1. I've read several different iterations of this story, and all place plenty of blame on HOLC and FHA. But none of them ever get into the political process by which they were created. It seems insufficient to me to just say that they made the decisions they made because of "racism." Sure, it was racist, but what did that racism consist of? What was the debate about their creation like? Were the racist aspects of their programs part of the cost of getting them established, or did they just go unquestioned?
2. How is it that Congress was able to direct so much defense spending to the south and west? I've seen this discussed elsewhere, too, but have never seen a discussion of how the politics worked. What was the non-south/west congressional majority doing at the time? Asleep at the wheel?
3. And now, more Donna Reed.
Have no fear Colin. While I agree that Sugrue lacked an in depth discussion of the various political decisions racial underpinnings, that discussion will be an important part of Orleck's book. At a national level, as professor Herzberg mentioned, and Orleck will describe, Southern democrats successfully blocked most of the critical national reform aimed at the benefit of or social equalizing of African Americans. Sugrue makes references to this but you're not totally wrong from what I've read to call it asleep at the wheel. More apologetically put, they did what they could with what they had which were racial assumptions, and racist constituents. The best examples are found in Cohen and Sugrue as they both use the example of the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Realty Boards(pg 46 second full paragraph). It's the assumptions here that Sugrue leads his introduction with, and rather than blame political actions, he blames the rationale for the policies.
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