Tag Archives: Redlining

Arts & Culture

‘The Color of Law’: Housing Experts Talk New Book About Segregation Solution and Celebrate Fair Housing Law

by Agueda Pacheco Flores

Even after Jim Crow laws were overturned following the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, neighborhood segregation persisted throughout the country thanks to intentional federal policies and restrictive local covenants. These discriminatory practices cost Black, Indigenous, and People of Color residents in King County between $12 billion and $34 billion in generational wealth due to redlining and restrictive neighborhood covenants.

Today, discrimination and residential segregation continues. On Nov. 2, two of the country’s leading housing policy experts, Richard and Leah Rothstein, will discuss how to fix a segregated housing system at Seattle University. Although the event is sold out, Just Action is available to order at the book’s website or from the Elliott Bay Book Company using the event’s promo code “HDC” for a 10% discount.

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News

Redlining Continues to Reverberate in Seattle Nearly a Century Later in Pedestrian Deaths

by Phil Manzano

Could the decades-old government housing discrimination program, commonly called redlining, have anything to do with pedestrian fatalities today?

According to a recent national study that compared federal redlining maps of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation with data on 2010–2019 pedestrian deaths from the national Fatality Analysis Reporting System, the answer is yes.

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Community

The Morning Update Show — 5/17

The Morning Update Show — hosted by Trae Holiday and The Big O (Omari Salisbury) — is the only weekday news and information livestream that delivers culturally relevant content to the Pacific Northwest’s urban audience. Omari and Trae analyze the day’s local and national headlines as well as melanin magic in our community. Watch live every weekday at 11 a.m. on any of the following channels, hosted by Converge Media: YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Periscope, and whereweconverge.com.

We also post the Morning Update Show here on the Emerald each day after it airs, so you can catch up any time of day while you peruse our latest posts.

Morning Update Show — Tuesday, May 17

LIVE — Shaina Shepherd | Updates From Buffalo and the Impacts of Redlining | Healing Our BELOVED Community Impacted by Gun Violence | Deaths Spike in the King County Jail | Business Blossoms at Midtown Plaza on 24th & Union

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Community

RARE Documentary Looks at School Busing in Seattle

by Jane Harris Nellams

(An earlier version of this article was previously published on the RARE blog and is being updated and reprinted in the Emerald by permission.)

Joe Hunter and Tony Allison are talking about the same things that they talked about 50 years ago — that is, if they talked then at all.

The two former basketball teammates, one Black and one white and cofounders of Roosevelt Alumni for Racial Equity (RARE), agree that not much has changed regarding the racial climate at Roosevelt and they wonder why. So as one of the founding projects of RARE, a group of alumni formed to work against racism in Seattle high schools, they decided to make a documentary about Seattle’s efforts to desegregate the schools.

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News

Redistricting Is an Opportunity to Build BIPOC Voting Power, Organizers Say

by Ben Adlin

Every 10 years, officials undertake a great political balancing act that profoundly — but almost invisibly — determines the value of your voice in democracy. By redrawing voting districts at the state and local levels, they set boundaries that will influence elections for the next decade.

The process, known as redistricting, is fundamental to the idea of representation in politics. How lines are drawn determines who votes in a given district, which in turn determines which candidates get elected, what laws are passed, and how public money is spent.

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Voices

OPINION: When Black Men Are Killed in Seattle’s South End, Why Does Society Shrug?

by Marcus Harrison Green

(This article is co-published with The Seattle Times.) 

Listening to Lynda Wolff, I want to roar at the world to remember her murdered son’s life. Four years ago, Latrel Williams was shot multiple times while returning to his Lakeridge home.

In the aftermath of his death, I spotted no signs at marches acknowledging his life, no public speeches given in his honor, and no politicians furiously spouting his name to earn social justice merits.

But Lynda still lost a son. Latrel Jr. (LJ) lost a father. And I lost a friend.

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Voices

OPINION: The Right to Be Banked — Why Some Black and Immigrant Owned Businesses Are Being Redlined and What We Can Do About It

by Roble Musse

Buying a home, being paid on time, getting a business loan. We often don’t think about the ways in which access to a bank account determines the course of our lives. Yet there are businesses, mostly operated by-and-for immigrants and communities of color, that are being shut out of the banking sector in a type of financial redlining.

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Perspective

The Displacement Tax: An Update from Gentrification Ground Zero

23 Comments

by Reagan Jackson

Rainier Beach is the new gentrification ground zero. I have a front row seat. I recently celebrated my seventh anniversary of being a homeowner. I have watched my neighbors get foreclosed on and pushed out. I have watched the house flipping teams come through and trim up the yards, slap up new fences, and paint over bright color with the neutral blues and grays white people seem to prefer. When I walk through my neighborhood now, it’s a lot less like the vibrant diverse place I chose to live in and a lot more like Pleasantville.

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