Ep. 73: Richard Rothstein

Talking Beats with Daniel Lelchuk

"De facto segregation, it turns out, is a myth. The reason we have segregation in every metropolitan area in this country is government policy. Federal, state, and local policy that was racially explicit that ensured African-Americans and whites could not live near one another."

Historian, writer, and social chronicler Richard Rothstein is here to talk about histories and patterns of what he calls "purposeful race-based housing segregation." He doesn't paint a pretty picture, and he describes a concerted effort not just in major cities but in localities and towns all over this country. Why is this not taught in our schools? What is left out of the picture when we think about housing patterns and take a social overview of our cities? Is

Richard Rothstein is a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Policy Institute and a Senior Fellow (emeritus) at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He is the author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, which recovers a forgotten history of how federal, state, and local policy explicitly segregated metropolitan areas nationwide, creating racially homogenous neighborhoods in patterns that violate the Constitution and require remediation. He is also the author of many other articles and books on race and education, which can be found on his web page at the Economic Policy Institute: http://www.epi.org/people/richard-rothstein/. Previous influential books include Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black–White Achievement Gap and Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right.

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