The Economic Dimension of Racism

The last forty years have seen a growing inequality in income, wealth, and opportunity. The poor are getting poorer, and the middle-class is shrinking. But perhaps most alarming of all is the dangerous and tragic gulf between White people and people of color. Statistics can be boring, but they can also be revealing. What we must always remember when it comes to numbers and poverty is that behind every statistic are people—individuals—families—hopelessness—greed—systemic injustice—intentional neglect—and APATHY. Here are some of the numbers which reveal the cruel reality which plagues the United States of America.

1. There are 140 million people in the United States who are poor and low-wealth. That’s almost half of our country’s population.
2. The combined wealth of the 400 richest Americans is now equal to that of nearly 2/3 of U S population. Three of these wealthy people (Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates) have as much wealth as the bottom half of U S households combined. 
3. Over the last 40 years CEOs have seen a 1000% increase in their income. The average CEO now makes 278 times the average worker. 
4. Since the late 1970s, real wages have stagnated for over half of the U S workforce while the cost of health care, housing, and other basic needs has risen. In the last twenty years the percentage of households that own a home has declined.
5. The Great Recession which began in 2008 accelerated these unfortunate trends. Most of the wealth and income gained since the recession have gone to the richest one-tenth of the 1 percent. The result is that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 90 percent of the population combined.
6. The median White family today has 41 times more wealth than the median Black family and 22 times more wealth than the median Latinx family. (“Wealth” is the total measure of what one owns minus that person’s debts. Wealth is a better indicator than income when measuring one’s financial stability and wellbeing.)
7. Since the early 1980s, median wealth among families of color has been stalled at less than $10,000. Black families today own just $3600 which is just 2 percent of the $147,000 owned by the median White family in the U S. The median Latinx family owns $6600 which is 4 percent of the median White family.
8. The decline in median wealth for all U S households has gone down by 3 percent since the early 1980s. During this same time, the median Black family saw their wealth drop by more than half. If this trend continues, by 2050 the median White family will have $174,000 of wealth while the median Latinx family’s wealth will be just $8600. The median Black family wealth will plummet to $600. By 2082 the median Black family will reach zero wealth. (Remember that “wealth” refers to what one owns minus that person’s debt.) 
9. Today 37 percent of Black families and 33 percent of Latinx families have zero or negative wealth compared to 15.5 percent of White families. 
10. By 2060, the combined Black and Latinx of the U S population is expected to be 42.5 percent. Today it is more than 25% of the U S population.
11. TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS WORKS ONLY FOR THE WEALTHIEST INDIVIDUALS. 

The tragedy and injustice reflected in these statistics have not happened by accident. Poverty in the United States is the intentional result of greed and racism. In the past decades we have seen a shift of wealth to capital investors and away from workers. The result has been a regressive economy in which the poor get poorer, the rich get richer, and the middle-class stagnates or is being squeezed out of existence. 

Poverty is intentional in America—and so is racism.

A big factor behind this tragic development is racism. Racism has always had an undeniable economic component. Slavery existed in the U S to provide cheap labor to wealthy Whites. Jim Crow, segregation, “separate but equal” (which was a cruel joke), voter suppression, prejudice suffered by people of color in areas of education, employment, business, housing, etc. allowed for the grim distribution of wealth to Whites at the expense of Blacks and other people of color. In this country, prisons, ghettos, “Indian reservations,” and systemic injustice are not problems—they are solutions for those in power to keep people of color “in their place” and out of sight and thus to allow the real business of greed and exploitation to occur as efficiently as the Nazi final solution. The less “they” have, the more “we” can have. Poverty is intentional in America—and so is racism. The assumptions and prejudice behind racism are how Whites can justify the oppression and systemic injustice which allow for the accumulation of wealth at the expense of people of color. 

I am aware that economics is not the only component of racism. But I am increasingly convinced that it is the most lethal component as well as being the most difficult one to change. As Frederick Douglas (former slave and Abolitionist) said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” Perhaps some of that demand is witnessed today in the massive Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Perhaps it’s also seen in the riots which have accompanied a few of these demonstrations. What amazes me is not the riots. What amazes me is how few of these riots actually occur in light of the generational prejudice and intentional racism which has afflicted Blacks for over four hundred years. I have no doubt whatsoever that if Whites had been subjected to the same misery and oppression of Blacks, we would be out in the streets using every means possible to change the system. And from the tragic history of lynching, burning, beating, and brutality which Whites have already imposed on Blacks in this country, I would guess violence and rioting would be among our first tools to bring about drastic change.

I am also aware that not all Whites are racist. But I do know that most of us (including myself) have benefited from a system which denies whole races opportunities we take for granted. And as the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us, the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. If we really care about the plight of people of color in our nation, we must demand that the current economic system be drastically changed. And for that to happen, we must surrender some of the advantages (economic and otherwise) we and our ancestors have enjoyed for many, many years at the expense of people of color. Most of us started out on third base (in ways we refuse to acknowledge or perhaps even recognize) and brag that we hit a triple while 25% of our population has never even been allowed to play the game.

I repeat: Until the economic dimension of racism is addressed, we will never see an end to the Original Sin of America. We will only see an acceleration of injustice, greed, poverty, and violence—both systemic violence that has afflicted people of color for centuries and violence in the streets. I suggest that what we are witnessing today is the beginning of the end of patience—a patience we Whites have presumed upon for far too long.