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Why @emilymbadger is one of the best. Period. Her ability to not just see race, but to efficiently show the intentionality of former race-based policy and the harms of so-called raced-neutral ones shows a depth of expertise/understanding too often lacking. nytimes.com/interactive/20… 
This story shows how you get these types of stories right. It has the data, it has the history, it has the analysis, and then it has these amazing quotes that from those impacted that explain so much to those who may otherwise not get the problem.
It used straightforward language instead of dancing around race -- ie: Black Americans remain the most segregated because most white people have avoided living around them. This is a fact backed up by data, fair housing testing, social science research and polling. So, say it.
It also shows two things that we all must acknowledge. 1) Race-neutral economic and housing policies can and will never address a race-based housing market, which is what we have.
2) Gentrification, the instability of newly desirable black neighborhoods, will never be fixed by individuals white people who wring their hands but still drive up housing prices. The fixes must be systemic and driven by policy not the market and individual choice.
So, this also seems a good time to re-up this amazing reporting from @reveal that shows how policies designed to help black neighborhoods shut out of the mortgage market -- surprise!! -- only end up lending to white gentrifiers. revealnews.org/article/for-pe…
And, SN: Wake County Schools, which serves Raleigh, has one of the longest and most successful voluntary school desegregation programs in the country. In recent years, as the metro area has grown and Northerns unused to integrated schools have moved down, support has fractured.
The deseg plan includes busing to and from white areas to black ones and also a robust magnet program but is being dismantled. It will be interesting in a few years, then, to see where these newcomers send their own children to school. I think we all can predict.
