When it comes to African-American wealth, it’s nickels on the dollar!
The preoccupation with Donald Sterling, the wealthy Los Angeles Clippers owner who was slapped with an NBA ban after a recorded conversation revealed that he didn’t want his female companion associated with black people, confirms that professional sports has replaced religion as the opiate of the masses.
In the same week the NBA handed down its verdict, a new study released by the Center for Global Policy Solutions and the Network on Race and Ethnic Inequality at Duke University reported that African American households are beyond broke, owning only six cents for every dollar of wealth owned by the typical white household and possessing an average liquid wealth of only $200, a figure that includes the value of African American retirement savings.
If people actually cared, these findings would have gotten at least the same level of outrage and attention that Donald Sterling’s racist rant received. Yet the nation remains passive in the face of facts that show that African Americans continue to experience a stunning level of economic segregation and isolation a full 50 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The sports analogy helps bring the depth of the racial wealth gap into focus. For just as the collective net worth of the predominantly black and highly paid NBA players is a drop in the bucket compared to that of their predominantly white male team owners, the combined assets of every African American household in the U.S. — including wealthy athletes, entertainers, and businesspeople — is not enough to lift the average net worth of African Americans beyond a little more than a nickel for every dollar held by whites.
The post-racial narrative that blacks have arrived with the advent of the first African-American president and prominent examples of celebrity wealth is not only a myth, it serves to placate and obscure data showing that African-Americans are a long way from achieving financial freedom and inclusion and, in fact, continue to face discriminatory laws and practices that institutionalize their disadvantage.
Aided by permissive laws championed by banking industry lobbyists and their friends in government, African-American home ownership rates have declined in part because they were twice as likely as whites to be targeted for the faulty loans.
http://thegrio.com/2014/05/12/wealth-for-african-americans-is-nickels-on-the-dollar/
