To address your last point first, I have never denied that thanks to Jim Crow and the US’s limited class mobility, redlining had profound racial effects. I am focusing on the reasons for redlining and how it hurt the entire working class. I completely agree the effect included creating fewer options for black people collectively.

I see you downplaying the effect on the entire working class when you say things like “Non-Homeowners, and outside of economically depressed areas, specifically "black" and other ethnic non-homeowners were the targets.” How can they be the specific targets when “the vast majority (92 percent) of the total redlined home-owning population was white”?

“My point is that "white" people of every economic stratum had government-sponsored advantages over any "black" or ethnic minority of the same class.”

So long as we’re talking about the US before the civil rights era, I completely agree.

“you are arguing that wealthy people who owned property suffered more harm than "common men" (well employed "whites", "blacks", and ethnic minorities).”

Sorry I wasn’t clearer. I am arguing that the very first people who were hurt by redlining were the people who owned homes within the redlines. Didn’t I say that redlining was ultimately a sweetheart deal for rich people of all hues who wanted to snap up cheap property in redlined areas?

“most people who owned property that was subsequently redlined were members of the well-to-do class that never required government backing to obtain capital in the first place.”

I don’t see how you get to that conclusion. Are you saying the 8% of homeowners of color who were affected were all part of the black bourgeoisie? My impression is the redlined home owners lived within the redlined areas, and since they were redlined because those areas were poor, those homeowners were poorer than people who could afford to live in richer neighborhoods. Is that wrong?

“these owners did not lose access to any of their traditional buyers. Well-do-do people could still borrow money to buy or improve their property under the "old" system, without government guarantees. I will concede that they did not gain access to the new class of "common man" buyers that government guarantees created.”

There we appear to agree again.

“However, since many of the dwellings in cities were multi-family and even multi-use buildings, there would be few "common man" buyers in the market for them.”

Because the paper talked about home owners rather than landlords, I’m not making this assumption. I wish we had more data. I am confident saying that multi-family and multi-use buildings in higher-rated areas had few "common man" buyers.

However, I trust we agree that redlining did not seem to give any advantage to “common man” buyers of any race who wanted to buy in a red zone. The restrictions of Jim Crow limited where richer black people could buy, but not where poorer ones could.

“Financially, redlining may have been good for existing property owners because it guaranteed that the rentier class would retain ownership of most of the property within redlined areas. This is evident in the data, as less than 50% of properties within redlined areas were owner-occupied.”

That would apply to black members of the rentier class too.

“To bring this full circle and as stated earlier, well-employed "whites" (members of the newly created buyer class) who qualified financially for a loan guarantee could take their business anywhere outside of a redlined area to buy property.”

Agreed.

“Once having obtained property, they could then get guaranteed loans to improve their properties in the future.”

Agreed.

“The ability for "whites" to leverage government-guaranteed loans to purchase and improve real estate, while "blacks" (and for a while other ethnic minorities) were denied access, remained true for two generations beyond the initial introduction of loan guarantees.”

And now we disagree. Only the whites who qualified for a loan in a higher-rated zone could buy there. Class matters. The PoC who could buy in redlined areas could still buy there, and the PoC and the whites who could not afford to buy there continued to be unable to buy anywhere.

“You cannot spin away from the profound "racial" economic impacts of these policies.”

Of course not. But I reject the argument that these particular capitalist decisions were primarily about race. It's why I continue to think that Malcolm X's belief that you cannot have capitalism without racism is true: limited class mobility maintains capitalism's racial hierarchy.