The Cost of Being Seen
How racism devalues Black interiors—and erodes generational wealth.
By Jacquelyn Iyamah
In the world of real estate appraisals, the value of a home is supposed to be determined by elements such as comparable home sales, square footage, number of bedrooms, the condition of the home, the quality of finishes, and notable upgrades. But for many Black homeowners, there’s an unspoken metric at play: proximity to whiteness through interior design, styling, and decor.
What appraisers often read as “tasteful” design has a long history of being associated with whiteness. This isn’t new—in the United States, modern interior design choices were deliberately marketed to white families in the postwar era as visual markers of wealth, class, cleanliness, and superiority. These aesthetics communicated social standing. Over time, white design aesthetics became a kind of currency, signaling that a household was respectable.
As Diane Harris shares in her book Little White Houses, “Art, furniture, cooking—everything within the domestic sphere was intended to affirm a white American identity and to erase ethnic identities.” White aesthetics were established as “high-brow,” while other racial expressions were pushed to the margins, often dismissed as too niche, too ethnic, or too Black.
And while there is no singular Black aesthetic across the diaspora, we do have a shared vernacular. Black aesthetics, which can often emerge through Black representational art, carved woods, natural textiles, geometric shapes, and bold pops of color, are often viewed as undesirable. This phenomenon continues to influence how interiors are valued today. Because appraisers are tasked with estimating what a typical buyer would pay, their valuations often mirror these biased assumptions about what is broadly desirable.
In a country where, as of 2023, white Americans held a 73.8% homeownership rate, those market preferences are overwhelmingly shaped by whiteness. The racist undertone is clear: When potential buyers walk through a home, they want to imagine themselves living there, and for many buyers, that means picturing a space untouched by Blackness. As sociologist Elijah Anderson observes, “White people typically avoid Black space, but Black people are required to navigate the white space as a condition of their existence.”
This type of thinking carries material consequences. When racialized decor is present, a home’s value can quietly drop. When it’s hidden, the numbers climb. In a society where homeownership is a key path to building wealth, that bias quietly robs Black families of their futures. It’s yet another way the system keeps Black mobility out of reach amidst a web of historically racist policies.
The result is Black families are routinely forced to whitewash their homes to receive fair market value during appraisals. That often means removing artwork that reflects Blackness, tucking away beloved books by Black authors, hiding records by Black musicians, folding away rich textiles, and clearing out meaningful objects that don’t align with white design sensibilities.
Consider the case of an Oakland couple who received a low appraisal on their home. After removing all signs of their racial identity and hiring a staging company to replace their belongings with “neutral decor,” their house sold for $300,000 more. In Ohio, another couple removed all items from the home that might signal they were Black and replaced them with photos and memorabilia borrowed from a white neighbor. Their home was suddenly worth $92,000 more. In San Francisco, another couple removed artwork, books, hair products, and anything else that might indicate that a Black family lived there and their home was worth $487,500 more.
These incidents aren’t a rarity; they are a part of a larger system where interior spaces are read, interpreted, and valued through a racist lens. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) conducted a study to investigate racial bias in home appraisals. Interracial couples participated to see if the same property would be valued differently based on which partner appeared to own it and how the space was decorated.
When one appraiser visited, only the white partner was present, and the home had been “whitewashed”—and all cultural items suggesting Black identity, such as African art or movie posters featuring Black actors, were removed. When the second appraiser arrived, only the Black partner was present, and the space had been “blackwashed.” The result? Homes classified as “white” in terms of ownership and decor were consistently valued higher than those classified as Black by about $6,800 on average, and in some cases as much as $46,000.
At my design practice Making the Body a Home, I use a framework I developed called Interior Race Theory to help designers understand how the elements that shape our interior spaces—furniture, layout, decor, objects, materials, even structures—can either affirm or erode racial identity. Through the quiet rituals of home—lounging on Afrocentric furniture, walking past art with Black subjects, or rearranging ancestral objects—we continuously affirm our identity through the ordinary acts of living. When Black homeowners are forced to drastically alter their homes just to have them deemed valuable, that is a form of identity erasure. It sends the message that in order to build wealth, their Blackness cannot be seen.
It might seem like a small sacrifice to some who believe that people should just do whatever it takes to build wealth. But the Black home has never been just about wealth; it’s about liberation from white scrutiny. It’s where we feel seen, heard, and held in a society that so often denies us that outside its walls. To hide the very things that make us feel safe—just to cater to the culture we’ve sought refuge from—is a violent sacrifice.
Building a culture where Black people no longer have to do this requires resistance on various fronts. The design industry must broaden its definition of taste to honor Black aesthetics. Consumers need to question the trends they adopt and consider whose identities those trends prioritize. Real estate agents must stop coaching Black clients to scrub their homes of Blackness and instead challenge buyers to expand their idea of what a valuable home looks like. Staging companies need to move beyond one-size-fits-all aesthetics and learn how to present homes in ways that honor the people who live in them. And appraisers must be trained to recognize and correct for racial bias in how they assess homes, ensuring that Black expression is never mistaken for diminished value.
To build a future where all homes are truly valued, we must stop asking Black people to disappear, and start redesigning the systems that refuse to see them.
Black aesthetics are not liabilities—they are legacy. ⌂