clearly a way of ensuring that the comforts of middle-class life are reserved as much as possible for white people, while perpetuating the second-class status that African American people have continually fought since long before the United States won its independence.
Themes
