Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It's an interesting question. Blacks have lower incomes than others in America, but the wealth gap dwarves the income gap.
Even after adjusting for income, blacks save far less So the real question is - why don't black people save money? And the answer must be that, on average, they are less oriented toward the future than others. They would rather spend their money now. This might be conected to the fact that their ancestors did not leave warm mother Africa tens of thousands of years ago and begin facing cold winters. There was never a compelling need to stockpile food or otherwise plan ahead for survival. So the traits that enable us to do this were never strongly selected for among those who remained in Africa.
I'm curious because I travel a lot for my job and most of the locations I visit blacks are living in the "rough" neighborhoods. I know it's not only blacks, but for some reason it seems many people don't know. Is it due to education or just a lack of opportunity?
Low IQ.
Stupid people have a tougher time of it be they in America or Africa.
What's your excuse for the Asians and Mexicans that don't seem to have the same issues that blacks do?
And Arab Americans and (dot) Indians...as a group they tend to be entrepreneurial and do quite well, at least in this region.
"White privilege" doesn't seem to be keeping all non-whites poor.
If you want to understand the reasons behind the black/white wealth gap, the easiest place to start is probably Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog. He's researched the history behind it at length, and will frequently point out that, far from being a coincidence, the gap was a major, stated goal of our policies at local, state, and federal level, as well as via private action from banks, transportation systems, and hateful mobs - and that we really haven't done much of anything to correct for these misdeeds - in fact, the response to allowing black people the same access to the channels that allowed the white, suburban middle class to form, has been to close those channels entirely. I'll recommend a couple of his posts, and let those of you who desire knowledge run from there.
in A Rising Tide Lifts All Yachts, he discusses the effects that segregation has had on black children. Namely, even if a black family *has* built up income and wealth, they're far more likely to live in a high-poverty area than a white child is. His argument, backed by a sociological study, is that "class-based" solutions won't work, because we've effectively turned black Americans into a pariah class.
A Drug War in the Time of Color-Blind Policy finds him discussing the ACLU's findings concerning the arrest rates for marijuana. For those who don't know, black people are four times to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people, despite the fact that they use at roughly equal rates (and at lower rates among young people). More importantly, this disparity is getting *worse* over time, not better, despite the laws being supposedly race-neutral. And keep in mind, having a felony on your record is a massive drawback when it comes to getting ahead in life - and a worse impact for black people than for white people when, among other things, looking for a job.
And as a final example, in The Ghetto Is Public Policy, among other posts, he discusses the effects of hypersegregation on wealth, how the money that black people *did* accumulate was often taken by a combination of official policy and flat-out terrorism. In other words, a solid example of how we actively transfered wealth out of black communities, and into white communities. Not that this should shock you - it was the basic idea behind slavery in the US, after all.
By the way, when I said that Coates has done his research, I mean that he has linked to a wealth of studies, and books, exploring the topic, and he freely cites them in his posts, so if you want a more in-depth understanding, you can follow his research.
Blah don't like Coates perpetually casts Blacks ask victims always wants the government to intervene. It becomes tiring really.
I am sure some of the posts on here are correct but I would just like to add one thing that I observed back in 1972. We lived in an area of Charlotte called Hidden Valley. It was a middle class to working class, two bedroom with a den to five bedrooms and a romp room type neighborhood. The neighborhood was white when we moved in but the government started a 235 plan neighborhood where low income families could move into regular neighborhoods.
You should have seen the "for sale" signs going up immediately. We stayed as long as we could because we wanted this plan to work but when there had been seven murders within a mile of our home and we could not take our eyes off our children for a moment, my front door had been tried unsuccessfully I was thankful for that. My husband got night calls with his work and I would sit in my den with the shotgun in my hand while he was gone to make sure the children were protected. Everybody around us had been robbed and we came home from shopping one day and our back door was not locked anymore, so we decided to move.
We never knew for sure that we had locked the door, but we always locked our doors so I am pretty sure it was. I still have not found some pieces of jewelry that I had owned but nothing was expensive enough to make an issue of it. They might have been lost.
I felt so good that we were able to move even though we lost about $9,000 on the house from what we got for it to what we paid for the one we live in now. Luckily we got a tax credit home and had to pay no taxes that year, so that helped.
But I realized that some people were always going to move if a black family moved into their neighborhood and I think the situation is better now but it is still going on. Being a white family we could improve our situation but if we had been black we could have ended up moving over and over again. Actually I know a white family that changed neighborhoods three times to keep in a safe neighborhood. They lived next door to us in that neighborhood and just stayed. They got a fence and a dog and made their home as safe as possible. They were tired of moving. I imagine they are dead by now.
I see on here that black families look for other black families to move nearby and that means that when one black family moves into a nice neighborhood the whole neighborhood ends up changing. I believe the solution is for black families not to move near other black families and maybe the whites will not be concerned about home values and crime and may stay instead of moving and causing the same downgrade of a neighborhood, because no white family is going to stay in an unsafe neighborhood if they don't have to.
Sometimes when people do not think the situation through, they end up causing their own problems. I know in a perfect world white families would do what we did and try to help the process work, but most people are going to be looking out for their own interests and you have to look out for your own children because no one else is going to.
I would also like to add that it would help the neighborhood stay safe if the residents would report crimes. You have to be courageous to do so but our military risks their lives for our country and some people need to start doing the same and teach their children to respect the law rather than make the police the enemy and cause them trouble. I could say a lot more about this but that is another story. Al Sharpton needs to teach black people to obey the law rather than running around making sure no one get punished for what they did.
It's your life and it's your choice and you are going to have to make some changes to cause your life to change.
Your story touched on another reason Blacks can't build wealth, real estate. Of course folks attribute this to White racism but the brutal truth is that objectively most Black neighborhoods aren't desirable. Who wants to live in an area with poor schools, high crime and minimal services? So a Black homeowner in a majority Black area will often see reduced demand for their home and little appreciation in value. Ironically the only time Black homeowners make it big on real estate is through gentrification.
What's your excuse for the Asians and Mexicans that don't seem to have the same issues that blacks do?
Well, let's see, it's because they don't have the history we have with whites. Whites love foreigners because they're easy to manipulate.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
