The Racial Wealth Gap: A Brief History

Legal scholar Baradaran (The Quiet Coup) lays out a concise and erudite case that today’s staggering racial wealth gap is the result of decades of carefully crafted government policy. She begins with slavery, “the scaffolding upon with the American economic system was constructed” and, in legal terms, the literal theft of wages. She goes on to show how the theft of Black wealth remained a core tenet of public policy after Emancipation. Particularly damning examples include the government’s history of suppression of successful Black-owned banks, as well as the myriad ways in which white people have been beneficiaries of government-provided safety nets, subsidies, land grants, and legal favoritism. At the same time, Baradaran notes that America’s systemic theft of Black wealth ultimately hurts all average Americans, as it mainly functions to funnel money into the hands of the 1% and to stymie local economies. Baradaran’s quietly furious prose deftly guides readers through the labyrinthine world of American monetary policy and financial history, with breathtaking moments of clarity striking like lightning, as when she notes that the massive amounts of money printed by the Fed to bail out banks during the Great Recession was “trillions more” than had ever been asked for reparations. Readers will be fired up. (Feb.)