[IMC-Boston-Editorial] Column on immigration debate and the roots of the racial wealth divide

[Betsy Leondar-Wright]

Greetings, 
Would you be interested in running this column on immigration policy and the
racial wealth divide?
Cheers,
Betsy Leondar-Wright

Widening the Racial Wealth Gap
By Betsy Leondar-Wright
 
It¹s happening again.
 
The recent vote in Congress to criminalize undocumented immigrants was just
the latest in a centuries-long series of government actions that have
blocked people of color from gaining economic security. Employers are
getting away with murder, underpaying and overworking people too vulnerable
to complain. Our elected officials are not just letting them get away with
it -- they¹re actually aiding and abetting them.
 
Why does the typical family of color have 18 cents for every white dollar?
Literally hundreds of  government actions have affected the amount of money
that families have today ­ most of them not widely known.
 
Everyone knows that the U.S. government took land from Native Americans and
gave it to white settlers. And it¹s widely known that some states let white
slave owners profit from slave labor.
 
But most people don¹t know that land ownership was restricted to citizens
and citizenship was limited to whites in many areas throughout the 1800s.
The last racial barriers to naturalized citizenship were lifted in 1952.
Almost no-one realizes that one in four white Americans have an ancestor who
was given Indian or Mexican land under the Homestead Act.
 
Most people don¹t know that the New Deal excluded many people of color from
Social Security because until the 1950s, those laws excluded domestic and
agricultural workers, the occupations of most workers of color. The parents
and grandparents of some African Americans and Latinos in the labor market
today missed out on Social Security benefits. As a result, many in the
younger generations are supporting their elders instead of saving for their
own retirement.
 
And few realize that almost all veterans of color were unable to access the
GI Bill¹s educational and mortgage benefits, which boosted five million
white veterans into the middle class after WWII. Not only did discrimination
by realtors and colleges make the benefits difficult for vets of color to
use, but VA and FHA lending rules actually blocked mortgages in mixed-race
and urban neighborhoods.
 
The racial income gap has narrowed, thanks to affirmative action and the
energetic striving of people of color. But the racial wealth gap still looms
large, because assets tend to be passed down within families. In The Hidden
Cost of Being African American, Thomas Shapiro compared the finances of
pairs of white and black families with the same income. He found that while
they all attributed their assets to their own hard work and savings, in fact
the white families were far more likely to have gotten money from their
families, whether in the form of inheritance, a down payment, or college
tuition. Even low-income white people are more likely to have some modest
family safety net, such as a homeowning relative with a guest room, than
many people of color.
 
Outright discrimination is illegal now, but racial bias in government
policies continues. Since welfare reform went into effect in 1997, childcare
and transportation assistance have been much more likely to go to white
welfare leavers; unpaid ³workfare² has been far more common for welfare
leavers of color.  The Bush tax cuts have been much more generous for people
with substantial income from investments (disproportionately white) than to
working people; and IRS audits have tended to befall low-wage workers taking
the Earned Income Tax Credit (disproportionately people of color).
 
The up escalator that whites have climbed towards prosperity has been a down
escalator for African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos and some Asian
Americans.  However, many white Americans lose out from this two-tier
economy as well, since racial divide-and-conquer techniques explain the
lower wages and weaker safety net here than in most industrialized
countries. 
 
The lowest wage in the economy is the floor that all of us stand on. That¹s
why, in today¹s immigration debate, not just human compassion but also
enlightened self-interest should lead native-born working people to support
legalization and labor rights for undocumented immigrants.
 
The positive lesson from this country¹s grim history is that when the
government decides to invest in building a middle class, it works. What
worked for some white men for our country¹s first 200 years could work for
people of every race and nationality now.
 
Betsy Leondar-Wright, Communications Director at United for a Fair Economy,
co-authored UFE¹s new book, The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the US
Racial Wealth Divide (New Press, 2006).
 
 
694 words

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Betsy Leondar-Wright
Communications Director, United for a Fair Economy
(617) 423-2148 x113
29 Winter Street
Boston, MA 02108
http://www.FairEconomy.Org


United for a Fair Economy is an independent national organization
that raises awareness of the damaging consequences of concentrated
wealth and power.

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