Will America Change?

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor wrote a column for the New Yorker entitled “How Do We Change America?” In the conclusion, the author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, penned the following:

The protests are building on the incredible groundwork of a previous iteration of the Black Lives Matter movement. Today, young white people are compelled to protest not only because of their anxieties about the instability of this country and their compromised futures in it but also because of a revulsion against white supremacy and the rot of racism. Their outlooks have been shaped during the past several years by the anti-racist politics of the B.L.M. movement, which move beyond seeing racism as interpersonal or attitudinal, to understanding that it is deeply rooted in the country’s institutions and organizations.

I wish I had that much faith in Americans. In ten years, many young protesters will have careers. They will marry, have children, and decide to buy a home. Where is the first question. Where the school districts are good, of course. Across America, most communities fund education with revenue from local real estate taxes. The greater the value of the real estate, the greater the revenue. Towns have zoned accordingly for the past 70 years. Large plots of land for each home. Only single-family dwellings. No apartments. No housing for low-income families. Therefore, the richest towns can afford the most competitive teachers' salaries and better facilities and teaching tools. Essentially, they usually have the best education programs for children of the nation’s wealthiest.

America will not change until individuals change how they view education. States—if not the nation—must spend similar amounts for the education of all individuals regardless of where they live. Some states are trying, but they are meeting tremendous resistance from local homeowners. Most people agree we need more low-income housing, and most people agree NIMB (not in my backyard), offering many excuses—traffic congestion, change to the neighborhood aesthetics, and environmental issues few ever realized were an issue until the building permit was issued for a low-income building.

Public universities and colleges must stop raising tuitions, making a college degree financially easier for the lower 60% of the nation’s families to send their children.

How is this accomplished? We must raise local and federal taxes—especially on those in the top 20%, who have watched as their effective tax rate decline over the past 40 years. How many protesters will back that initiative? Based on the experience with my generation, few.

Without parity in education for all communities, the distribution of opportunities and wealth will remain inequitable. The poor will carry the burden, a burden made heavier during the past 20 years when not only the top 1% but the top 20% have become richer and the bottom 40% have remained even or become poorer.