Widespread reliance on credit increasingly defines realities of economic citizenship in American society. This article theorizes the racial politics of credit expansion. It examines the federal initiative in the 1960s and ’70s to broaden financial access for poor renters in communities of color, which unintentionally sparked the rise of new state-level credit agencies. Drawing on historical evidence, much of it never used before, the author’s findings reveal the contentious politics at the heart of this policy shift. Doing so highlights the constitutive whiteness of credit and also illuminates how the project of expanding credit to marginalized groups tests the categorical seams of markets in the public imagination: such initiatives fuel racial contestation around taken-for-granted market rules, which draws governing officials toward increasingly speculative and convoluted financial instruments as a means of rule-bending subversion. Ultimately, this article sheds much-needed light on, and encourages further research into, the racial stratification of the state’s market-making power.

中文翻译：

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在边际市场上做市：住房金融机构和信贷扩张的种族政治

对信贷的广泛依赖越来越多地定义了美国社会经济公民的现实。本文将信贷扩张的种族政治理论化。它审查了 1960 年代和 70 年代的联邦倡议，旨在扩大有色人种社区贫困租房者的财务渠道，这无意中引发了新的州级信贷机构的兴起。根据历史证据（其中大部分以前从未使用过），作者的调查结果揭示了这一政策转变核心的有争议的政治。这样做突出了信贷的构成性白度，也说明了向边缘化群体扩大信贷的项目如何测试公众想象中市场的绝对缝隙：此类举措助长了围绕理所当然的市场规则的种族争论，这将政府官员吸引到越来越多的投机性和复杂的金融工具作为颠覆规则的手段。最终，本文对国家做市力量的种族分层提供了急需的启示，并鼓励对其进行进一步研究。