Black Wealth, White wealth

The author of a book I read in college, "Black Wealth, White Wealth," has come out with a follow-up study. It was covered today on the Michael Eric Dyson show.

The original research (from 1984) shows that while blacks' average income had grown to within 77% of whites' pay for the same job, there was still a huge disparity in wealth, defined as financial assets. One illustration I remember particularly well described how long different families' available assets could support them if they lost a job. With no income, "White's reserves allow them to survive at the poverty level ($968 per month) for over a year, while most blacks... would not make it through the month."

The current update to this research shows that this original disparity between black wealth and white wealth has quadrupled since 1984. It's getting worse - according to the radio interview - at a time when the reigning perception is that a) the racial disparity has pretty much disappeared, and b) that if left to themselves, our social systems will trend toward equalization and erasing the problem.

The research shows this is not the case. There is much to be discussed here, but a conclusion of an hour-long discussion with three of us at Lydia house the other night on this topic is that we as youngish white guys perhaps don't have "responsibility" for creating this problem, but we do have "responsibility" for analyzing and holding accountable the current external social systems and internal unconscious prejudices which contribute to the increasing skin-color disparity in economic opportunity.

All I have to add to this is one thing. The radio show points out that typically such disparity is falsely attributed to flaws perceived as inherent in African Americans - ie, they're lazy, they're bad with money, etc. The research explores and refutes these claims by focusing on the highest-achieving blacks and whites, but still the tendency is to explain away the problem as something "personal" about people with dark skin.

I see a parallel problem that paralyzes well-meaning whites who might be interested in doing something about it: we read such news as an accusation against us - that the disparity is our personal fault and something we should feel guilty about - simply because of our white skin color. Thus we become defensive and take actions more oriented toward self-justifying than toward solving the problem.

Taken together, we can see that the problem is perpetuated by a tendency to blame the individuals involved, which distracts us from looking more broadly at the difficult problem of a complex society which both influences and implicates both blacks and whites in perpetuating both the unequal distribution of resources and a mass abdication of responsibility.

Ironically, we are bombarded by false concepts of responsibility which we must clarify and defend ourselves against, while the true responsibility we have and must take remains buried and unrealized.

We must scrutinize both our motivations and the ways false concepts are given free reign in our thinking and consequent behavior, or nothing will change.