Showing events on November 9, 2021

November 9, 2021 - 4:00pm to 5:30pm

We use public money—increasingly in the form of debt—to pay for the services and resources that society needs. Cities and local governments use debt to finance everything from housing and property development, education, and transportation to settling lawsuits in cases of police brutality. Yet the debts that local governments borrow on behalf of their residents have been used to finance racial segregation and White wealth accumulation. Akin to credit scores used by lenders to determine how expensive it is for individual people to borrow money, lenders rate cities with implications for the costs of investing in local communities. For example, when White property is perceived threatened by protests against racial injustice, lenders can ascribe lower ratings to cities and make it more expensive for local governments to finance the services and resources that communities need. These types of financial calculations determine whether and how racialized communities experience marginalization, vulnerability, and abundance.

This panel conversation with Tamara K. Nopper, Destin Jenkins, and Lua Kamál Yuille considers how public money, and debt in particular, is used to finance racial injustice. We also consider how public money can be used to advance racial justice and to invest generously in the services and resources that communities need. Individually and collectively, these scholars’ deep expertise and extensive works offer compelling reasons to understand the relationships between money