Thomas, Crow, and Heirs Property?

ProPublica reported this:

In 2014, one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow’s companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just an old single-story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy were the people on the other side of the deal: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.

Lots of discussion about the propriety of the purchase, but I wonder about something else, given the last 5 words.  Apparently Thomas' mother lives in the home.  

Slate reports that:  "All three properties were co-owned by Thomas, Williams, and the family of Thomas’ late brother."   That sounds to me like confirmation of what I suspected when I started this post--the property was "heirs property", meaning the original owner died without a will. That's been a big issue for ASCS/FSA, since having clear title to the land you're farming used to be a requirement for obtaining some loans. Congress has recently provided money for FSA to dole out to NGO's who are supposed to help owners of heirs property. 

I've always mentally ascribed the prevalence of heirs property among blacks to the historical lack of lawyers in the community. But here we have one of the nine most powerful lawyers in the US involved with heirs property. The iriony.

Cars and Pedestrians--A Metaphor IV

 I want to push the metaphor comparing drivers and pedestrians to those entrapped in our racial web.

• the norms and rules for driving a car are both imposed by history and learned early, as we watch our parents and others drive from within the car, and watch other cars.  The norms and rules for being a pedestrian are less obvious and mostly less formal, except when walkers come into contact with cars, bicycles, etc.  But they too are learned early.  I had to learn to jaywalk; as a country boy and a natural born bureaucrat I over-conformed to the rules as I learned them. Mostly the norms are learned early enough they work below our consciousness--like walking to the right. 
• typically I think we are much less aware of the driver inside the car; we just see the car.  That's similar to how we treat members of racial/ethnic/identity groups.  We don't see the Amish or Hasids as individuals, not the ego within the body or clothing, just the outside.  The same goes for others on the stage of life: celebrities of all kinds.
• I choose to drive a car, or to walk. Once I make my choice, I inherit the whole cluster of norms described above.  My behavior as a driver is somewhat under my control, but it is very constrained.  The constraints are firmer for individuals; the norm is that an individual's racial identity is not under her control (particularly before the civil rights movement).  

I think what captured my imagination here is how quickly and sharply my behavior and attitudes switch when I got from pedestrian to driver and back.  Intellectually I know we fill many different roles as we live, all governed by social norms and habits, but this particular pair of roles illustrates their nature very well.

Cars and Pedestrians--A Metaphor III

 My second continuation:

The points I made in my previous post:What's going on?  

• binary--cars versus walkers
• power--cars have more power
• conflict over scarce resource
• laws and rules to govern power and conflict
• infringing laws
• identifying with fellows generates emotion
• game playing, esp by weaker

Any reader who has gotten this far may be asking: where's the metaphor:

Specifically, when we Americans have our usual discussions of race, of African-Americans and European heritage, we could be talking cars and walkers:

• blacks and whites are binary groups in society, but not in reality
• whites have more power than blacks
• the groups are competing for scarce resources--position in society as represented by wealth and prestige
• there are laws and norms to govern the behavior of the races
• both push the limits or violate the laws
• there's strong in-group feeling for those identifying with the group
• both sides play games, esp the weaker blacks

Cars and Pedestrians--A Metaphor II

 A continuation from yesterday:

What's going on?  

• there's a good binary separation going on: I'm either a driver in a car, or a walker.
• there's a power difference: as a walker I can't do much to a car; as a driver I can kill the walker
• there's a conflict of interests--drivers and walkers are dividing up a scarce resource--the right to traverse the intersection.
• there's laws, rules, and norms for each, I suspect particularly because of the conflict and power difference. We're both supposed to act in obedience to the traffic light.
• reality is that drivers and walkers push the envelope routinely.  We mock a driver who obsessively follows traffic laws, like never speeding. We acknowledge jaywalking.
• judging by my emotions, I feel some kinship with fellow drivers, also with fellow walkers; I'd guess that's a common feeling.
• both sides can play mind games. As a driver I don't always yield to a walker in the cross-walk.
• it seems to me mind games are the weapon of the weaker party. Personally, at the intersection I'm describing, there's are turn arrows.  When the through lanes change to red, the right turn arrow turns green.  After the turning traffic gets its turn, the turn arrow goes blank. A couple seconds later the walk sign turns on (and the turn arrow goes to blinking yellow).  I make a habit of starting to cross when the turn arrow goes blank-- figuring that means the turning traffic now needs to stop.  That means I'm often  stepping into the path of cars whose drivers are planning to slow but not stop for the turn.  I take satisfaction in imagining the drivers are frustrated, and perhaps will remember to be more cautious next time.

Cars and Pedestrians--a Metaphor-I

 When I cross Reston Parkway on the way to and from my garden, I now use the button for pedestrian crossing.  (I used to jaywalk because it was easy enough to see oncoming traffic, I was impatient, but no longer--the risk seems greater the older I get.) Particularly going to the garden there's often stopped cars in the 2 through lanes, so cars zooming up Reston and looking to make a right turn onto Glade can't see me starting to cross. They are used to not having to stop, despite the law. 

As I'm walking I silently dare the bastards to run into me.  

When I drive north on Reston Parkway to the library, Home Depot, or Trader Joes, I pass by Reston Town Center.  There's apartment buildings on the south side of the road, with the hotel, stores and office buildings of the center on the north side.  So there's a pedestrian crossing with a button. With a four-lane parkway, it takes forever for the damn pedestrians to amble across.  Or at least, the light is timed so as not to hurry an eighty-year old man with bad legs.

I sit in the car, steaming.  

I think this scenario can serve as a metaphor for racism. 

I'll try to expand on this in the future.

The Federal Government and Racism in Housing.

I think one general pattern in the development of government is evolution from the bottom, consolidation from the top.  British history has the problem of over-mighty subjects I think they're called--nobles who have their own entourages wearing their own livery carrying weapons and posing a threat to the monarchy.  Gradually their power is whittled away and the state assumes a monopoly of violence.  In the South especially there's a pattern of private and quasi-public enforcement of laws and mores, which shows most clearly in lynchings and jury nullifications.  That's been changed.  In the North roads were often developed as private enterprises, eventually to be taken over by the state. 

I could go on, but let me get to the subject: the New Deal and the federal housing agencies are commonly blamed for establishing red lines and refusing to finance housing loans in areas of the city.  IMO it's true that's what they did, but it's not true it was dreamed up in the pointy heads of Washington bureaucrats and New Dealers.  I've held that opinion all along, but it doesn't fit with the  way I see the world operating.

Now my opinion, which was based only on feelings and not on facts, is reinforce by a scholarly article in the Journal of American History.  Unfortunately it's paywalled but it includes a discussion of the development of the real estate industry. I'll quote a paragraph:

" Fisher emphasized the importance of NAREB's Code of Ethics, first created in 1913. He summarized the code and the commonsense nature of advising clients and customers on matters of value. However, he failed to mention its soon-to-be-finalized Article 34, which became one of the organization's most controversial statements: “A Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality, or any individuals whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood.” Thus racism was already well established in NAREB by the time that Ely and Fisher reached out."

"Ely" is Richard Ely, the founder of the American Economics Association, and Fisher is one of his students who worked for what became the National Association of Real Estate Boards, now the National Association of Realtors.

The article's theme can be summarized here:

?The Federal Home Loan Bank, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, the Federal Housing Administration, and their restructuring of the real estate sector were outgrowths of the network of academics, private sector professionals, trade organizations, and lobbyists that Ely assembled in the 1920s. "

To paraphrase the now deceased Rumsfeld, "you write the laws with the society you've got".  The New Deal solidified and rationalized racism in housing, racism that pre-existed the New Deal.

I Forgot "Colorism"

 I added "colorism" to my post of two days ago. 

Bottom line is humans are built with emotional responses to the different and strange. We learn to manage/overcome such responses sometimes; in many cases it's individual, in some cases it becomes woven into society and our history.