This clip from the Decoded series challenges the myth of meritocracy while also highlighting institutional racism’s impact on the racial wealth gap.
Video Description:
“Written by Ben O’Keefe @benjaminokeefe
Out of 536 billionaires in the USA, only 3 are black. Why the stark racial divide? Well it’s complicated, but it turns out our history of racism has a lot to do with it.
From segregated schools that receive less funding in property taxes, to the history of redlining black homeowners, to the long history of slavery, oppression, and segregation, white families were accumulating wealth.
That “old money” has provided the capital for the modern-day billionaires, and even average-income white families, to stay significantly ahead of black Americans.”
From Aspiring Humanitarian, Relando Thompkins-Jones, MSW, LLMSW
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This is a good video for a quick overview of what this problem is and how it came to be. Of course, there are a lot of factors into it that just couldn’t be covered in a 6 minute video – but hopefully this helps people who hadn’t considered this before learn and want to look more into it.
I totally agree Jordan. It goes much deeper than time allows for the video, but I hope it will be a conversation starter, or a driving force for people to seek out additional information.