Dr. Andrew Kahrl is a professor of history and African American studies at the University of Virginia and the author of “The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America.”
He cited Harris Public Policy research on property taxes in a New York Times Op-ed entitled "It’s Time to End the Quiet Cruelty of Property Taxes."
A recent report by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy found that property assessments were regressive (meaning lower-valued properties were assessed higher relative to value than higher-valued ones) in 97.7 percent of U.S. counties. Black-owned homes and properties in Black neighborhoods continue to be devalued on the open market, making this regressive tax, in effect, a racist tax.
