PH

The Racial Wealth Gap – Comprehensive Study Notes

Learning Objectives

  • Describe and apply the decolonial methodology of testimony (Ethnic Studies theory)
  • Trace the historic roots and contemporary consequences of U.S. racialized wealth disparities
  • Identify & analyze counternarratives and social movements that combat the racial wealth gap

9.1 Introduction: Intersectional Wealth Inequity

  • Wealth inequity shapes access to housing, education, food, physical & mental health
  • Intersectionality: race, class, gender, age, etc. intersect with bank accounts
  • "Health is wealth" proverb ⇒ ties bodily well-being to economic wellbeing
  • Gil Scott-Heron’s song “Whitey on the Moon”
    • Contrasts medical debt & rat-infested housing with moon missions
    • Frames space exploration as extraction + "wealth/white flight" metaphor (2013 film Elysium)
  • Chris Smalls on Bezos' Blue Origin flight: organized Amazon union while Bezos was in space
  • Chapter roadmap: decolonization + testimony → define wealth → quantify racial gap → analyze housing, assets, education, labor → review counternarratives

9.2 Testimony as a Decolonial Methodology

  • Sandy Grande (Red Pedagogy): decolonization is an ongoing process, not a fixed end-state
  • Decolonization requires exposing how lives are colonized by land, gov’t, education, wealth systems
  • Testimony/Testimonio (Tuhiwai Smith)
    • Formal structure for revealing truth & pain; gives protected space to the witness
    • Collective memory tool in Latin America; embeds decolonial practice into research
    • Humanizes statistics; shows wealth inequality as shared—NOT individual—problem
  • Chapter uses testimonies (e.g., Scott-Heron, Kimberly Jones) alongside data to model decolonial learning

9.3 Racial Wealth Disparities

  • Wealth = assets – liabilities; assets: stocks, land, homes, insurance, retirement, etc.
  • National concentration
    • Top 10\% own 70\% of wealth; bottom 90\% own 30\%
    • Top 1\% hold \approx35\% (≈17× bottom 50 %)
  • 2020 Federal Reserve data (median | mean family wealth)
    • White: \$188,200 | \$983,400
    • Black: \$24,100 | \$142,500 (<15 % of whites)
    • Hispanic: \$36,100 | \$165,500
    • “Other” (Asian, Indigenous, multiracial): between white & Black/Hispanic
  • White families more likely to receive inheritances, own homes, have retirement accounts & emergency savings
  • 2021 gap wider: typical white family = 8× Black family; 5× Hispanic (Aladangady & Forde)
  • 19\% of Black households (≈3.5 M) have negative net worth (McKinsey)

Perception Gap

  • Pew 2019 "Race in America": consensus that wealth helps, poverty hurts
  • Whites admit some advantage but under-estimate discrimination magnitude
  • Yale study: 2016 respondents guessed Black wealth = 90 % of white; reality ≈10 %
  • Reading about discrimination made whites flatten history, not update present inequality

9.4 Why Is Wealth So Unequal?

  • Roots: land theft (Indigenous), slavery (Black labor) → inherited white wealth; state violence protects it
  • Kimberly Jones Monopoly analogy: 400 rounds of forced wealth transfer; social contract broken
  • Mehrsa Baradaran: "Wealth is where past injustices breed present suffering"
  • Policies perpetuate gap: no reparations, tax/inheritance laws, deregulated lending, etc.
  • Informal discrimination: landlords, employers, criminal-record screens
  • Flowchart summary (Acevedo):
    • Education (quality/cost) → Labor (who profits?) → Taxes (rich pay less) → Cost of living/debt (expensive to be poor) → Assets/homeownership (money makes money)

Residential Segregation

  • ZIP code predicts education, jobs, policing, environmental quality
  • Lack of address harms job apps, voting, banking (Mask, The Address Book)
  • Tools: Opportunity Atlas maps ZIP code & life outcomes

Mechanisms of Segregation

  • Racial covenants (deed restrictions) – upheld privately until Shelley v. Kraemer (1948)
  • Steering, blockbusting, redlining (HOLC maps): denied BIPOC loans, forced into “undesirable” zones
  • Covenants linger on titles; zoning replaced them post-1948

Education & ZIP Codes

  • School funding tied to local property taxes ⇒ rich areas = well-resourced schools
  • Court setbacks
    • San Antonio ISD v. Rodriguez (1973): unequal funding ≠ constitutional violation
    • Milliken v. Bradley (1974): limited busing; re-segregated Detroit region
  • Peak desegregation 1988: 37 % Black students in majority-white schools; 2018 down to 19 %

Homeownership Inequity

  • Real property = largest wealth engine; down payment demands reflect prior wealth
  • GI Bill, Homestead Act largely white-only → intergenerational equity
  • Cory Booker testimony: parents used white lawyer ruse to buy in restricted neighborhood
  • Redlining barred BIPOC mortgages; pushed to exploitative contract sales; laid groundwork for 2008 crash
  • 2008 subprime crisis = racially predatory lending → wiped Black/Latinx housing wealth (Atkinson)

Labor, Racial Capitalism & Unions

  • Cedric Robinson: capitalism evolved with racism → "racial capitalism" built on slavery, violence, genocide
  • Richard Wolff: capital constantly seeks cheaper labor → racialized groups become "shock absorbers" in downturns
  • Outcomes: Black boys from wealthy families still earn less than white counterparts in 99 % of U.S. neighborhoods
  • Occupational skew: Blacks 13 % pop. but 5 % physicians, 4.5 % software devs; 35 % nursing assistants
  • Historical union racism (AFL’s Samuel Gompers). 2020s resurgence: teachers, Starbucks, Amazon
    • Amazon stats: >60\% new hourly hires 2018-20 were Black/Hispanic; starting wage \$18/hr
    • Amazon Labor Union (ALU) formed 2022 (Chris Smalls, Derrick Palmer); demands better pay, benefits, conditions; company filed 25 objections (e.g., "marijuana bribes")

9.5 Counternarratives & Resistance Movements

  • 1968 East L.A. Chicano Blowouts: student walkouts vs. corporal punishment, language bans, tracking
  • Black Panther Party’s Oakland Community School (1973-82): free meals, mindfulness, martial arts, peer justice; influenced federal free-lunch program
  • Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs)
    • First: Cheyney University 1837 (pre-Civil War)
    • >$1 B needed to preserve heritage buildings (Clement & Lidsky)
  • Ethnic Studies in K-12 (CA AB 101)
    • Stanford study: 9th-grade ethnic studies ↑ attendance, GPA, credits, grad & college entry rates
  • Occupy Wall Street (2011): "We are the 99 %"; targeted banks, corporate political power, student debt, foreclosures
  • Reparations movement
    • Coates (2014) "Two hundred fifty years of slavery … 35 years of racist housing policy" – moral debt must be repaid
    • History: "40 acres & a mule" (1865); 1894 pension bill; Black Power era; 1980s; current CA task force (discussing ≈\$350,000 per eligible descendant)

Summary / Review Keys

  • Four major inequity arenas: housing & segregation, assets/homeownership, education, labor
  • Testimony central to decolonial practice; embeds lived reality within analysis
  • Racial capitalism links historic slavery to modern wage disparities & occupational segregation
  • Education’s promise as "great equalizer" undermined by funding mechanisms & tracking
  • Persistent activism (student walkouts, BPP schools, unions, reparations) counters structural injustice

Key Terms (glossary-style)

  • Testimony: formal, protected oral/written narrative exposing oppression, used in decolonial research
  • Wealth: \text{Assets} - \text{Liabilities}; assets generate income & can be inherited
  • Racial/Ethnic Wealth Inequalities: disparities rooted in colonization & slavery, sustained by policy
  • Racial Covenants: deed restrictions banning non-whites; unenforceable post-1948 but still present
  • Redlining: mortgage denial by geography; underwrites segregation & asset loss
  • 2008 Housing Crash: bubble from racially predatory lending; devastated Black/Latinx equity
  • Cultural Hegemony (Gramsci): domination via consent; schooling transmits ruling-class ideology
  • Racial Capitalism (Robinson): capitalism inherently racial, dependent on historical & ongoing racialized exploitation
  • Labor Unions: worker organizations using collective bargaining for wages/conditions
  • Reparations: compensatory resources for historic injustice (e.g., slavery)

Discussion / Journal / Classroom Activities (abbreviated)

  • Discuss personal/known impact of 2008 crash; share testimonies on wealth & race
  • ZIP-code activity using Opportunity Atlas to link place & outcomes; reflective journaling
  • Song analysis: Charles Bradley “Why Is It So Hard” + student-selected tracks on race/class

Numerical & Statistical Highlights (LaTeX-formatted)

  • Wealth concentration: \text{Top }10\% = 70\%,\;\text{Bottom }90\% = 30\%
  • Top 1\% ≈ 35\% of wealth → 17\times bottom 50 %
  • Median family wealth (2019): White \$188,200; Black \$24,100; Hispanic \$36,100
  • Typical white family = 8\times Black family wealth (2021)
  • Negative net worth: 19\% Black households (≈3.5 M)
  • School desegregation peak vs. now: 37 % → 19 % Black students in majority-white schools (1988→2018)
  • Amazon workforce 2018-20: >60\% low-wage hires Black/Hispanic; starting wage \$18/hr