Friday Open Thread | What If There Was No Wealth Gap?

Posted on August 23, 2019 by rikyrah

When we talk about reparations, it sometimes seems to be a number that can’t be quantified. I mean, the THEFT OF LABOR FOR ALMOST A CENTURY, and then another CENTURY of American Apartheid, AKA JIM CROW. Of course, post Civil War, the North was every bit as repressive when it came to ‘Negro’ financial matters too.
Let’s talk about the wealth gap between Black and White. THAT is quantifiable. And, what would the American Economy look like if there were no wealth gap:

If black families were as rich as white ones, U.S. economy would be $1.5 trillion bigger
·
BY IRINA IVANOVA
AUGUST 15, 2019 / 3:39 PM / MONEYWATCH

The typical white family in America has 10 times the wealth of a typical black family—a figure that has barely changed in two decades and has actually widened in the current economic expansion.
This persistent, and growing, disparity has become a pressing issue for Democrats, with four presidential hopefuls making their case in June at the Black Economic Alliance Forum and a House Judiciary subcommittee debating reparations for slavery just this summer.
But it’s also infiltrating corporate America. The consulting firm McKinsey this week issued an estimate of just how much the historic and current discrimination against African-Americans is hurting the broader economy. That estimate: Somewhere between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion.

If black families were as wealthy as white ones, in other words, America’s economy would benefit from the addition of “between 4 and 6 percent of the projected GDP in 2028,” according to the report.
This gap shows itself in many ways. The most valuable possessions the bulk of Americans own is their homes. But black Americans, who were kept out of homeownership by local and federal policy through much of the 20th century, are much less likely to own their homes today. When they do own, black Americans disproportionately own houses in poorer neighborhoods with lower home values and get less favorable mortgage terms than white Americans

“The racial wealth gap is a reflection of long-term policies and practices by both the public and private sectors that have systematically disadvantaged black, Latinx and Native communities in favor of white Americans,” Nina Banks, a professor of economics at Bucknell University, said via email.
As the Atlantic reported this week, federally sanctioned farm policies throughout the 20th century dispossessed 1 million black farmers of their land. Black people today have more college debt, less access to banking services and lower pay than their white counterparts.
All this contributes to the state of affairs in which the typical white family is worth about $171,000, while the typical black family is worth $17,600. And because the wealth (or poverty) Americans are born into determine their earning power, wealth inequity carries across to incomes, with white Americans earning $1 million more over a working lifetime than their black counterparts.

This doesn’t hurt just black Americans, McKinsey said, but creates an overall drag on the economy. The upside is that reducing that inequity is likely to be an overall positive on the economy, said Jason Wright, a partner at McKinsey and one of the authors of the report.
“That’s not just the money in black pockets, that’s the entire economy — dollars in the hands of African-Americans, being distributed to people of all types, all businesses, all over the country,” he said.

This entry was posted in Economics, Open Thread, Politics, Racial Bias, Reparations, Uncategorized and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

45 Responses to Friday Open Thread | What If There Was No Wealth Gap?

  1. SouthernGirl2 says:
    August 23, 2019 at 5:06 pm

    My kids are going to Dallas this weekend to the game. Carson is going to stay with me.
    😘😍😘😍😘😍

    Reply
  3. rikyrah says:
    August 23, 2019 at 3:37 pm

    DOW down 623 for the day.

    Reply
  4. SouthernGirl2 says:
    August 23, 2019 at 2:24 pm

    They were acting out their fantasy. Someone wants to fight. The hate runs deep.

    https://twitter.com/GeoffRBennett/status/1164980402559344640?s=20

    Reply
  5. rikyrah says:
    August 23, 2019 at 1:34 pm

    08/23/2019 09:00 am ET
    Elizabeth Warren Has Spent Her Adult Life Repeating A Lie. I Want Her To Tell The Truth.
    headshot
    Rebecca Nagle
    Guest Writer

    Elizabeth Warren, apologizing to Native leaders on Monday, said, “I know I’ve made mistakes. I am sorry for harm I have caused.” For many people, that apology put the issue to rest.

    But many Native advocates, myself included, were not satisfied. Warren still has work to do, and demanding she do what’s left is beyond reasonable. In all of her apologizing, Warren has never let go of her family story. After spending her entire adult life repeating a lie, I simply want Warren to tell the truth.

    In 1836, Warren’s great-great-great-grandfather, a white man named William Marsh, enlisted himself in a Tennessee militia to fight in the “Cherokee War,” an occupation of Cherokee land in the lead-up to the Trail of Tears. Decades later, his grandson John Houston Crawford moved his family onto Indian Territory and squatted on Cherokee land in a move that, with no record of a permit, was almost certainly illegal.

    The Crawfords were just some of the tens of thousands of white squatters who outnumber Cherokees on our own land. While Cherokee Nation beseeched Congress to enforce our treaty rights and kick them out, the squatters pushed Congress to divide up our treaty territory and create a path to white land ownership; the squatters won.

    The Crawfords settled in the new state of Oklahoma. They lived among Indians, but it wasn’t always peaceful. In 1906, John Crawford shot a Creek man for hitting his son. According to The Boston Globe, his son, Rosco, would later tell stories about how “mean” the Indians were. But one of Crawford’s grandchildren, Pauline Reed, told a very different story. Not a story of living among Indians, a story of being Indian.

    Pauline’s youngest child, Elizabeth, grew up with her mother’s version of the story. And though the family had no evidence or relationship to the tribe, Elizabeth Warren never questioned it, she wrote in her memoir. It was her family story, she would say.

    The story of Warren‘s family traces the history of Cherokee Nation, but we sit on opposite sides of that history. Like many other white families, Warren’s ancestors replaced the truth of their complicity in Cherokee dispossession with a tale of being Cherokee. If that’s not wrong, if that’s not racist, I don’t know what is.

    I do not fault Warren for believing what she was told as a child. But in 2019, Warren isn’t a kid anymore. She is a United States senator running for president. If she is not in a position that demands accountability and truth, who is?

    The center of this controversy is not Warren’s political career, it is Cherokee sovereignty and self-determination. The monster I am trying to wrestle to the ground is not one white woman who claimed to be Cherokee. It is the hundreds of thousands of white people claiming to be Cherokee and the broad social acceptance that emboldens them. It threatens the future of my tribe. Warren is just the most public example.

    When white people took over our land, they outnumbered us. Today, Cherokees are once again outnumbered by outsiders, claiming not our land, but our identity. In the last U.S. census, there were more white people claiming to be Cherokee than there are Cherokee citizens enrolled in our tribes. These fakes are writing our history, selling our art, representing us to the United Nations, fighting for the same legal status as our tribe, and stealing millions of dollars from federal programs set aside for people of color. And they all have stories that sound just like Warren’s.

    I already know what people will say. They will say that many people have Cherokee ancestors but don’t have evidence, falsely believing that Cherokees were too primitive to have a paper trail when our literacy rates were higher than those of white people. They will say their great-grandmother was too proud to sign the Dawes Rolls, falsely believing the U.S. government gave Indians the option when some who refused were arrested. They will say the DNA test proves Warren is Cherokee, falsely believing that Western science knows Indigenous communities better than we know ourselves.

    Reply
  6. SouthernGirl2 says:
    August 23, 2019 at 11:52 am

    LIZA, check your email

    Reply
  7. rikyrah says:
    August 23, 2019 at 10:52 am

    Dow Jones down 434 points.

    So much winning.

    Reply
  20. rikyrah says:
    August 23, 2019 at 9:05 am

    Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) Tweeted:
    BREAKING: I’ve learned that the Trump administration is suspending virtually all asylum claims processing for the regions served by the Newark and Boston offices. There are over 40,000 cases pending in those offices. https://twitter.com/SenJeffMerkley/status/1164335969300037635?s=17

    Reply
  21. rikyrah says:
    August 23, 2019 at 9:04 am

    ✡️ Never Again Action ✡️ (@NeverAgainActn) Tweeted:
    Anne Frank did not die from gas chambers. She died from typhus, contracted in the overcrowded Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

    The denial of flu vaccines will kill immigrants, especially the most vulnerable- children, the elderly, the immunocompromised. https://t.co/wp8sfyBj4A https://twitter.com/NeverAgainActn/status/1163913171645685761?s=17

    Reply
  22. rikyrah says:
    August 23, 2019 at 9:03 am

    Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) Tweeted:
    Many Democrats seem to explain their support for Biden this way: A lot of other people seem to support him so I will too. Via @Katieglueck https://t.co/8B4wvf0uWZ via @NYTimes https://twitter.com/tripgabriel/status/1164513596061229056?s=17

    Reply
  33. rikyrah says:
    August 23, 2019 at 6:38 am

    And The Tweet Goes On (@lacadri34) Tweeted:
    Many folks take issue with Harris because black women are not typically associated with power. Black women are supposed to provide comfort, not decide your fate even when you’ve placed yourself in such position. Not only are we not your negro we also aren’t your “mammies” either. https://twitter.com/lacadri34/status/1164686589332770817?s=17

    Reply
  38. rikyrah says:
    August 23, 2019 at 6:36 am

    Now, Kevonstage absolutely loves Chick-fil-A…

    😂😂😂
    Kevonstage rates the Popeye’s Chicken Sandwich

    https://youtu.be/b0WJLpL6TLk

    Reply
  40. rikyrah says:
    August 23, 2019 at 12:44 am

    Good Morning, Everyone 😄 😄😄

    Reply

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