On Wealth Disparity Between Races in America

Brendan Ransom

Writing II - Spring, 2014 (In class, short-response)

Professor Mitchell Jackson

3 February 2014

"The floor of the white man's failures is the ceiling of the black/brown man's expectations"

Racial inequality is a problem that's plagued America since its inception as a country. It would be naive to think that it ended with the abolition of slavery. Though the above statement is clearly hyperbolic, there is certainly a vast amount of evidence that suggests that employers are much more reluctant to hire minority applicants over white applicants, even in cases where the minority possesses equal or better credentials (A 2009 study conducted by Harvard's Devah Pager indicates that a white applicant is twice as likely to receive an interview offer or call-back as an equally qualified black applicant). The disparity between the success rates of whites and minorities, though related to longstanding racial discrimination, is in my opinion primarily attributable to economic inequality today. High-income neighborhoods are largely inhabited by white families -- the benefits afforded by the upbringing that comes with high income are myriad (though certainly not guaranteed or universal): familial stability, low crime, and heightened quality of education are among the first that come to mind. Alternatively, low income neighborhoods suffer from high crime, hellacious percentages of single-parent households, and laughable education systems. These are neighborhoods that are largely inhabited by minorities. The racial wealth disparity emerged out of racism so blatant that it was reflected in official government policy, but its longevity is a rather predictable result of a vicious cycle that has yet to be addressed with any real competence by the American government. The wealth disparity isn't a "black problem" or a "brown problem" or a "minority problem", per sé, as it fundamentally has nothing to do with race whatsoever. How can we be surprised by unequal success rates between those who grow up with the opportunities (strong education, safe streets, etc.) that should, without any exception, be provided by the government, and those that don't? While I'm sure sheer, irrational, reflexive, pigmentation-based racism exists in some dark corners of America, I believe some employer reluctance to hire minorities stems from a misguided bias that is at least steeped to an extent in statistical fact. But if business owners in this country are looking to the ethnicity box as a tiebreaker in application deliberations, well, we haven't come a long way from the 1960's at all.