Well, maybe if we take the word 'racism' (which is kind of a nebulous thing) out of the discussion altogether and replace it with ideas like 'disparity along racial lines' (which is an obvious thing) we can avoid the diversionary pitfalls that get dug whenever the word 'racism' is used in a political discussion.
This is an interesting study, but not one that I find particularly surprising. And I think it's probably the result of, not only a history of
wealth being divided along racial lines but the history of
privilege being divided as such, too. White people are better informed about smart investing and the tax system and loopholes and maneuvering through the processes of accumulating wealth? Big surprise there. How do we suppose they gained this knowledge? Friends? Family? Co-workers? Neighbors? This kind of goes hand-in-hand with this:
Quote:
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"African-Americans, before the 1960s, first by law and then by custom, were not really allowed to own businesses. They had very little access to credit. There was a very low artificial ceiling on the wealth that could be accumulated. Hence there was very little, if anything, that could be passed along to help their children get to college, to help their children buy their first homes, or as an inheritance when they die," said Shapiro.
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...which I had never really thought about before.
We've been so easily patronized by the idea that our history of racial discrimination is behind us, while so conveniently ignorant of the fact that desegregation and the civil rights movement were not
events, but are
processes. Ongoing processes. And if we don't wake up to that fact, then we will never put it behind us.
These topics drive me crazy.
