November 2020
Jan Roberts jroberts@ciaction.org
Call to Action: There are things we can do to rectify the systemic racial wealth inequities that exist between Blacks and Whites. We can raise awareness of the realities of these inequities and engage with others within our spheres of influence and our community to enact changes that address them. This article is a sampling of solutions taking place around the U.S.
Why is wealth important?
- A cushion of money, property and financial assets in hard times. For instance, it helps us survive job loss, illness, natural disaster without losing our homes.
- Access to good healthcare, childcare, and education.
- Can hire a good lawyer to defend rights.
- Can buy healthy food, have homes in safe neighborhoods and cars in good repair.
Black Wealth ≠ White Wealth
- Black Households hold less than seven cents on the dollar compared to White households. Duke Report on What We Got Wrong on the Wealth Gap April 2018
- The net worth of a typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family. 2016 Federal Reserve data
- The 2020 Regional Equity Report produced by the Tampa Bay Partnership Foundation showed that: (1) Median wages for white workers are 21% more than Black workers; (2) Black workers with or without a college degree continue to earn roughly 20% less than their White counterparts; (3) Black residents are much less likely to own their own home (40.8%), compared to White residents (73.3%).
- African Americans have more than double the infant mortality rate as whites.
- African American infants are almost 4 times as likely to die from complications related to low birthweight as compared to white infants.
- At every level of educational attainment, the median wealth among black families is substantially lower than white families. White households with a bachelor’s degree or post-grad are more than three times as wealthy as black households with the same degree.
- A Black household with a college-educated head has less wealth than a white family whose head did not even obtain a high school diploma
- Black males accounted for 34% of the total male prison population, while only 13% of the general population. (U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2018)
- By age 18, 30% of Black males have been arrested. By age 23, 49% of Black males have been arrested.
Solutions for Racial Wealth Equity
Reparations are a portfolio of solutions for racial wealth inequity including direct payments by U.S. government to descendants of slavery, community wealth building within communities with a good proportion being Black residents; and funding for education.
1. Community Wealth Building
African American Mutual Aid Societies formed after slavery ended and were a form of insurance to members like money burials, for medical costs and to support widows and orphans. The societies grew into the strong African American Cooperative Movement that included consumer, worker owned and producer cooperatives
Cleveland’s Evergreen Cooperatives are a national model for Worker Owned Cooperatives. They include three commercial sized businesses: commercial laundry, alternative energy construction and green grocer. The cooperatives are built within the University Circle area, which is surrounded by struggling, low income neighborhoods. First hires were former felons.
What makes Evergreen Coops unique is they have captured the purchasing power of nearby anchor institutions like University Hospital, Case Western University and Cleveland Clinic that typically spend billions of dollars on goods and services outside the community. Worker owners start at a living wage, have benefits including education, healthcare, homeownership and car ownership programs and share in the profits annually.
Healthcare Anchor Network formed in 2019 composed of more than 50 healthcare systems like hospitals, universities and insurance companies recognize that good healthcare has to address the racial and economic inequities in a community. They collaborate and fund community-based programs for affordable housing, small business development and educational opportunities.
- One example is the Healthcare Anchor Network in Boston, which purchases products from local businesses like Commonwealth Kitchen, a nonprofit incubator of more than 50 small, mostly minority-owned, and community-based food start-up businesses that sells to Boston’s 19 hospitals and 21 universities.
2. Education
- Georgetown University, Princeton Theological Seminary, Virginia Theological Seminary and Catholic sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart either owned, bought or were built by slaves. As a result, they created scholarship funds for African American students as well as other initiatives like Black Church Studies Center.
3. Criminal Justice
Public Defenders can be a driving force for moving the Criminal Processing System to a Criminal Justice System.
- A landmark case in the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that due to work overloads public defenders can refuse cases that are not high felonies. After a statistical analysis of time spent on cases by private attorneys and public defenders, the court ruled that because of work overload public defender clients were not receiving competent representation. A five-year transition plan allows cases not a threat to public safety to be referred for social services, restorative justice programs and arbitration.
- Other studies in Missouri and Rhode Island made similar findings that public defenders there were carrying workloads two or three times higher than they should. More studies are being conducted in New Mexico and Oregon.
- The Equal Defense Act of 2019 introduced by California Sen. Kamala Harris (now vice president-elect Harris), would create a $250 million grant program aimed at funding public defense across the nation. The money would go to supporting workload limits, pay parity between public defenders and prosecutors, and providing yearly data on workloads.
4. Government Examples
- Chicago, Asheville and Evanston have created funds for college tuition, home ownership, or employment assistance to Black citizens. Evanston utilizes tax revenue collected from sales of recreational cannabis.
- California: Lawmakers set up a task force to study and make recommendations for reparations to African-Americans, particularly the descendants of slaves.
- Texas, Vermont, Pennsylvania and New York are also considering legislation that says reparations could take the form of cash, housing assistance, lower tuition, forgiving student loans, job training or community investments.
- New Jersey governor joined with legislators, faith leaders, and community advocates to propose the Baby Bonds initiative, which will provide a $1,000 deposit into an account for every baby born into a household with income less than 500 percent of the Federal Poverty Level ($131,000 for a family of four) in 2021. Funds in each child’s account would be invested so that they generate returns that are at least equivalent to thirty-year US Treasury bonds. Recipients would be able to withdraw funds when they turn 18 for allowable uses that build wealth such as homeownership, higher and continuing education, or entrepreneurship.
- U.S. Congress: Bills in the House and Senate propose the establishment of a Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act.
For more information on Solutions for Racial Wealth Inequity: Zoom interviews with Duke University economist and professor William Darity, Jr. and Kirsten Mullen, co-authors of From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century at https://ciaction.org/post-covid-19-video-interviews/
Jan Roberts is Founder of Cultural Innovations in Action https://ciaction.org/