Race for Profit

How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership

By: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Narrated by: Janina Edwards

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, reeling from a wave of urban uprisings, politicians finally worked to end the practice of redlining. Reasoning that the turbulence could be calmed by turning Black city-dwellers into homeowners, they passed the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, and set about establishing policies to induce mortgage lenders and the real estate industry to treat Black homebuyers equally. The disaster that ensued revealed that racist exclusion had not been eradicated, but rather transmuted into a new phenomenon of predatory inclusion.

Race for Profit uncovers how exploitative real estate practices continued well after housing discrimination was banned. The same racist structures and individuals remained intact after redlining's end, and close relationships between regulators and the industry created incentives to ignore improprieties. Meanwhile, new policies meant to encourage low-income homeownership created new methods to exploit Black homeowners.

Narrating the story of a sea-change in housing policy and its dire impact on African Americans, Race for Profit reveals how the urban core was transformed into a new frontier of cynical extraction.

©2019 Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (P)2020 Tantor

Comprehensive

The book presents a comprehensive and well-researched account of the history of HUD policies and programs that preyed on black homeseekers. I do think it should have discussed gentrification more in the context of its subject.

THE UGLY TRUTH

Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership (Justice, Power, and Politics)
By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

No lie! This book was so well researched, edited, written. From the title and its cover to the conclusion "Predatory Inclusion" was way more than I could have asked for. All of it was masterfully left on these pages.
It took me a little more than a minute because I had to pace myself, take deep breaths, scream, cuss...collect my thoughts and regroup.

The malfeasance, predatory negligence and neglect of Government and its treacherous policies and practices; institutional, corrupt failures steeped in this racial, suppressed, discriminatory culture. The levels of inequality and inequity is staggering!!!
🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
This book was an exercise in personal restraint. It took everything in me to hold it together.
💔💔💔💔💔💔💔
#theseunitedstates

The role of government, banks, brokers, and realtors in housing discrimination over 100 years

I liked the author and the reader because both content and performance helps fill a gaping hole in historical record or awareness of housing discrimination.

I recommend to anyone in housing public or private.

This rating based on my listening in 2021.

Great listen!

I would highly recommend this audible. Her voice was energetic as I listened throughout my workday. This book is well written and just enough pages packed with a wealth of knowledge and experience per chapter.

Excellent source of knowledge

I’ve read many books on this topic and it’s not often I get a brand new perspective on how racism in the US has impacted black Americans. This book provides detailed information on housing-related policies that I’ve not seen covered elsewhere. Well packaged and easily digestible. Highly recommend!

Powerful. Thoroughly researched. Necessary.

Taylor makes undeniable that historic and President residential segregation as well as vast inequality is not the result of personal choice but the concentrated efforts of federal and local government along with the banking and real estate industries to extract and exploit Black life, property, and neighborhoods. The rule: profit and/or power over people.

Must read if you are in the real estate business

Lyrical and impactful prose laying out simply how policies were twisted to predate upon some of our country's most disadvantaged citizens and how they have fought back to seek a better future. This book should be required reading in all real estate and history courses. Narrated beautifully, in an age of AI narration that can't even pronounce numbers. A must read!

Race for Profit

Commend Keeanga-Yamattha Taylor for researching and writing this crucial book, it was very difficult to listen to, many times I cried because I remembered hearing the struggles my parents and other relatives went through for home ownership and the fact they always stressed the importance of owning your own home. My Father would always talk to my siblings and I as if we were grownups and he would tell us what was real, what was not, and tell how to survive.

It all makes sense now!

I’ve had the honor of working with the silent generation, as well as bomber elder ex. And most all consider the The Nixon era and Reagan era justified. I like that this book highlighted an error that I did not live in, but explains today’s economic and housing crisis. Sometimes, digging in the past, you can find solutions to the future. Hopefully we find a solution soon.

The focus of the argument.

I like the complexity with which the story was told and the arguments were made.