Case Study 2 17

Linguistic Profiling and Fair Housing

Douglas Massey, who has conducted extensive research on patterns of

racial segregation, has noted that America’s large urban areas remain

only slightly less segregated than South Africa during apartheid.

Today, 41 percent of Black Americans live in neighborhoods that are

described as hyper-segregated, that is, in all Black high-density

neighborhoods near other all-Black neighborhoods. Another 18

percent of African Americans also live in conditions of high

segregation.

“No Home for the Holidays,” National Fair Housing Alliance,

December 2005 (emphasis added)

In the period following World War II, one of the most pressing problems
in the U.S. had to do with insufficient housing. Property owners and
managers, mortgage institutions and insurance companies made a difficult
situation worse by openly discriminating against potential buyers or
renters on the basis of color or ethnicity. In the year 2010 it is hard to
imagine that a coalition of real estate agents, banks and insurance
companies would fight – openly, unapologetically – for the right to
discriminate against people of color. But this is just what happened in
California.

Tyranny of the Californian Majority

In 1963, the California legislature passed the Rumford Fair Housing Act
which prohibited racial discrimination in housing practices. The California
Real Estate Commission immediately started raising money to sponsor a

referendum (referred to as Proposition 14)^1 which called for a revision to