Thread by @DearPandemic

1/ Q: Talk to me about history. What historical factors contributed to many U.S. cities becoming highly segregated, and how is this related to the #racial inequities in #COVID19 we are seeing today?

2/ A: In the interview linked to below, Reggie Jackson, Head Griot of America's Black Holocaust Museum, describes 4 discriminatory housing policies and practices common in the first half of the 20th Century.
wuwm.com/post/how-did-m…

3/ Note that all of these were completely legal up until the Fair Housing Act of 1968--just 52 years ago. These practices and policies played a major role in creating the patterns of racial segregation seen today in Milwaukee and many other U.S. cities.

Here are each of the 4:

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1. Redlining. The Federal gov. created maps in the late 1930's to evaluate the riskiness of mortgage lending in different neighborhoods.
Areas were identified as high-risk (i.e., red) for lending based on criteria, including the race of the people who lived there.

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2. Race-restrictive housing covenants. Covenants, or special rules, were attached to the deed of a home that expressly prohibited the property from being occupied by people who were not White, which at the time included Jewish individuals and some immigrant groups.

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3. Block busting. A practice by realtors in which scare tactics were used to encourage White individuals to flee neighborhoods that Black individuals were starting to move into.

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4. The G.I. Bill of 1944. Mortgages made available through this bill to support veterans of World War II were systematically denied to Black veterans, but facilitated the move of White veterans out of downtown areas and into the suburbs of American cities.

8/ Another resource for learning more about the historical context shaping racial segregation in the U.S. is this interview with Richard Rothstein, author of the book "The Color Of Law: A Forgotten History Of How Our Government Segregated America" npr.org/transcripts/52….

9/ Continued government disinvestment in Black, Latinx, and Asian neighborhoods over time negatively impacted living conditions in areas targeted by segregation. These conditions can increase risk for exposure to #coronavirus and worse outcomes among those with #COVIDー19.

10/ For a deeper dive into the role of racial segregation in shaping racial inequities in COVID-19, we highly recommend an upcoming talk by Dr. Sharelle Barber, ScD, MPH, Assistant Research Professor at @drexelpubhealth.

11/ Her talk will "use descriptive spatial analysis to place data on COVID-19 in Philadelphia in context, illustrating how structural racism and historical and contemporary patterns of residential segregation have converged to create racial inequities during this #pandemic."

12/ The talk is titled "COVID-19 in Context: Racism, Segregation, and Racial Inequities in Philadelphia."

You can tune in via Zoom on Friday June 5th from 11:00am-12:00pm EST. See drexel.edu/dornsife/news/…
for more details.