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Reflections on a Funhouse Mirror—Racist Violence, the Protection of Privilege, and the Limits of Tolerance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

George I. Lovell
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Abstract

Jeannine Bell's Hate Thy Neighbor: Move In Violence and the Persistence of Racial Segregation in American Housing provides an account of racist violence as a tool for maintaining housing segregation that challenges perceptions of rising tolerance and demonstrates the importance of understanding racism as a structural feature of social organization. Bell shows how some perpetrators of move in violence deploy claims about “property values” as a defense against charges of racism. The use of such claims starkly illustrates how colorblind racism allows assertions of racial privilege to resonate as neutral articulations of rational self-interest. The desire to defend racial privileges persists as a significant practical barrier to racial equality even when tolerance increases.

Type
Review Essay
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , Spring 2017 , pp. 571 - 576
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2017 

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