How America's Vast Racial Wealth Gap Grew

[SummerMadness]

How America's Vast Racial Wealth Gap Grew

Elmore Bolling, whose brothers called him Buddy, was a kind of one-man economy in Lowndesboro, Ala. He leased a plantation, where he had a general store with a gas station out front and a catering business; he grew cotton, corn and sugar cane. He also owned a small fleet of trucks that ran livestock and made deliveries between Lowndesboro and Montgomery. At his peak, Bolling employed as many as 40 people, all of them black like him.

One December day in 1947, a group of white men showed up along a stretch of Highway 80 just yards from Bolling’s home and store, where he lived with his wife, Bertha Mae, and their seven young children. The men confronted him on a section of road he had helped lay and shot him seven times — six times with a pistol and once with a shotgun blast to the back. His family rushed from the store to find him lying dead in a ditch.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Seems pretty unlikely that "lynching" has much...if anything, to do with the racial wealth gap. It takes the black community about 18 months to kill as many blacks as 80+ years of lynchings. That, and the fact that the "gap" was at its smallest in the late 60s seems to indicate other factors are at work here....

Now, I don't think it's likely that lynchings have increased since 1967....so it's worth considering why the NYT is working so hard to push this blatantly false narrative.

 

[Gigimo]

so it's worth considering why the NYT is working so hard to push this blatantly false narrative.

You should look up the "1619 Project" the Times is pushing

 

[SummerMadness]

You should look up the "1619 Project" the Times is pushing

Can you show how the black codes, lending discrimination, redlining and other discriminatory acts since the 1870s have not contributed to the wealth gap we see today. The article is very clear in showing when these different practices started and ended, are you arguing these practices did not occur?

 

[Ana the Ist]

You should look up the "1619 Project" the Times is pushing

I actually read a lot of it.

I'd say that it sticks to the facts most of the time....but drifts into narrative pushing nonsense more often than is necessary.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Can you show how the black codes, lending discrimination, redlining and other discriminatory acts since the 1870s have not contributed to the wealth gap we see today.

Are you asking someone to prove a negative?

Show how the crack epidemic and the rise of gang culture haven't contributed to the racial wealth gap.

 

[DaisyDay]

How a top chicken company cut off black farmers, one by one
Sometimes it's just plain ole discrimination - like Koch Foods (no relation to the Koch Bros.) has driven black poultry farmers out of business.

The shadow of slavery, sharecropping and Jim Crow has left black farmers in an especially precarious position. Their farms tend to be smaller and their sales lower than the national average, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While white farmers benefited from government assistance such as the Homestead Act and land-grant universities, black farmers were largely excluded from owning land and accumulating wealth. In recent decades, black farmers accused the USDA of discriminating against them by denying them loans or forcing them to wait longer, resulting in a class-action lawsuit that settled for more than $1 billion.

Along with these historical disadvantages, black farmers say they have also encountered bias in dealing with some of the corporate giants that control their livelihood. In complaints filed with the USDA between 2010 and 2015, Ingrum and another black farmer in Mississippi said Koch Foods discriminated against them and used its market control to drive them out of business.​

Koch Foods was determined by the USDA to have discriminated - fortunately for them, the current administration is no longer in the enforcement business.

 

[Willie T]

I lived through the days of "Equal Opportunity Employment" the government forced on U.S. Home where I was a Superintendent. Believe me, I KNOW why there is a supposed "Wealth Gap". I have no sympathy for any man who only wants a job that pays, but is unwilling to do the same work for that money other men do.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Koch Foods was determined by the USDA to have discriminated - fortunately for them, the current administration is no longer in the enforcement business.

You mean this Koch foods?

'Let them go!': Largest US immigration raids in a decade net 680 arrests

They took jobs from blacks and gave them to illegals. Awful.

I suppose that's something to remember next time you hear someone falsely claiming "illegals work jobs that Americans won't."

 

[SummerMadness]

How a top chicken company cut off black farmers, one by one
Sometimes it's just plain ole discrimination - like Koch Foods (no relation to the Koch Bros.) has driven black poultry farmers out of business.

The shadow of slavery, sharecropping and Jim Crow has left black farmers in an especially precarious position. Their farms tend to be smaller and their sales lower than the national average, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While white farmers benefited from government assistance such as the Homestead Act and land-grant universities, black farmers were largely excluded from owning land and accumulating wealth. In recent decades, black farmers accused the USDA of discriminating against them by denying them loans or forcing them to wait longer, resulting in a class-action lawsuit that settled for more than $1 billion.

Along with these historical disadvantages, black farmers say they have also encountered bias in dealing with some of the corporate giants that control their livelihood. In complaints filed with the USDA between 2010 and 2015, Ingrum and another black farmer in Mississippi said Koch Foods discriminated against them and used its market control to drive them out of business.​

Koch Foods was determined by the USDA to have discriminated - fortunately for them, the current administration is no longer in the enforcement business.

Yes, black farmers have been locked out by these corporations. Somehow, some people believe they are less than the white farmers they contract with, and should only do menial labor like slaughtering chickens as opposed to owning and operating poultry farms. The worst is when there is an attempt to conflate African Americans with illegal immigration because the assumption is that that they are only able to do the most menial labor, but that’s one of the legacies of slavery and sharecropping. “Blacks can’t own the farms, we only think of them as manual laborers.”

But that’s also why the US government settled with black farmers over racial discrimination.

 

[Gigimo]

I actually read a lot of it.

I'd say that it sticks to the facts most of the time....but drifts into narrative pushing nonsense more often than is necessary.

There are problems with it because slavery was common in this part of the globe long before 1619. At least 100 years before by the Spaniards and native American Indians had them too, and that the country was founded on slavery is another (which it wasn't). Some folks will undoubtedly jump on it's bandwagon without questioning the narrative/rhetoric and claiming any others are false.

 

[mindlight]

How America's Vast Racial Wealth Gap Grew

If I remember my history rightly Black people in America were quite late to arrive as players in the whole property owning , big money game that is American capitalism. For most of their history they have been workers not owners, employees and not employers. There is a big difference between what a man can earn as a company founder and owner and what he can earn by working for someone else. So part of the wealth disparity will be to do with the failure of the black community to shed the slave mentality that has held them back for so long. I do not mean laws and lack of opportunity here but rather the mentality of a slave that expects someone else to give the orders and set the tasks.

A second reason seems to be the way that American capitalism has developed since the 60s. Basically those with spare wealth have seen their investments and assets appreciate in ways that they could have never have earnt by hard work alone. While those who did not have any kind of savings or wealth then have seen no such growth. So there has been a massive growth in the disparity between haves and have nots and a decline in social mobility as a whole. Black people were poor in the sixties and remain so but poor whites and Hispanics are also in the same boat here.

A third reason alluded to by earlier posters is the high crime rate amongst black people in urban areas. This and family breakdown with a disproportionately high number of single parent fatherless households are probably a major reason why so many black people end up in jail, unemployable, on drugs, in gangs and therefore unlikely to show any social mobility. I am not sure what the answer is to such dysfunctional communities except breaking them up and moving them out to communities where this dysfunction does not exist. Also repentance about low standards of sexual morality which contribute to family breakdown are probably essential to break the downward momentum of many households.

 

[SummerMadness]

If I remember my history rightly Black people in America were quite late to arrive as players in the whole property owning , big money game that is American capitalism. For most of their history they have been workers not owners, employees and not employers. There is a big difference between what a man can earn as a company founder and owner and what he can earn by working for someone else. So part of the wealth disparity will be to do with the failure of the black community to shed the slave mentality that has held them back for so long. I do not mean laws and lack of opportunity here but rather the mentality of a slave that expects someone else to give the orders and set the tasks.

A second reason seems to be the way that American capitalism has developed since the 60s. Basically those with spare wealth have seen their investments and assets appreciate in ways that they could have never have earnt by hard work alone. While those who did not have any kind of savings or wealth then have seen no such growth. So there has been a massive growth in the disparity between haves and have nots and a decline in social mobility as a whole. Black people were poor in the sixties and remain so but poor whites and Hispanics are also in the same boat here.

A third reason alluded to by earlier posters is the high crime rate amongst black people in urban areas. This and family breakdown with a disproportionately high number of single parent fatherless households are probably a major reason why so many black people end up in jail, unemployable, on drugs, in gangs and therefore unlikely to show any social mobility. I am not sure what the answer is to such dysfunctional communities except breaking them up and moving them out to communities where this dysfunction does not exist. Also repentance about low standards of sexual morality which contribute to family breakdown are probably essential to break the downward momentum of many households.

Nothing written here is correct, but I do like the "late to arrive" romanticized version of African Americans in the US, as if slavery, segregation, redlining, race riots and the terror bombings were not a thing that hindered black participation.

 

[mindlight]

Nothing written here is correct, but I do like the "late to arrive" romanticized version of African Americans in the US, as if slavery, segregation, redlining, race riots and the terror bombings were not a thing that hindered black participation.

Which either means you did not read what I wrote or are wearing some very thick rose tinted glasses that filter out facts quite effectively.

I did not say blacks were physically late to arrive. But their social status did not allow economic freedom until late in Americas history. So many blacks still have the mentality of a slave blaming others and failing to take responsibility for their situations.

 

[SummerMadness]

Which either means you did not read what I wrote or are wearing some very thick rose tinted glasses that filter out facts quite effectively.

I did not say blacks were physically late to arrive. But their social status did not allow economic freedom until late in Americas history. So many blacks still have the mentality of a slave blaming others and failing to take responsibility for their situations.

Yeah, I did read what you wrote, and you made a ridiculous argument that calls the black mind "late to arrive." You completely ignored the terrorism and discrimination that prevented the owning of property, instead repeating the language used by whites during and after the Civil War that proposes that black want to be dependent on the government because they are used to their master's providing them with everything. That racist idea has been around since the 19th century, it's a pity some people still repeat it despite the data ad history showing that black people are no different than white people. There is nothing wrong with the "black mind", but there is something wrong with legalized racial discrimination and terrorism targeting people based on their skin color.

 

[Nithavela]

Yeah, I did read what you wrote, and you made a ridiculous argument that calls the black mind "late to arrive." You completely ignored the terrorism and discrimination that prevented the owning of property, instead repeating the language used by whites during and after the Civil War that proposes that black want to be dependent on the government because they are used to their master's providing them with everything. That racist idea has been around since the 19th century, it's a pity some people still repeat it despite the data ad history showing that black people are no different than white people. There is nothing wrong with the "black mind", but there is something wrong with legalized racial discrimination and terrorism targeting people based on their skin color.

Most people prefer being employed, but I've never seen that described as a "slave mentality" in anyone but black people.

It's just a fact of the human species that most people prefer the certainty and security of a steady work with clearly defined parameters. Only in recent years has this become a liability.

 

[TheBear]

I look at all the success stories from 1st and 2nd generation American citizens of all races and countries of origin, who came to this country flat broke, and are now accomplished, achieved and thriving members of our society.

Then I look at all the whining, complaining and blaming, in race-centered threads like this.

Do you think the successful 1st and 2nd generation American citizens would be where they are today, if they were in a perpetual mindset of victim-hood?

 

[DaisyDay]

Yes, black farmers have been locked out by these corporations. Somehow, some people believe they are less than the white farmers they contract with, and should only do menial labor like slaughtering chickens as opposed to owning and operating poultry farms. The worst is when there is an attempt to conflate African Americans with illegal immigration because the assumption is that that they are only able to do the most menial labor, but that’s one of the legacies of slavery and sharecropping. “Blacks can’t own the farms, we only think of them as manual laborers.”

But that’s also why the US government settled with black farmers over racial discrimination.

But not simply locked out - the scandal is that they were persuaded to invest hundred of thousand of dollars by the companies to begin with, on the promise that their chickens would be bought. Then, somewhere along the line, the black poultry farmers but not the white ones, were told that they had to make continued improvements costing a bundle, but frozen out anyway.

 

[DaisyDay]

I look at all the success stories from 1st and 2nd generation American citizens of all races and countries of origin, who came to this country flat broke, and are now accomplished, achieved and thriving members of our society.

Then I look at all the whining, complaining and blaming, in race-centered threads like this.

Do you think the successful 1st and 2nd generation American citizens would be where they are today, if they were in a perpetual mindset of victim-hood?

How many 1st and 2nd generation American citizens had their middle-class businesses and houses destroyed in massacres? That tends to set a community back a ways. Then when your community is refused government-backed loans and guarantees other people, including 1st and 2nd generation Americans, get as a matter of course, wealth is not accumulated.

And then, those people have the nerve to complain!

 

[Goonie]

I look at all the success stories from 1st and 2nd generation American citizens of all races and countries of origin, who came to this country flat broke, and are now accomplished, achieved and thriving members of our society.

Then I look at all the whining, complaining and blaming, in race-centered threads like this.

Do you think the successful 1st and 2nd generation American citizens would be where they are today, if they were in a perpetual mindset of victim-hood?

Tell me were these new citizens kept as slaves for generations before hand? Were they property to be sold? Then when freed faced numerous laws and prejudices that ensured that they were not allowed to prosper?