How does racism play a role in Evicted by Matthew Desmond?

In Evicted, Matthew Desmond analyzes the intersections of racism and classism by discussing how black people, living in the land that is now known as "America," are especially affected by capitalism and housing insecurity. Desmond discusses the ways in which racist city policies that redline districts and push black people into under-resourced parts of the city, in conjunction with racist, capitalist landlords, result in housing insecurity and oppression for black people. Because of centuries of economic, political, and social racism against black people in this country, there has always been a particularly large wealth gap between black people and white people, even amongst working-class black people and working-class white people. Slavery gave way to intense economic and political oppression against black people, even directly in the wake of emancipation. There has never been actual economic racial justice in this country since the days of slavery, which has resulted in present-day economic racism. Desmond points out how this reality of state-based racism coincides with private capitalist ventures. Ghettoization, gentrification, and unequal loan opportunities has resulted in housing shortage for working class black folks in which landlords can take advantage of people's desperate situations. This situation is intensified as public housing programs are cut and de-prioritized and as gentrifying companies and private individuals buy up houses in historically black neighborhoods. The result is that black people are pushed out of their neighborhoods, the houses are then renovated and sold to wealthier white people, and black people are pushed further and further out of the city and into less and less resourced areas.

What aspects of diversity are addressed in Matthew Desmond's Evicted?

In Evicted Matthew Desmond, deals with the issue of diversity by showing us that both black and white people are victims of the chronic shortage of affordable housing, albeit not in quite the same way. Although Desmond's main emphasis is on African American individuals and families caught up in the spiral of poverty and homelessness, he also reveals the plight of white families forced to live in appalling conditions in trailer parks.

Despite the exorbitant rents and squalid living conditions, the vast majority of those living in such trailer parks are reluctant to move. This is primarily because they have no place else to go. If they can't stay in the trailer park, they'll have no choice but to go and live in Milwaukee's ghetto neighborhoods, which are overwhelmingly inhabited by African Americans. And they're not prepared to do this. For in Milwaukee, one of the most racially segregated cities in the United States, ethnic identity still counts for an awful lot.

Although the white folks in the insanitary trailer park are in much the same boat as their fellow citizens in African American neighborhoods, they are unable to put aside the question of race and forge common bonds with them. In his racially diverse presentation of housing issues, Desmond subtly suggests that this attitude needs to change and that meaningful progress can only be made if the housing shortage is taken seriously by all members of society, irrespective of race.