Important read. As an interested party in public administration, I appreciate the author’s simile of policy practices as ‘DNA.’ In short, the historic DNA of political representation in the US had historically been predicated upon land ownership, gender (male), and racial categorization (white). In terms of discriminatory policy practices, the Highway Act of 1956 stands as epitome of land seizure and theft. The term ‘imminent domain’ cloaked the discriminatiory practices of municipalities razing Black-owned land, homes, and businesses for the creation of the highway system. Why? These were (and are) populations with little to no political representation and influence. #Antiracism #Humanity #History #LandTheft
“It’s important that we remember and reiterate that racial wealth gaps are not accidental, nor to be blamed on an alleged lack of ambition or work ethic,” Brea Baker writes in from her book “Rooted” published in The Emancipator. The fact that Black Americans own less than 1% of U.S. farmland, or that Indigenous households have approximately eight cents of wealth for every White household’s dollar, are evidence of “financial warfare” waged on these racially marginalized groups for centuries, Baker writes. Read an excerpt of Baker’s new book here: https://lnkd.in/dCK8C3zt
