White Space, Black Hood: Opportunity Hoarding and Segregation in the Age of Inequality
Sheryll Cashin
Beacon Press
The iconic Black hood, like slavery and Jim Crow, is a peculiar American institution animated by the ideology of white supremacy. In White Space, Black Hood, Sheryll Cashin traces the history of anti-Black residential caste—boundary maintenance, opportunity hoarding, and stereotype-driven surveillance—and unpacks its current legacy so we can begin the work to dismantle the structures and policies that undermine Black lives. Drawing on nearly 2 decades of research in cities including Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago, New York, and Cleveland, Cashin traces the processes of residential caste as it relates to housing, policing, schools, and transportation with the goal of changing the lens through which society sees residents of poor Black neighborhoods from presumed thug to presumed citizen, and transforming the relationship of the state with these neighborhoods from punitive to caring.