Eric Foner - Freedom to Exclude In Freedom to Discriminate, G | Политическая теория и философия (Political theory and philosophy)

Eric Foner - Freedom to Exclude

In Freedom to Discriminate, Gene Slater, who has spent four decades as a consultant to states and municipalities on housing policy, makes a powerful case that California’s real estate brokers not only originated a system of residential segregation that became a model for the entire nation, but also effectively mobilized support for Proposition 14 by invoking the central idea in America’s political vocabulary: freedom. The issue, they insisted, was not race but white property owners’ “freedom of association,” or, more simply, “freedom of choice.” They described government enforcement of the right of Blacks to purchase a home as reverse discrimination against whites. Providing a template for opposition to an overbearing liberal state, Slater argues, the successful campaign for Proposition 14 laid the foundation for the rise of modern American conservatism.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/freedom-exclude/