The Q, it's been said, is obsessed with race and how it plays out in our neighborhood. Just so you don't think I'm too localized in my fascination and indignation, every once in awhile I like to zoom out a bit.
I'm sure you've heard how black Americans make seriously less than white Americans, Asians, and also Hispanics. I'm sure you've even heard that black families are less likely to own their own homes than whites (73% to 44%). But the way that a combination of lesser income and less home ownership combine to create less household wealth (total assets minus liabilities) is nothing short of staggering. Since right now, in Brooklyn, it's never been more apparent how different is the financial stability of owners vs. renters, I'm sharing with you a graph that makes me dizzy with disbelief.
The relative lack of integrative success for blacks is often noted, but rarely understood, in my estimation. And while issues of "personal responsibility" are often used to deflect the criticism that racism is as much a problem as it's been any time since the Civil Rights era, the following question shouts out from the data.
How the hell are you supposed to get a leg up in this country if you haven't any help from the generation before you? I mean, where would so many of Brooklyn's new residents be if their folks hadn't afforded good schools or neighborhoods where great schools are, or paid for great colleges or contributed to buying first houses or cars, or come to the aid when the shit hit the fan?
In a country where wealth breeds wealth, it's astonishing that the myth of Horatio Alger continues to dominate mainstream discourse. Work hard. Play by the rules. You too can snag a piece of the American Dream.
Our denial knows no bounds. Like the looming environmental catastrophe, it lies in wait, with perhaps as many implications for the country, hell the SPECIES, as anything we can conjure up in science fiction.
That’s one reason why black families have, on average, only about 6 percent as much wealth as white households, why only 44 percent of black families own a home compared with 73 percent for white households.
I'm sure you've heard how black Americans make seriously less than white Americans, Asians, and also Hispanics. I'm sure you've even heard that black families are less likely to own their own homes than whites (73% to 44%). But the way that a combination of lesser income and less home ownership combine to create less household wealth (total assets minus liabilities) is nothing short of staggering. Since right now, in Brooklyn, it's never been more apparent how different is the financial stability of owners vs. renters, I'm sharing with you a graph that makes me dizzy with disbelief.
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| Median Household Wealth (median, as you recall, is half above and half below, not average) |
How the hell are you supposed to get a leg up in this country if you haven't any help from the generation before you? I mean, where would so many of Brooklyn's new residents be if their folks hadn't afforded good schools or neighborhoods where great schools are, or paid for great colleges or contributed to buying first houses or cars, or come to the aid when the shit hit the fan?
In a country where wealth breeds wealth, it's astonishing that the myth of Horatio Alger continues to dominate mainstream discourse. Work hard. Play by the rules. You too can snag a piece of the American Dream.
Our denial knows no bounds. Like the looming environmental catastrophe, it lies in wait, with perhaps as many implications for the country, hell the SPECIES, as anything we can conjure up in science fiction.
That’s one reason why black families have, on average, only about 6 percent as much wealth as white households, why only 44 percent of black families own a home compared with 73 percent for white households.