On this edition of Your Call, Leah and Richard Rothstein discuss their new book, Just Action: How to Challenge Segregation Enacted Under The Color of Law.
Just Action is a follow-up to Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law, which set out to “demolish the myth of de facto segregation." In Just Action, Richard teams up with his daughter, housing policy expert Leah Rothstein, to pick up where The Color of Law left off: laying out a path forward for activists to upend housing segregation and enact real change.
“Residential segregation underlies our most serious social problems” they write, including health inequity, police violence, political polarization, and wealth gaps between white and Black households.
The Rothsteins argue that the key to ending housing segregation is a “reinvigorated civil rights movement,” one that begins locally and advocates for improved resources, zoning reform, effective control of urban gentrification, and the stemming of white flight.
Guests:
Richard Rothstein, author and Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Policy Institute and a Senior Fellow (emeritus) at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
Leah Rothstein, housing policy consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area
Resources:
Shelterforce: Let’s Act Now to Stop Racism in Real Estate Appraisals
The New York Times: New York Settles Suit That Said Its Housing Rules Worsened Segregation
CT News Junkie: Connecticut Is Racially Segregated: Now What?
CalMatters: California has a segregation problem
AP: California Realtors apologize for role in racist housing
