The racial wealth gap : a brief history / Mehrsa Baradaran.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baradaran, Mehrsa, 1978- Author.

Series:

Norton shorts

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Wealth--United States--History.

Wealth.

African Americans--Economic conditions.

African Americans.

Capitalism--United States--History.

Capitalism.

United States--Race relations--Economic aspects.

United States.

United States--Economic policy.

Capitalism--History.

Wealth--History.

Physical Description:

180 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., [2026]

Summary:

"This infuriating and compelling read offers a devastating analysis of one of America's most pressing systemic issues. Why has the racial wealth gap between the median white households and median Black households remained stagnant over the past century, never narrowing below six to one? Leading expert on race and financial equality Mehrsa Baradaran attempts to answer this question in The Racial Wealth Gap. She shows how decades of laws rooted in white supremacy -- from slavery and the broken Reconstruction-era promise of "40 acres and a mule" to the racist policies of the Jim Crow and New Deal eras -- have restricted Black access to capital, credit, homeownership, and other mechanisms of wealth creation while subsidizing the rising economic fortunes of white families. In this concise and authoritative history, Baradaran outlines two tectonic forces that have driven apart the economic fortunes of white and Black families: wealth creation for white Americans, who have systematically received financial subsidies in the century and a half since emancipation, and wealth destruction for Black Americans -- either by vigilante violence or by official means, such as allowing Black banks to collapse or building highways through segregated Black communities. These forces, combined with the racist notion that Black communities fail to rise because of their own moral, intellectual, or economic shortcomings, have kept Black families behind their white counterparts, despite decades of civil rights activism and national economic growth -- a deep injustice that can only be achieved through reparations" -- Jacket flap.

Contents:

From capital to capitalists

The evolution of the race problem

The Catch-22 of Black banks

The new deal for White America

Civil rights dreams, economic nightmares

The decoy of Black capitalism

The free market confronts Black poverty

Epilogue: Toward fundamental reform.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 150-167) and index.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9780393881820

0393881822

OCLC:

1519548835

Publisher Number:

CIPO000326481