IDEAS

Social identities reflect how we see ourselves and how others see us. Our social identities are sometimes obvious and clear, sometimes not obvious and unclear, often self-claimed and frequently ascribed by others. Some identities are fluid and change over time.

Examples of social identities are:

• race/ethnicity
• gender
• social class/socioeconomic status
• sexual orientation
• (dis)abilities
• religion/religious beliefs
• tribal or indigenous affiliation

Intersectionality in its simplest term, is the theory that all oppression is linked. The theory, coined in  1989 by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw is a theory that various forms of discrimination centered on race, gender, class, disability, sexuality, and other forms of identity, do not work independently but interact to produce particularized forms of social oppression. As such, oppression is the result of intersecting forms of exclusionary practices. It is thus suggested that the study of identity-based discrimination needs to identify and take account of these intersectionalities. (Oxford Reference) 

There is no hierarchy of oppressions. Audre Lorde

Oppression is the use of power to disempower, marginalize, silence or otherwise subordinate one social group or category, often in order to further empower and/or privilege the oppressor. (The Anti-Oppression Network)

Understanding Structural Racialization   

When talking about racism, most people tend to focus on individual beliefs, biases, and actions. However, it is so much more. Understanding that racism exists not simply in individuals, but “[in] our societal organization and understandings,” is key to being able to develop strategies and solutions to combat it (Calmore, 1998). Our practices, cultural norms and institutional arrangements help create and maintain racialized outcomes.

Structural racialization (also referred to as structural racism) “is a set of processes that may generate disparities or depress life outcomes without any racist actors” (powell, 2013). A structural framing allows us to “take the focus off intent, and even off conscious attitudes and beliefs, and instead turn our focus to interventions that acknowledge that systems and structures are either supporting positive outcomes or hindering them” (powell, 2013). The structural model helps us to understand how housing, education, transportation, employment and other “systems interact to produce racialized outcomes” (powell, 2007-2008). It also helps us to “show how all groups are interconnected and how structures shape life chances” (powell 2007-2008).

Understanding the History of Discriminatory Housing Policies and Practices  

Decades of racial discrimination by real estate agents, banks and insurers, and the federal government made homeownership difficult to obtain for people of color, and those disadvantages have compounded over time. Many factors kept people of color from being able to purchase homes through the middle of the twentieth century: pervasive refusal of whites to live in racially integrated neighborhoods, physical violence to people of color who tried to integrate (often tolerated by the police), restrictive covenants forbidding sales to minorities (some of which were mandated by the Federal Housing Administration), and federal housing policy that denied borrowers access to credit in minority neighborhoods (Rothstein, 2017; Coates, 2014).

The prohibition of racially restrictive covenants and racial discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing has not rectified the inequalities they created. People of color have not benefited over time from the appreciation in the value of the homes they were barred from purchasing, which has expanded the wealth gap and magnified inequalities of opportunity.

Racial Disparities in Wealth

Housing discrimination plays a role in explaining the profound racial disparities in wealth that exist today—the wealth of the median white family is 12 times larger than the wealth of the median Black family (Jones, 2017). In a vicious cycle, the wealth gap makes it harder for minority households to invest in homeownership or help their children purchase homes.

Subtler Forms of Housing Discrimination

While overt discrimination was outlawed by the Fair Housing Act, subtler forms of housing discrimination continue to constrain the options of people of color. Undercover testing on Long Island from 2016 to 2019 found evidence that real estate agents still steer minority homebuyers away from white neighborhoods, avoid business in minority neighborhoods, impose more stringent conditions on minority buyers, and engage in other forms of disparate treatment (Choi, Dedman, Herbert, & Winslow, 2019). HUD’s fair housing test in 28 metropolitan areas across the country found that Black homebuyers were shown 17.7% fewer homes than white homebuyers with the same qualifications and preferences (HUD, 2013). Today’s credit scoring system and lending practices also continue to serve as barriers to minority homeownership (Rice & Swesnik, 2012; Bartlett, Morse, Stanton, & Wallace, 2018).

Racial Disparities in Income

Racial disparities in income are the result of discrimination in hiring and setting wages, differences in employment rates, and other factors. A recent review of discrimination studies found that hiring discrimination continues to adversely affect people of color. Whites receive on average 36% more callbacks than Blacks and 24% more than Latinos (Quillian, Pager, Hexel, & Midtbøen, 2017). The same review found no decline in hiring discrimination against Blacks over the past 25 years. Recent wage growth has been racially unequal even for people of the same education. Between 2015 and 2019, white workers with bachelor’s degrees have seen their wages increase by 6.6%, but Black workers with the same degrees have seen their wages decline by 0.3% (Gould & Wilson, 2019). Black workers are more likely than white workers to be underemployed or unemployed at all education levels (Williams & Wilson, 2019). In 2018, the median income of Black and Hispanic households was 61% and 76% of the median white household, respectively (Guzman, 2019).

Racial Inequality Among Renters with Extremely Low Incomes

The shortage of affordable and available rental homes disproportionately affects Black, Latino, and Indigenous households, as these households are both more likely to be renters and to have extremely low incomes. Black households are more than three times and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, Latino, and American Indian or Alaska Native households more than twice as likely as white households to be extremely low-income renters. For example:

• 57% of Black households are renters, and 19% are extremely low-income renters.
• 52% of Latino households are renters, and 13% are extremely low-income renters.
• In contrast, 27% of white households are renters, and 6% are extremely low-income renters

(See The Gap). 

Need a recommendation on where to start? Start here.

• A Racial Equity Lens is Critical to Housing Justice Work, NLIHC
• Lofty Rhetoric, Prejudiced, Policy: The Story of How the Federal Government Promised--and Undermined--Fair Housing, Opportunity Starts at Home

• Native Land
• The Structural Racism Remedies Repository, Othering and Belonging Institute

Racial Inequities in Housing, Opportunity Starts at Home

The Gap, NLIHC

Out of Reach, NLIHC

Advancing Racial Equity in Emergency Rental Assistance Programs, NLIHC

• National Racial Equity Working Group: The National Racial Equity Working Group is made up of more than 30 national organizations committed to centering racial equity in the response to homelessness across the United States.
• Rise-Home Stories: Rise-Home Stories is a groundbreaking collaboration between multimedia storytellers and social justice advocates seeking to change our relationship to land, home, and race, by transforming the stories we tell about them.

White House

On January 20, 2021, on his first day in office, President Biden signed an historic Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. It directs the federal government to advance an ambitious equity and racial justice agenda that matches the scale of the challenges and opportunities before us.

The White House held a virtual convening on April 14, 2022, to announce the release of its racial justice and equity plan. More than 90 federal agencies – including all cabinet-level agencies – also released their first-ever Equity Action Plans, as called for by President Biden’s historic Executive Order. 

Members of President Biden’s cabinet – including HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge – have developed concrete strategies and articulated clear commitments in plans being released by agencies to address the systemic barriers in policies and programs that hold too many people in underserved communities back from prosperity, dignity, and equality.

The equity action plans released by HUD and other agencies will expand federal investments in and support for communities and groups that have been locked out of opportunities for too long, including communities of color, Tribal communities, rural communities, LGBTQI+ communities, disability communities, communities of faith, women and girls, and communities impacted by persistent poverty. 

A video of the April 14, 2022 convening can be found here. 
Read the complete White House Equity Plans here. 

HUD: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released an equity action plan which includes actions to reduce the racial homeownership gap and center equity in the delivery of services to people experiencing homelessness. HUD’s Equity Action Plan emphasizes the ways homelessness is experienced in cities, suburbs, rural areas, and tribal lands; across races and ethnicities; by families and individuals, young and old; and among male, female, transgender, and gender non-conforming people. Even within homeless populations, some groups are less likely to have safe access to homeless shelters, and some are likely to experience homelessness for more extended periods.

Learn more about HUD’s Equity Action Plan here.

USICH: The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) released an equity action plan which focuses on four values – racial equity, Housing First, decriminalization, and inclusion – and identifies several actions that will be undertaken by USICH in pursuit of racial equity, including (1) centering racial equity in its upcoming Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, (2) engaging Tribal nations and re-establishing the Interagency Working Group on Native American Homelessness, and (3) assessing internal USICH policies and employees’ views of racial equity within the organization.

Read the full USICH Equity Action Plan here.

USDA: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released an equity action plan which establishes an Equity Commission within USDA that will conduct a review and provide recommendations to the Secretary “for how the Department can take action to advance equity.”

See the full USDA Equity Action Plan here.