ABSTRACT
The reforms have done little to reduce material disadvantages that were imposed upon communities of color in housing, schools, jobs, income, unemployment, medical care, health, life expectancy, family resources, and the like. Commitment is most clearly reflected in whites’ resistance to residential desegregation and hostility to welfare programs as well as government policies and practices that are superficially “color-blind” but have created massive new racial inequities in law enforcement and are disfranchising citizens of color in ways that are reminiscent of Jim Crow. “Color-blind” zoning restrictions of overwhelmingly white communities, such as minimum lot size and the exclusion of multi-unit housing, effectively excludes less affluent families, which disproportionately affects people of color. Despite the formal end of practices like red-lining, widespread lending practices continue to make families of color pay more for house purchase and improvement loans than white families of similar financial means.
