There is nothing wrong with Black people that ending racism cannot solve

Power Station

Facts matter. Data eclipses narratives steeped in bias, providing the foundation for policy solutions to economic inequities. At the Brookings Institution, a preeminent global think tank, scholars conduct research, generate data, and share knowledge for the purpose of improving policy and governance in America and around the world. That includes Senior Fellow Dr. Andre M. Perry whose research focuses on the value of assets, from homes to businesses and infrastructure, in American Black majority cities. His work exposes a devastating devaluation of assets, an underpricing of homes by 23%, robbing Black communities of some $156 billion in lost equity. As he shares in our conversation and in his tremendously important book: Know Your Price, Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities, these dollars could have financed millions of businesses, college educations, replaced water pipers in Flint, Michigan and more. His book bring policy to life by following his own trajectory as an infant raised by Elsie Boyd, a woman who chose to be his mother in a house considerably more valuable than its market price. His work on the devaluation of Black-owned homes by appraisers is a masterclass in the collaborative art of policy change. Hear him.