Reproducing Racism: How Everyday Choices Lock In White Advantage - Hardcover

Roithmayr, Daria

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0814777120 ISBN 13: 9780814777121

Publisher: NYU Press, 2014

Synopsis

Argues that racial inequality reproduces itself automatically over time because early unfair advantage for whites has paved the way for continuing advantage

This book is designed to change the way we think about racial inequality. Long after the passage of civil rights laws, blacks and Latinos possess barely a nickel of wealth for every dollar that whites have. Why have we made so little progress?

Legal scholar Daria Roithmayr provocatively argues that racial inequality lives on because white advantage functions as a powerful self-reinforcing monopoly, reproducing itself automatically from generation to generation even in the absence of intentional discrimination. Drawing on work in antitrust law and a range of other disciplines, Roithmayr brilliantly compares the dynamics of white advantage to the unfair tactics of giants like AT&T and Microsoft.

With penetrating insight, Roithmayr locates the engine of white monopoly in positive feedback loops that connect the dramatic disparity of Jim Crow to modern racial gaps in jobs, housing and education. Wealthy white neighborhoods fund public schools that then turn out wealthy white neighbors. Whites with lucrative jobs informally refer their friends, who refer their friends, and so on. Roithmayr concludes that racial inequality might now be locked in place, unless policymakers immediately take drastic steps to dismantle this oppressive system.

About this title

About the Author

Daria Roithmayr is the George T. and Harriet E. Pfleger Professor of Law at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. An internationally acclaimed legal scholar and activist, she is one of the country’s leading voices on the legal analysis of structural racial inequality. Prior to joining USC, Professor Roithmayr advised Senator Edward Kennedy on the nominations of Clarence Thomas and David Souter, and taught law at the University of Illinois.

Reviews

*Starred Review* The racial inequality that grew out of slavery and Jim Crow laws went beyond individual mistreatment of black Americans, resulting in a systematic cartel of whites operating to secure advantages for themselves, significant advantages that have continued to this day, argues legal scholar Roithmayr. Drawing on the work of economist Glenn Loury, Roithmayr details the feedback loops in family, social, neighborhood, and institutional networks that are locked in and benefit whites and disadvantage racial minorities. Roithmayr cites case studies, including the use of restrictive covenants in Chicago that helped to maintain residential segregation and the private preprimary election used to disenfranchise black voters in Texas, to illustrate how laws and customs have made racism systemic, so deeply embedded that even when individuals are not biased, the system itself is. Comparing racial advantage to the tactics of monopolies like AT&T and Microsoft, she explores how access to wealth, better housing, education, and social contacts have guaranteed better prospects for whites, an advantage that is now locked in and will continue into the future unless the cartel is dismantled. This is a well-researched and thought-provoking analysis of the legacy and complexity of racism that has broad implications for American politics and social policies. --Vanessa Bush

Edition details

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0814777120
• ISBN 13: 9780814777121
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272