Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home

by Anita Hill

From the heroic lawyer who spoke out against Clarence Thomas in the historic confirmation hearings twenty years ago
 
At the historic Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, Anita Hill spoke out courageously about workplace sexual harassment. Now she turns to the topic of home. As our country reels from the subprime mortgage meltdown and the resulting devastation of so many families and communities, Hill takes us inside this “crisis of home” and exposes its deep roots in race and gender inequities, which continue to imperil every American’s ability to achieve the American Dream.  In this period of recovery and its aftermath, what is at stake is the inclusive democracy the Constitution promises. The achievement of that ideal, Hill argues, depends on each American’s ability to secure a place that provides access to every opportunity our country offers. Building on the great strides of the women’s and civil rights movements, Hill presents concrete proposals that encourage us to broaden our thinking about home and to reimagine equality for America’s future.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Race, Politics, Gender, Sociology, Womens

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 4, 2011

About the author

Anita Faye Hill, J.D. (Yale University, 1980; BS, Psychology, Oklahoma State University, 1977), is professor of social policy, law, and women's studies at Brandeis University and a faculty member of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis. She previously worked under Clarence Thomas at the Department of Education and the EEOC, after which she took on a professorship at the Evangelical Christian O. W. Coburn School of Law at Oral Roberts University. Her prior work with Thomas earned her a call to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee during the hearings regarding his 1991 nomination to the Supreme Court. Her testimony alleging sexual harassment by Thomas make her a figure of national interest and a target of conservatives despite her own conservative standing. Such pressure ultimately led Hill to resign her tenured professorship at the University of Oklahoma College of Law.

Reviews

[Tayari Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually read Anita Hill’s new book, Reimagining Equality this summer, but it was just released yesterday. This is the what I wrote for the back of her book. It doesn’t really do justice to this complex and full-of-heart book that is clearly a labor of love.

“Combining the sincerity of memoir and the rigor of sociology, Anita Hill looks at home as a physical space, but also as a microcosm of American society. The women profiled in this engaging and moving book illustrate the challenges of living in America as a raced and gendered person while simultaneously demonstrating the beauty of resistance and the triumphs of family, community, and faith. Hill connects the dots between the home-making efforts of African Americans just after Reconstruction and the heartbreaking (and enraging) consequences of the subprime mortgage scandal. After reading this book, you will never see a house as just four walls and a roof. It is a dream and we, as Americans, are the dreamers.”

[Nicholas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some combination of my mother and Anita Hill made me a feminist. I was obsessed with the Hill-Thomas hearings in high school and wrote her a letter at the time. I also heard her speak the next year and read her first book, Speaking Truth to Power, an account of the hearings and their aftermath. Hill is a contract lawyer by training and teaching, but about ten years ago she got a new job at Brandeis in public policy and women's & gender studies, and so she's writing about other things now too. This book is partially a result of that branching out.

And, I have to say, it's disappointing. Each chapter on its own generally works, but they don't all necessarily work together as a book. It is a rumination on the meaning of "home," particularly for African Americans, women, and African American women. HIll combines the history of her own family's move from Arkansas to Oklahoma in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century with an exploration of the subprime mortgage crisis' effects for blacks and Latinos with stories of black women and "home" with an exploration of the Hansberry family (of A Raisin in the Sun fame) with just about everything else you can think of. I'm totally fine with interdisciplinarity and with different kinds of evidence in the same account but by the end Hill was spouting a bunch of platitudes that didn't seem to be anchored in much more than the generic notion that every American deserved a place to call home. I agree, but the book as a whole just didn't feel all that focused. Hill is clearly smart and I agree with her politics, but this felt like a bunch of shorter pieces masquerading as a book.

[Natalie Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW. Another amazing read to help me get out of my reading slump! This book wasn't at all what I was anticipating it was. While I expected most of it to focus on the political components of "home" (which there is plenty of throughout the book) the most compelling perspective was the personal.
Anita Hill, who is known to many for her testimony in the confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Despite her powerful testimony that spoke to Justice Thomas' character, Anita Hill is so much more than the hearings that made her famous. She is a scholar, a lawyer, and a fantastic storyteller. It is through the stories and the complicated characters with a complicated relationship with "home" that really stuck out to me throughout the book. While the book is deeply analytical, it is also imaginative and full of creativity. She discusses in depth the communities in our country, specifically people of color and/or women, whose relationship with home is a tumultuous one, with many being stripped of theirs or forced inside a false one. She discusses home in the physical sense, in place, in the loan crisis in the early 2000's where banks were proven in court to have disproportionally targeted people of lower socio economic status, women, people of color, and other vulnerable lendees to the now infamous sub prime loan crisis that led to the economic collapse of 2007-2009 (with these practices being used for years beforehand.) She also discusses home in a metaphorical sense, which presents a larger sense of home. Home in this country, home in politics, home in your families and in society. She talks about members of her own family, about President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama's impact on the meaning of home for so many, and other characters whose search for home, while sometimes a painful one, is unrelenting. The benefits of home, of feeling at home and having the right and the resources to build your own home whatever it may look like for you, is so beautifully argued in Reimagining Equality. In order to understand our future as a nation and all of our homes within it, we must look to the past that is full of people having home just out of reach, stolen after generations in the same place, or forced upon them without consent.
I will definitely be picking up more of Anita Hill's books moving forward. Her intelligence speaks for itself, she is incredibly well read and well spoken, and her passion for this work is evidenced in these pages.

[Joel Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really sharp and surprisingly relevant take on the housing crisis in 2008, what 'home' means, and the intersection of race and gender. This book is fantastic and I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in understanding the Housing Collapse more fully, Hill provides excellent commentary complimented with cultural and personal supplements. It is interesting, significant and poignant.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting and thought-provoking read about the intersection of race and gender in the sub-prime mortgage crisis, as well as the meaning of home in general and the place of the home in the idea of the American Dream.

[Michelle Powers · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book focuses on stories that have do with women of color and the idea of home, with a particular focused on how women of color (and minorities) were made victims in the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008. Overall a good read that was very quick. The stories of the people were compelling.
The data she share may have been astonishing when the work was published-that women and minorities were specifically targeted- but in 2020 this was not unbelievable or "new" news. In that respect the book seemed dated.

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anita Hill brings up so many thoughts from what happened to women of color after the civil war to their exploitation during the sub prime mortage debacle. She doesn't just talk about problems, but offers ideas to make improvements to ensure home ownership and stable neighborhoods for inner cities that also suffered during the housing market problems.

[Catherine Gentry · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second book I've read lately by Anita Hill. I enjoyed it too. Thoughtful and provocative. I'd not realized that the sub-prime victims were mostly women--although I was not surprised. As much as we'd like to think that misogyny is dead, it is alive and thriving--albeit maybe more subtly.

[Nadine B Hack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book that adeptely weaves personal stories, legal history and important trends. I highly recommend this book.

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent compilation of stories, family history, and current information regarding race and gender in America. Highly recommended!

[Afrah · Rating 2 out of 5]

It felt like something was missing the whole time I was reading it.

[Mills College Library]

305.89607 H6452 2011

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anita Hill writes a well captured and researched tale about how racist and sexist systems and structures work together to keep Black families from the opportunity to build and settle into their homes. She takes examples from her family's past and moves forward through history including themes from Lorraine Hansberry's life and play A Raisin in the Sun up to the implosion of the subprime mortgage market and the families who were deeply impacted. The book was published in 2011 and stops at President Obama's first term in office. It would be interesting to learn about how the last ten years have shifted the journeys for equal access to home for Black women and their families.

[Holly Lazzaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a child of the 80’s I have always looked up to Anita Hill. Like many women, her testimony is burned into the fabric of my formative years. So when she was speaking nearby recently I got a friend who felt the same and we popped in. This book was mentioned and I’m so glad I got it. That all happened before George Floyd and the pandemic and the world turning upside down. It gave me a lens to process all of that. I will never completely understand what it feels like to be BIPOC but I’ll keep reading books like this to try to get a little further down that road. Highly recommend for any white person, period.

[Alisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn’t very enlightening for me but that’s because I’ve already done a lot of reading and research on the topics. I also think that Anita Hill should release an update for this book in a few years since she refers to President Obama frequently but now I would like to hear her input on how more current Presidents Trump and Biden responded to racial and gender inequality in the US.

I did find some use in her chapter that focused on the 07-08 housing crisis and it’s impact on blacks, Latinos, and women in general. I also enjoyed learning about her family’s history and how it connects to her overall focus on the American Dream and what “home” means to her.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this lens on American history and I really was following it until it got into all the subprime mortgage stuff and then my eyes started to glaze over. I did find it interesting to read a book about race and gender discrimination that was written during the Obama years since the author knows what was happening at the time but didn’t know what would happen come the next round of elections. It’s fascinating to “be” in that moment in time again with the lens of today.

[Raine McLeod · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's kind of a memoir, kind of an academic analysis of what it means to exist as black and a woman in the US. She talks about access to the housing market, what "home" means, and how black people are targeted through bias (both conscious and not) and basically set up to fail. Reimagining Equality is a fascinating look at the economic impacts of being in a marginalised group.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important book that situates the housing crisis within a longer history of racial and gender discrimination through exploring the concept of "home" biographically, literally, and legally.

[Zandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot from this book. But it was very slow reading, because there was so much information to take in! I wish I had read it in 2011, or that I could read a "status update" of what's changed since it was published.

[Jamala]

Anita Hill gives a very detailed overview of race and gender equality in America. What attracted me to pick up this book is her infamous Clarence Thomas case. Her writing can be kind of dry and lecturish at times, but that's what happens when you're giving a bunch of facts.
This book exposes, what's wrong with our housing system as it stands, how it got that why and the exclusionary factors that play into the American ideal of home today. Pretty good.