Carolyn Swope

What if the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) Redlining Maps Were Not Actually the Root Cause of So Much Modern Health (and Other) Inequality? Seeking more complete—but still highly racialized—explanations of urban spatial inequities.

New from me on scholarship by @cbswope.bsky.social et al.

"As the Trump Administration attempts to eviscerate fair housing...regulations...we need to recognize the persistence and resilience of racial-capitalist exploitation and dispossession, and not view it only as some relic of an earlier era."

Glad to see this piece out!

In it, we trace the explosion of HOLC redlining studies in public health research over recent years and propose that scholars widen their focus to include some of the myriad other discriminatory processes that have generated racial health inequities.

🧵A much-needed corrective to the “HOLC redlining was the primary/root cause of everything bad” literature that has exploded since the HOLC maps were digitized. A more complicated, but still heavily racialized story. Lots of other private and public discriminatory policies & practices involved.

Also check out this response by @lwinling.bsky.social on the importance of recognizing intervening processes and mechanisms leading to the present day - ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/... 10/10

But it means that racial differentiation and exploitation structures housing markets and policies in fundamental ways that go beyond any one process or actor. 9/

All this does not mean that HOLC redlining wasn’t racist, that the federal govt wasn’t complicit in racism, or that the maps aren’t significant sources of information about disinvestment and discrimination! 8/

We offer suggestions for how researchers can align conceptual frameworks, research questions, and study design, including use of alternative data sources beyond HOLC grades 7/

…3) redlining interacted with many other forms of racialized housing dispossession (urban renewal, gentrification, zoning…) to shape present-day riskscapes 6/

We argue: 1) the HOLC maps represent symptoms, not causes, of systematic disinvestment in Black communities; 2) redlining was not produced by the federal government in isolation but was shaped by public‒private collaboration and infused with capitalist logics… 5/

…but are continuously being reproduced by a political‒economic system that devalues Black property and personhood 4/

Rather than understand the maps as strictly causal (evidence suggests otherwise), we use a racial capitalism framework to argue that persistent racial health inequities are not the outcome of one discriminatory program from the 1930s… 3/

Although there’s been an explosion in use of HOLC maps as a measure for structural racism in public health research, how and why, precisely, they help us understand the underpinnings of present-day racial inequities remains unclear 2/

How and Why Does Redlining Matter for Present-Day Health? Critical Perspectives on Causality, Cartography, and Capitalism | AJPH | Vol. 115 Issue 5 Recent years have seen an explosion of public health research on associations between historical redlining maps created by a US government agency, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), and present...

Belatedly introducing a new piece on racial capitalism, redlining, causality, and public health that I was lucky enough to work on with coauthors @snmarkley.bsky.social, Shannon Whittaker, and Amy Hillier! ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/... 1/

“The issue is that Khalil and the others who have been abducted in recent weeks are being jailed because they were dissident protesters, student organizers, op-ed authors, and anti-genocide activists. In other words, they have been targeted for their political views. They are political prisoners.”

1. Every Dem Senator should be doing this, at minimum, for their constituents.
2. Why won't my Senators in New York do this for my fellow Columbia students incarcerated in Louisiana? It's a quicker flight.

“Dr. Khan Suri is an Indian national who was duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan,” a Georgetown spokesperson said in a statement. “We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention. We support our community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly.”

It is also notable that Georgetown immediately put out this statement defending their community member. Columbia still has not mentioned Mahmoud or Ranjani by name.

SWC - UAW local 2710 logo, "Reinstate Ranjani Srinivasan"

SWC stands by Ranjani Srinivasan, yet another union member targeted by the Trump administration and abandoned by our employer Columbia University. Columbia WAS complicit. Read more:🧵

Columbia must protect its students, defend their academic freedom, and safeguard their ability to study and work without fear!

Read her story here: archive.today/vnrbm

This attack on students by the US government is a blatant violation of the right to “protected political speech” and sets a dangerous precedent for the broad and unjustified targeting of international students.

Columbia University PhD student Ranjani Srinivasan had her visa unjustly revoked without explanation and was forced to flee the US. Despite being in academic good standing, Columbia withdrew her enrollment and her legal status was terminated without due process.

How a Columbia Student Fled to Canada After ICE Came Looking for Her Ranjani Srinivasan’s student visa was revoked by U.S. immigration authorities. That was just the start of her odyssey.

Before Mahmoud Khalil's detention last week, ICE came for a Columbia PhD student. She had nothing to do with the Gaza protests, but was arrested last spring during a roundup while trying to walk home. Charges were dismissed. The State Department still revoked her visa.

Research from 2022 that every Democrat apologist should chew on:
“We do not find any evidence that accommodative strategies reduce radical right support. If anything, our results suggest that they lead to more voters defecting to the radical right.“

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

This is really, really bad. Columbia made the mistake of thinking that placating the administration would spare them. Other universities made the mistake of thinking it would stop with Columbia. It won’t stop without disciplined pushback; it’s an existential question for American universities.

One might think that Columbia would want to put out a statement defending its students and making sure they feel protected. Instead, it wants to clarify that there are circumstances in which they will open the door for ICE to enter and snatch international students.

Info for international student workers What is this document? This is a living document maintained by SWC’s International Students Working Group and Cops Off Campus Working Group. We will keep adding to it as the situation develops and as...

My union @swcolumbia.bsky.social has created a resource to support international students who are experiencing increasingly higher risk of immigration enforcement. We have done this on our own time while the University has remained silent and complicit.

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

On Saturday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian recent Columbia graduate and lead negotiator for last spring’s Gaza solidarity encampment. Khalil held a green card at the time of his arrest and remains in detention as thousands petition for his immediate release. We are also aware of multiple reports of ICE agents accessing or attempting to access Columbia campus buildings on Friday and Saturday, including undergraduate dorms. The presence of immigration enforcement agents in Columbia Housing buildings coincides with Columbia’s publication of a new protocol which reverses the school’s sanctuary campus status and states that “exigent circumstances may allow [ICE] access to University buildings or people without a warrant.” Columbia has abandoned its nearly decade-long commitment to being a sanctuary campus. This development also closely follows the Department of Justice’s announcement on the same day that it plans to cancel $400 million of grants and contracts with Columbia in retaliation for students protesting Columbia’s investments in Israel. By allowing ICE on campus, Columbia is surrendering to the Trump administration’s assault on universities across the country and sacrificing international students to protect its finances. We call on faculty, staff, postdocs, students, and all other workers at Columbia University to stand against the administration’s cooperation with the Trump administration. Student Workers of Columbia (UAW Local 2710), whose unit includes many international student workers, demands that President Armstrong reinstate Columbia as a sanctuary campus; refuse to provide information to immigration authorities investigating Columbia affiliates; order Public Safety and private contractors to cease surveillance of Columbia affiliates; destroy all existing records of such surveillance; conduct “know your rights” trainings;

SWC condemns the ICE/DHS raids on Columbia's campus. We call on President Armstrong to protect international students from immigration enforcement and reinstate Columbia as a sanctuary campus.

Statement: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

“The president of the United States is illegally impounding critical research funds in an attempt to silence members of the Columbia community. As a university committed to free inquiry, free expression and the rule of law, we categorically reject these efforts and will see him in court.”

But seriously Columbia how did anticipatory obedience work out for you

A lot of Irish Americans — too many of whom are MAGA —need to draw on their immigration history of being starved out of their home country by a hateful, imperial occupier enforcing deliberately cruel laws. It is a sin to view people as ‘other’ when your ancestors suffered that fate.

In this issue we are asking questions beyond how to allocate scarce housing resources or to implement a funding program, to ask what we have learned about what is feasible, what is possible, and what is necessary to achieve a more equitable and secure housing future.