The Black Butterfly: The Harmful Politics of Race and Space in America

The very best-selling take a look at how American cities can promote racial fairness, finish redlining, and reverse the damaging health- and wealth-related results of segregation.

Winner of the IPPY Guide Award Present Occasions II by the Unbiased Writer

The world gasped in April 2015 as Baltimore erupted and Black Lives Matter activists, incensed by Freddie Grey’s brutal loss of life in police custody, shut down highways and marched on metropolis streets. In The Black Butterfly―a reference to the truth that Baltimore’s majority-Black inhabitants spreads out like a butterfly’s wings on each side of the coveted strip of actual property operating down the middle of the town―Lawrence T. Brown reveals that ongoing historic trauma brought on by a mix of insurance policies, practices, programs, and budgets is on the root of uprisings and crises in hypersegregated cities across the nation.

Placing Baltimore below a microscope, Brown seems to be intently on the causes of segregation, a lot of which exist in present laws and regulatory coverage regardless of the frequent perception that overtly racist insurance policies are a factor of the previous. Drawing on social science analysis, coverage evaluation, and archival supplies, Brown reveals the lengthy historical past of racial segregation’s influence on well being, from poisonous air pollution to police brutality. Starting with an evaluation of the present political second, Brown delves into how Baltimore’s historical past influenced actions in sister cities similar to St. Louis and Cleveland, in addition to Baltimore’s adoption of more and more oppressive methods from cities similar to Chicago.

However there may be cause to hope. All through the e-book, Brown provides a transparent five-step plan for activists, nonprofits, and public officers to realize racial fairness. Not content material to easily describe and decry city issues, Brown provides up a variety of modern options to assist heal and restore redlined Black neighborhoods, together with municipal reparations. Persuasively arguing that, since city apartheid was deliberately erected, it may be deliberately dismantled, The Black Butterfly demonstrates that America can not mirror that Black lives matter till we see how Black neighborhoods matter.