“The map of race is the map of Richmond”: Eviction and the enduring regimes of racialized dispossession and political demobilization

‘I’m Not a Tenant They Can Just Run Over’: Low-Income Renters’ Experiences of and Resistance to Racialized Dispossessing

“…This body of work has largely focused on Black people, the group theorized to be at the bottom of the US racial hierarchy (e.g. Bonilla-Silva, 2004), and the anti-Blackness that infuses housing (Howell and Teresa, 2022). For instance, in the realm of rental housing-where landlord-renter economic and legal imbalances are systemic (Bezdek, 1992;Greif, 2022;Martinez, 2020;Reosti, 2021)-research has demonstrated that landlord and property manager discretion in screening processes (Reosti, 2021) allows them to rely on anti-Black and racist stereotypes to systematically deny housing to prospective Black renters and other renters of color (Faber and Mercier, 2022) or to steer low-income Black renters into houses located in high-crime areas (Rosen, 2014).…”

“…Racialized dispossession has long been central to US housing and rental markets (Dantzler, 2021; Dorries et al, 2022; Dunbar-Ortiz, 2015; Harris, 1993; Howell and Teresa, 2022; Park, 2016). 3 The experience of racialized dispossession in housing—the loss of physical home through eviction or foreclosure (Desmond and Kimbro, 2015; Rugh, 2015) or the loss of control, autonomy, or sense of self when searching for or seeking to maintain access to secure housing (e.g.…”

“…-Christopher Hudson (Diné) 1 Racialization, or the ideological (re)production of racial difference and hierarchy (Bonilla-Silva, 2015), and dispossession, or severing people from place, home, and stability in order to protect colonizer property, profit, and power (Dantzler, 2021;Dorries et al, 2022;Harris, 1993;Howell and Teresa, 2022;McKay et al, 2020), have long been central to US housing market policies and practices (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2015;Park, 2016;Taylor, 2019). Since housing in the United States shapes education and employment opportunities, health, and wealth accumulation, among other key outcomes, the racialization and dispossession at the heart of the housing market have ensured that these outcomes remain racially stratified (Bachelder et al, 2016;Dantzler, 2021;Korver-Glenn et al, 2023;Krysan and Crowder, 2017;Ladner, 1971;Rugh, 2015;Taylor, 2019).…”

“…Connolly, 2014;Taylor, 2019). This work has identified numerous mechanisms through which historical and contemporary housing policies and practices rely on racism and anti-Blackness to inform who can access rental homes and where they can access them (Rosen, 2014;Rosen et al, 2021), who can access mortgage loans and under what conditions (Faber, 2018;Korver-Glenn, 2021), and whether and how evictions and foreclosures occur (Desmond, 2012;Howell and Teresa, 2022;Rugh, 2015).…”

“…We build on the notion of racialized dispossession, or the process of severing people of color from autonomy, dignity, and social, cultural, and geographic home and stability in order to maintain White settler/colonizer property, profit, or power (e.g. Dantzler, 2021; Dorries et al, 2022; Howell and Teresa, 2022). Specifically, we use the concept of racialized dispossessing to examine the everyday, ongoing ways that low-income renters of color in both research sites perceived landlords and property managers severing them from access to stable housing and the exercise of autonomy and control over their housing and daily lives.…”