HOUSING
September 11, 2019
Special Edition
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O PINION
Page 9
MCS Still in
Business
Martin
Cleaning
Service
Carpet & Upholstery
Cleaning
Residential &
Commercial Services
Minimum Service CHG.
$50.00
A small distance/travel
charge may be applied
CARPET CLEANING
2 Cleaning Areas or more
$30.00 each Area
Pre-Spray Traffic Areas
(Includes: 1 small Hallway)
1 Cleaning Area (only)
$50.00
Includes Pre-Spray Traffic Area
and Hallway
Stairs (12-16 stairs - With
Other Services) : $30.00
Heavily Soiled Area:
$10.00 each area
(Requiring Pre-Spray)
Stark Economic Divides around Race
No more
band-aids
J essiCah p ierre
Four
hundred
years ago this sum-
mer, the first en-
slaved people from Africa arrived
in Virginia.
Slavery is often reduced to a
crime of America’s long-ago past.
But enslaved labor created the
backbone for America’s capitalis-
tic economy, allowing it to grow
into — and remain — the world’s
leading economy today.
The effects of this reliance on
unpaid African slave labor is still
felt in America’s current racial
wealth divide. Today the racial
wealth divide is greater than it
was nearly four decades ago, and
trends point to its continued wid-
ening.
Although slavery officially
ended in 1865, the unequal treat-
ment of African Americans con-
tinued through Jim Crow, red
lining, and mass incarceration,
among many public policies. Our
country’s historic racial wealth
disparities continue to be perpet-
uated and increased by the trend
by
towards extreme inequality
in the United States.
To further paint a dire pic-
ture, a report released earlier
this year by the Institute for
Policy Studies found that
between 1983 and 2016, the
median black family saw
their wealth drop by more than
half, compared to a 33 percent
increase for the median white
household.
Our economy is still thriving
off the backs of African Ameri-
cans and other poor people. While
black wealth plummets, the num-
ber of households with $10 mil-
lion or more skyrocketed by 856
percent during those years.
On the other end, 37 percent of
black families have zero or “neg-
ative” wealth, meaning their debts
exceed the value of their assets.
Just 15 percent of white families
are in the same position.
The racial wealth divide is an
issue that affects all Americans
— and the overall health of our
economy.
As the black population increas-
es, low levels of black wealth play
a key factor in the overall decline
in American median household
wealth — from $84,111 in 1983
to $81,704 in 2016. Across all
races, the number of households
experiencing negative wealth has
increased from one in six in 1983
to one in five households today.
Many conversations around the
depletion of black wealth point
towards false narratives about the
work ethic of African Americans.
This is a myth — studies show
that college-educated black fam-
ilies have less wealth than high
school-educated white families.
And single-parent white families
are twice as wealthy as two-parent
black families.
The Institute for Policy Studies
concludes that these outcomes are
not the result of individual behav-
ior, but the result of black Amer-
icans having fewer resources to
begin with — resources they’ve
been denied for 400 years, ever
since the first slaves were kid-
napped from Africa and brought
to America to provide free, strenu-
ous, and valuable labor.
Employment, income, home-
ownership, stock ownership, en-
trepreneurship, and virtually all
other economic indicators show
stark divides around race. To truly
overcome these divides, we need a
massive, targeted investment simi-
lar to the massive, targeted invest-
ments that historically appropriat-
ed wealth to white communities.
It’ll take bold structural reform
and the political will to finally
achieve economic justice for Af-
rican Americans, because clearly
ending slavery wasn’t enough.
By creating a formal commis-
sion to study the issue, lawmakers
can take a serious look at what
reparations for descendants of en-
slaved Africans in America could
look like. Inaction — or worse,
repeating the same mistakes that
led to this situation — will simply
widen the divide and create great-
er economic instability for the
country at large.
Four hundred years later, it’s time
to stop putting a temporary bandage
on the painful and relevant history
of American slavery. It’s time to
heal the deep wounds of racism and
inequity once and for all.
Not only to finally provide Af-
rican Americans with the econom-
ic equity they deserve, but to en-
sure the health of our economy for
generations to come.
Jessicah Pierre is the inequali-
ty media specialist at the Institute
for Policy Studies. Distributed by
OtherWords.org.
Area/Oriental Rug Cleaning
Regular Area Rugs
$25.00 Minimum
Wool Oriental Rugs
$40.00 Minimum
UPHOLSTERY
CLEANING
Sofa: $70.00
Loveseat: $50.00
Sectional: $110 - $140
Chair or Recliner:
$25.00 - $50.00
Throw Pillows (With
Other Services) : $5.00
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