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96 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 155 (2018-2019)
The Invisible Hands of Structural Racism in Housing: Our Hands, Our Responsibility

handle is hein.journals/udetmr96 and id is 167 raw text is: 









The Invisible Hands of Structural Racism

in   Housing: Our Hands, Our

Responsibility

PALMA   JOY  STRAND*

      They are led by an invisible hand...
      Adam  Smith

      Psychologist Beverly Daniel  Tatum,  author of the keystone work   on
racial identity development,  defines  racism as  a system   of advantage
based  on  race.2 Recently,  as I read the revised  2017  20th anniversary
edition of Why  Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, I
noticed that while Tatum  defines and uses the word  racism throughout  the
book,  she rarely uses the term racist. When  she does use the term, it is
generally used as an adjective rather than a noun.
     This  observation prompted   some   discussion in my   2040  Initiative
Seminar,  the class with which I was reading Tatum.  The  Seminar  explores
demographic   changes  in the nation, including the shift from a majority of
the population  being non-Hispanic   White  to a majority  being people  of





*Professor of Law, Negotiation and Conflict Resolution (NCR) Program, and Director, 2040
Initiative, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Creighton University Graduate School.
B.S. Stanford University (1978); J.D. Stanford Law School (1984); LL.M. Georgetown
University Law Center (2006). Thanks to Florise Neville-Ewell and the other participants
of the Housing Symposium: HUD's Past, Present and Future held at the University of
Detroit Mercy Law School in November 2017 and to Andrea Boyack, Janet Thompson
Jackson, and Michelle Ewert and the participants of the Fair Housing and Financial Markets
Diversity Symposium held at the Washburn University School of Law in March 2018 for
wide-ranging discussions that stimulated the ideas presented in this essay. I also want to
recognize the Omaha fair housing and racial equity work of Patricia Evans, Andy Wessel,
Mark Stursma, Cynthia Lindenmeyer, and A'Jamal-Rashad Byndon; their work is inspiring
- as is the work of many other community members and public officials here and across the
nation. Finally, I also very much appreciate the members of the 2017 GOAL Emerging
Perspectives class and of the Spring 2018 Seminar in Contemporary Topics: Complex
Communities of Exclusion and Inclusion, who valiantly grappled with Iris Marion Young,
as well as my colleague Greg O'Meara, SJ, with whom I co-taught the latter and who kindly
took the time to read this essay.
    1.  ADAM SMITH, THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS 165 (6th ed. 2005).
    2.  BEVERLY DANIEL TATUM, WHY ARE ALL THE BLACK KIls SITTING TOGETHER IN
THE CAFETERIA? (rev. ed. 2017).

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