One of the most common ways to build wealth is homeownership, and for decades there have been structural barriers in place to keep black people from reaping its benefits. Back in 1934, a dude named Homer Hoyt, then the chief economist of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), wrote a report to help his agency standardize home-ownership loans in which he ranked various nationalities by order of “desirability.” The most desired on the list were Anglo-Saxons and northern Europeans (this whole white-race business was still coming together), and at the bottom of the list were Mexicans and
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