Anne Branigin, writing this weekend inThe Root, gives us a primer on understanding how systemic economic racism is at the heart of economic inequality in the United States:
It’s Not Class, It’s Race: Why America Can’t Move Forward Until It Addresses the Racial Wealth Gap
The 1898 race riot is one of those stories that have been willfully erased from history, even though it is the only coup d’état to ever take place on American soil. Thirty-three years after the South lost the Civil War, gangs of white men took to the streets in the port city of Wilmington. In a single day, they murdered as many as 60 black people, drove untold others from their homes, burned black businesses to the ground and overthrew the mixed-race government that had been elected two days prior. Before Nov. 10, 1898, Wilmington was a majority-black city.
It hasn’t been ever since. And the names of the white supremacists who assumed power after the massacre remain emblazoned on street signs, government buildings and college auditoriums…
Black wealth, stifled at the root and then stamped on subsequently, in each following generation, in myriad cruel, deliberate ways.
To look at the wealth gap as it is in 2017 is to look at the evidence of an accumulated, and ongoing, economic massacre.
As Branigin notes, to look at ‘income inequality’ as the primary measure of economic inequality in this country can obscure, or more precisely, white-wash, the magnitude of racial economic disparity:
The statistics are consistent, and they are overwhelming. For every $100 in wealth a white family has, black families hold just $5.04. The average white family is worth an astonishing $600,000 more than the average black family. Black middle-class families may have zero wealth in less than 40 years. One study found that, without the family car, black wealth would “barely exist.”…
Income, the amount of money you earn every year, is frequently confused with wealth, which is the sum total of all your assets—minus your debt. It’s a basic financial concept, but at least one study has shown that Americans may not really grasp the difference.
When racism is ignored in efforts to redress economic inequality, a crucial element of the source of virtually all of the inequality revealed by economic analysis is simply effaced:
As Yale psychology professor Jennifer Richeson—a co-author of the racial-wealth-gap study—told me, some cognitive dissonance is at play. No matter how many times people encounter the data on the wealth gap, many are still shocked.
“People are surprised because we have this clear ... narrative of racial progress and these clear examples, like Barack Obama. Surely we must have made some progress,” said Richeson, who received a MacArthur “genius” grant. The persistence and expansion of the racial wealth gap goes against everything some people believe to be true about “equal-opportunity America,” she added.
“It’s very difficult and challenging, and either people forget about it or ... look for reasons to explain it away,” Richeson said. (emphasis added)
And there can be no ‘race neutral’ solutions to economic inequality, which would only systemic economic discrimination to persist:
The wealth gap is measurable. The stats are dizzying. The causes are clear. It is not accidental. If there is any good news, it’s that there are a number of policy fixes—clear, specific proposals that would target the yawning gap between white families and families of color…
Until Americans take the racial wealth gap seriously, addressing racial and economic equality is simply impossible. At the heart of it all is accepting the notion, once and for all, that class and race are inextricable…
“The race-based economic-inequality problem that we observed is historical. The economic wealth of our country is built on it,” [Yale professor Michael] Kraus pointed out.
“The racial-inequality problem, solving it would solve the class-inequality problem more broadly,” he added. “Our data suggests that.”
The message is simple: fight racism if you want to fix economic inequality.