“Laws barred enslaved people from making wills or owning property, distinguishing black people in America from every other group on these shores and assuring that everything of value black people managed to accrue would add to the wealth of those who enslaved them”
King said: “Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality. For we know that it isn’t enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t have enough money to buy a hamburger?”
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“Racial income disparities today look no different than they did the decade before King’s March on Washington. The racial wealth gap is about the same as it was in the 1950s as well. The typical black household today is poorer than 80 percent of white households.”
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The “2019 Yale University study, called ‘The Misperception of Racial Economic Inequality,’ found that Americans believe that black households hold $90 in wealth for every $100 held by white households. The actual amount is $10.”
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“Americans tend to justify persistent racial inequality by ignoring the ‘tailwinds that have contributed to their economic success while justifying inequalities of wealth and poverty by invoking the role of individuals’ traits and skills as explanations for these disparities.’”
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“Black Americans with a college education hold less wealth than white Americans who have not even completed high school”
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“Wealth begets wealth, and white Americans have had centuries of government assistance to accumulate wealth, while the government has for the vast history of this country worked against black Americans doing the same”
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“Reparations would go to any person who has documentation that he or she identified as a black person for at least 10 years before the beginning of any reparations process and can trace at least one ancestor back to American slavery” (that second condition seems tricky)
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“It took Congress just a matter of weeks to pass a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill to help families and businesses struggling from the Covid-19 shutdowns. When, then, will this nation pass a stimulus package to finally respond to the singularity of black suffering?”
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“Black Americans had already lost the largest share of their wealth of all racial groups as a result of the last recession and have struggled the most to recover. They are the only racial group whose household median income is less than it was in 2000”
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“A truly great country does not ignore or excuse its sins. It confronts them and then works to make them right. It is time for [the United States] to pay its debt. It is time for reparations.”
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End of conversation
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