[L]eaving home is hard, and the of wealth makes it even harder. - Jamelle Bouie

And Trumpism, as the iconography of his movement demonstrates, has race at its core. Trump began his march to the White House as the chief proponent of the "birther" conspiracy, arguing relentlessly that the country's first Black president was foreign-born and therefore illegitimate. His appeal as a presidential candidate was to white Americans who believed that their racial identity and the country's national identity were one and the same.

All of which raises an obvious question: Why do blacks have a hard time leaving impoverished neighborhoods? [...] Once you grasp the staggering differences between black and white neighborhoods, it becomes much easier to explain a whole realm of phenomena. Take the achievement gap between middle-class black students and their white peers. It’s easy to look at this and jump to cultural explanations—that this is a function of black culture and not income or wealth. But, when we say middle-class black kids are more likely to live in poor neighborhoods, what we’re also saying is that they’re less likely to have s with professionals, and more likely to be exposed to violence and crime. This can have serious consequences. Youthful experimentation for a white teenager in a suburb might be smoking a joint in a friend’s attic. Youthful experimentation for a black teenager might be hanging out with gang members.

I occasionally tweet very vociferously about land-use decisions in this city. And a lot of that’s inspired just by actually seeing, like, 70 percent, 80 percent of lots in the city. Like, I’ve actually seen much of the built environment of Charlottesville just from biking around.