Rahim Kurwa Talks Policing, Housing & White Supremacy in the Antelope Valley

Authors

• Jonathan Feingold, Boston University School of LawFollow
• Rahim Kurwa, The University of Illinois at Chicago

Program

#RaceClass

Episode

72

Episode Length

1:13:29

Media Type

Podcast

Release Date

10-8-2026

Publisher

WNHN

Language

en-US

Abstract

Sociologist Rahim Kurwa discusses his new book "Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing." The book documents decades of antiblack racism and white supremacy in the Antelope Valley -- Los Angeles County's northern outpost. Professor Kurwa traces the Antelope Valley's evolution from a white segregated postwar suburb to a destination for individuals priced, policed, and evicted out of Los Angeles. We discuss how politicians, police and residents resisted Black migration through the policing of subsidized housing and how Black tenants, allies and organizers fought back.

Grab a copy of Rahim's book today: www.ucpress.edu/books/indefensible-spaces/paper

Related Resources

Rahim Kurwa, Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing (2025). The BU Community can access this title at https://bu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01BOSU_INST/14na64/alma99209661157701161.

Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear (2018). The BU Community can access this title at https://bu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01BOSU_INST/14na64/alma99209306194701161.

Gene Slater, Freedom to Discriminate: How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing and Divide America (2021). The BU Community can request this title at https://bu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01BOSU_INST/14na64/alma99209033581401161.

Recommended Citation

Jonathan Feingold & Rahim Kurwa, Rahim Kurwa Talks Policing, Housing & White Supremacy in the Antelope Valley (2026).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/raceclass/58