On both sides of the color line, to own one’s home remains synonymous with freedom—even as real estate has proven itself to be relentlessly unequal.
Two outstanding new books are the latest to investigate this question. In *The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America*, the historian Andrew Kahrl reveals how the country’s unjust tax system has long undermined civil rights and Black property ownership. Where Kahrl demonstrates the enormous debt owed to Black Americans, *The Residential is Racial: A Perceptual History of Mass Homeownership*, by the literary scholar Adrienne Brown, argues that the American dream of homeowning is itself a source of inequality. Building on work by historians such as Destin Jenkins <https://www.publicbooks.org/public-thinker-destin-jenkins-on-breaking-bonds/> and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor <https://www.publicbooks.org/theres-no-there-there-keeanga-yamahtta-taylor-on-the-future-of-the-left/>, both Kahrl and Brown underscore not only that race is foundational to the workings of real estate, but also the need to imagine ways of living “in excess of ownership,” as Brown writes, where access to safe and stable housing is freed from the logics of dispossession and accumulation alike. https://www.publicbooks.org/the-poverty-of-homeownership/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#34039): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/34039 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/110102872/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
