Whitewashing City Spaces

Abstract

Despite the tangible and documented impact race plays in questions of housing, employment, education, and health, discourses of antiracialism perpetuate the idea race—and by extension, racism—is no longer a relevant marker of disparity. In this alleged “post race” context, how do news accounts cover stories on urban crisis and renewal? This article takes up scholarly calls to develop “conceptual tools” that may enable critical scholars to explore how racism continues undercover in the 21st century. I argue for the importance of exploring how strategic forgetting operates in conjunction with the familiar and formulaic frame of personalization to erase or evade the continued presence of structured, systemic racism in the (re)construction/renewal of city spaces.