With a little over nine months left in his second (and last) term, New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio has appointed a Racial Justice Commission “tasked with targeting and dismantling structural and institutional racism across the City.” How much can New York—or any city on its own—do about this deeply embedded problem?
There’s no question that cities and the nation need to pay attention to structural racism. Activists and engaged scholars have documented pervasive racism in all aspects of American society—housing and redlining, employment discrimination, education, criminal justice, wealth accumulation, voting and political rights, health inequities, and others.
It’s a huge and daunting list. And it illustrates how structural racism works, where problems in one area bleed over into others. Segregated housing means lower property values, which translate into lower funding for education. Unfair and stigmatizing criminal justice practices hurt future labor market prospects. Lack of voting rights makes it harder to implement corrective policies, and so on.
So Mayor DeBlasio is to be commended for this action, even though it comes very late in his administration. And the group also will serve as a charter revision commission, a big deal in New York. That means. specific steps to fight racism that amend the city charter could be put in front of voters for approval or disapproval.
But DeBlasio’s commission won’t report until December of this year, one month after November’s mayoral election. So putting changes to a vote will depend on who the next mayor is, and whether he or she agrees with the recommendations.
The commission won’t lack for ideas. The members include economist Darrick Hamilton, a colleague and one of the nation’s leading public intellectuals on these issues. Hamilton was an adviser to the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, and is credited with helping Sanders understand how pervasive racism interacts with economics, while not reducing racial issues to economic class.
Hamilton is a pioneer of stratification economics, which argues that pervasive group differences—especially race and gender— aren’t accidental byproducts that can be cured by competitive markets. Economists who believe substandard economic outcomes for Blacks are due to their own “collective dysfunction” or that “discrimination inevitably falls under pressure from market forces” fail to understand stratification’s essential role in shaping and reproducing a market economy. (Similar pioneering analyses on pervasive gender discrimination have been made by feminist economists.)
To stratification economists, the sharp racial differences in Covid-19’s effects are sadly no surprise. Blacks and other minorities suffer higher case and mortality rates. They are concentrated in lower-paid and less stable jobs that have been hit hardest by unemployment. Those jobs more often lack adequate health insurance, worsening the disease’s effects. And nonwhite households have lower wealth and less financial resources to fall back on, while facing greater prospects of eviction and housing loss.
In addition to Hamilton and the other distinguished members, the commission can draw on other intellectual and practical work. The pioneering nonprofit PolicyLink documents the interlocking effects of racial inequity, but also focuses on “Lifting Up What Works” in housing, employment, transportation, and other fields. And their data-driven National Equity Atlas can be used by communities across the country to understand their specific situation and what might be done.
Living Cities, an organization supported by major foundations and financial institutions, has refocused its work and its own organization to help “embed anti-racist practices” in government and use their investments “as an avenue for Black people and other people of color to create good jobs and build wealth.” Their ten-year “Closing the Gap” project to address structural racism works intensively with six cities while supporting a larger network of elected leaders from around the country.
And the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) works with “over 80 jurisdictions at the forefront of local and regional government’s work to advance racial equity.” GARE develops frameworks that use data to evaluate conditions and assess progress, and provides racial equity tools for practical application in specific communities.
A big question facing DeBlasio’s commission, and all city anti-racism advocates, is what cities can do on their own. Much of city inequality is shaped by forces outside its control—macroeconomic and industrial changes, hostile federal policy, and pre-emption of progressive city actions by their state governments. I’m writing a book for Columbia University Press on these issues, and at times the forces arrayed against strong city actions seem overwhelming.
But cities have to try. Even with their limitations, they are the best bet for progressive policies. Cities lead our national economy, and they can be leaders in showing how growth and equity can complement each other. New York’s new commission has a great opportunity to offer better policies for the city, and by extension for other cities and the nation.