Baltimore Reckons with Its Racist Past—and Present – The American Prospect
By Kalena Tomhave
Just over a century ago, in 1911, the Baltimore city council adopted the first residential segregation law in the country, forbidding black people from living in predominantly white neighborhoods. Though the Supreme Court ruled such policies unconstitutional seven years later, the consequences of the law, as well as the consequences of subsequent racist policies and practices like redlining, the displacement of black families, and mass incarceration remain. Today, Baltimore is one of the most segregated cities in the nation, where black residents make up a majority of the population but do worse than the average black American—and far worse than the average white Baltimore resident—on almost every measure of general well-being.
But over the past decade, Baltimore and other city governments have taken active steps to reverse the centuries of inequality that remain embedded in policy and practice. After all, if inequality was written into law, can’t it be written out?
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But according to Benjamin Orr, executive director of the Maryland Center on Economic Policy, this work isn’t actually all that difficult; it just “requires some intentionality and planning,” he says. Governments just need to understand the historical context and the need for equity-based policy, and they also must “take the time to break down the data beyond just the surface level, to disaggregate the data, to understand how it might impact different communities,” he says.
Sometimes, sunny numbers on the entire city might mask entrenched problems. Citywide, the unemployment rate might be low, but disaggregating the data may tell a fuller story about unemployment by race. In Baltimore, the unemployment rate over the past year has been similar to that of the country as a whole, hovering around or just above 4 percent. But in 2017, the unemployment rate for workers of color was three times that of whites, according to a report from Prosperity Now. MCEP recently put out a report about how a more equitable fiscal policy—targeted funds—could repair economic disparities that exist across the state of Maryland, which contribute to disparities in education, health, and general well-being.
