“You drink too much coffee.”
“You eat out too much.”
“You shouldn't buy that fancy phone.”
“You don’t know how to budget.”
“That's why you don't have any money.”
Maybe you’ve heard these reasons for why you’re struggling to get by.
People of color hear them all the time.
They are lies.
Listen up. To understand this struggle in America, we have to look at the role of race in our economy.
For people of color in the US, the root of our financial insecurity stems from institutional
racism and white supremacy that has existed since the founding of this country.
Let’s start with home ownership. Buying a house is supposed to be the way middle class
Americans build wealth. Of course, these days many Americans are struggling to make this
dream come true, and for people of color it used to be practically impossible.
And that was by design. By design.
Starting in the 1930s, black people in this country were systematically denied the opportunity
to purchase homes because of a racist scheme called redlining. Majority black and brown
neighborhoods were literally colored in red, and shut out of home loans. The past plagues
us today: 60 percent of those redlined communities remain low-income minority neighborhoods.
You’ve heard of subprime mortgages, right? Those products that wrecked the economy in
2008 and destroyed Black & Latino wealth? Well, they were generated during the redlining era.
Housing is just one bit of institutional racism that hinders the ability of people of color
to build wealth. That’s to say nothing of slavery and Jim Crow laws, which led us to
mass incarceration— but we’ll get to that in a minute.
Let me catch you up. So, acknowledging that the past was rigged, we can better understand
our present. And in the present, the racial wealth gap is enormous.
And when I say “wealth,” we’re not talking about being rich. Wealth is what you own (your
house, car, savings, or business), minus what you owe — credit card debt, student loan
debt, fines, et cetera.
Getting things you can own, like a house, or something that grows in value over time,
like education, is often a result of what your parents are able to help you with.
And in the case of many people of color, our parents aren’t able to contribute much financially,
if at all. Over generations, black and brown families become shut out from acquiring the
cornerstones of wealth.
And that’s how we get situations like this today:
Listen to this. For every 100 dollars in white family wealth, black families hold just 5 dollars and 4 cents.
Another one. Even when Black and Latinx households earn a solidly middle-class income, they accrue
just a fraction of the wealth of White households.
Black and Latinx families headed by a college graduate have less wealth than families headed
by white high school dropouts.
And this one is unreal. By the middle of the century, Black and Latinx median household
wealth will nearly be zero.
Hopefully, you’re starting to understand how shaming people — especially people of
color — for a cup of coffee or a nice dinner out is ludicrous.
It’s time for a reckoning. But that is not what is happening, policymakers and wealthy
corporations are doubling down on inequality.
Look no further than the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. According to one study: On average,
White households received an estimated 2,020 dollars in cuts, while Latinx households received
just 970 dollars, and Black households received 840 dollars.
Shameful. It’s shameful, for example, that while worker productivity is up, wages are
not rising for Black and Latinx workers.
And remember when I mentioned mass incarceration? It is yet another profit-driven predatory
system that strips savings and earnings from people of color. We make up 67 percent of
the prison population, despite only being 37 percent of the U.S. population.
Our families, especially women, spend billions of dollars in unfair fines and fees that cause financial
instability and, too often, multigenerational poverty. Mass incarceration and detention
determines both economic and political outcomes for too many families of color.
Policing the minute decisions about how people of color spend their disposable income is
a distraction. It’s a distraction from the systems of injustice we have collectively
and historically created and continue to perpetuate.
You have the power to bring truth to light. You know the real story, so write it, tell
someone, tell us. We know that in order to have survived in a country we’ve been told
is not ours, people of color have been and continue to be resilient, entrepreneurial, and deserving.
Tell us your story of resilience, tell your policymakers. Press candidates to tell you
what they are doing to upend racial wealth inequality and make it easier for you to pay
that next bill, to afford healthcare and a home, to send your kids to college, to save
for retirement. Tell them you deserve no less than a robust plan that rewrites our future stories.
Briefly, how'd it feel to do a video with us?
It was great. This is such an important topic that everyone needs to focus on.
We just have to keep talking and telling the truth about what’s happening.
Well, education and truth-telling, particularly at this time in our nation’s history, could not be more important.
Agreed. Agreed. What other lies are you sick of hearing when it comes to this issue?
Go ahead and let us know in the comments.
And if you found this video informative, please also check out our video on Why We Need a Wealth Tax.
Thank you for watching and please subscribe to this channel for more videos like this one.