Racism is an intersection of power structures, historical injustice, and poverty. Truth be told, that's the recipe for all systemic injustice. The US was built for white men; the native Americans were being genocided, women were domestic slaves, and black people were chattel. Because the US reneged on reparations for ex-slaves after the civil war, a vast majority of black Americans entered the society in abject poverty. Because women, slaves, and native Americans had to be totally disenfranchised to be subjugated, laws were made to ensure disenfranchisement was long lasting. The rest of society continued to build up around these discriminatory laws, which could inflict more harm onto the group. A lot of these laws were even color blind; red zoning was on the basis of poverty.

But remember how I said former slaves were in abject poverty? Well, generational wealth plays a part here too. Wealth from family is far more important than we want to admit in this country. Some black people were able to become moderately wealthy, but that's not everyone or even most people. Most remained in poverty after 1 generation from slavery. When red zoning excluded poverty-stricken areas, they excluded most black people.

But that's not the end of the story. Now, we've understood how red zoning is harmful and repealed those laws. But segregated neighborhoods are even more segregated than before! Why? Well the racist history of enforced poverty makes it hard to build local wealth in those areas, our government has made it exceedingly hard to escape poverty, and poverty is worsening due to wealth accumulation by billionaires.