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Imagine you are living three generations removed from slavery (not counting your own), and - if you’re lucky - one generation away from racial discrimination as

Imagine you are living three generations removed from slavery (not counting your own), and - if you’re lucky - one generation away from racial discrimination as a policy norm. On the whole, you’re far less likely than your more privileged countrymen to have financial security.

weberc2 8y ago
“Outlier” is extreme. A significant portion of black Americans are in the middle class. The legacy of historical racism is significant, but exaggerations don’t help anyone.
- jdavis703 8y ago
  The median wealth of a black person is $17,000, while the median wealth of a white person is $170,000 [0]. Defining what middle class is extremely difficult, but one of the numbers I’ve seen is the minimum cut off at $50,000. If this is true, it means more than half of African Americans are less than middle class. 0; http://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/ http://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/
  - dawidw 8y ago
    > more than half of African Americans are less than middle class What is the reason of that?
    - jdavis703 8y ago
      There’s a lot of complicated reasons. The easiest ones to look at via economic data is the homeownership rate which is significantly lower, higher levels of student debt (a fairly recent phenomenon) and that young black adults start out with less wealth in early adulthood, which means they miss out on the power of compounding interest. All this data can be found from the source I linked to above.
      - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
        I'm pretty sure that they were disproportionately affected by the drug war, also. Large numbers of black men are convicted felons, which has to have an effect on future earnings.
      - subpixel 8y ago
        It's one thing to state that "the homeownership rate which is significantly lower" and another to point out the systematic housing discrimination that has taken place across America for more than a century and which is certainly not over. https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history... Think about it - in most cities the entire shape of our urban landscape is defined by the movement of white people to avoid living near black people. Similarly, the reason public transit in most of the US is near non-existent is b/c people do not want buses and trains bringing 'other' people to where they live.
  - weberc2 8y ago
    “Median” doesn’t tell you anything about outliers, so I don’t see how that relates to my post...
    - jdavis703 8y ago
      The average numbers are $900,000 for whites and $140,000 for blacks. Averages are more effected by outliers, so read in to this what you will. Never the less I’m not sure what outliers has to do with people being in the middle class. Also if you want to look at the wealthiest 1% as outliers, only 3% of these outliers are black [0] 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/business/the-1-percent-paint-a-more-nuanced-portrait-of-the-rich.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/business/the-1-percent-pa...
      - weberc2 8y ago
        I was responding to the claim that black people who escape poverty are outliers. I used "middle class" as an approximation for "escaping poverty".
pacala 8y ago
It may surprise a naive audience how recent serfdom and slavery were the norm all over the world. Here's hoping for building today a better tomorrow. Serfdom emancipation in Europe: circa 1800, as late as 1864 in Poland. Slavery abolition in US: circa 1800 in the North, as late as 1865 in the South. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom#Dates_of_emancipation_from_serfdom_in_various_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom#Dates_of_emancipation_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slave...
- iguy 8y ago
  Indeed, good point. The dates there for Russia etc are accurate, but seem very late for the western countries -- in some places it essentially disappeared centuries before it was legally abolished. (I don't have a great link but e.g. "Serfdom was de facto ended in France by Philip IV, Louis X (1315)," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_serfdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_serfdom ) Barbary corsair slave-raiding also only stopped in 1830, when France decided to invade.
  - pacala 8y ago
    Great points, thanks for the link. It appears that serfdom largely disappeared as a mass phenomenon in Western Europe [England/France/Italy/Spain] early [XII - XVI centuries], but persisted in Central and especially Eastern Europe all the way into the XIX century. https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/serfdom-western-europe https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-alm... https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/serfdom-eastern-europe https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-alm... https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/serfdom-russia https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-...

weberc2 8y ago

“Outlier” is extreme. A significant portion of black Americans are in the middle class. The legacy of historical racism is significant, but exaggerations don’t help anyone.

jdavis703 8y ago
The median wealth of a black person is $17,000, while the median wealth of a white person is $170,000 [0]. Defining what middle class is extremely difficult, but one of the numbers I’ve seen is the minimum cut off at $50,000. If this is true, it means more than half of African Americans are less than middle class. 0; http://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/ http://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/
- dawidw 8y ago
  > more than half of African Americans are less than middle class What is the reason of that?
  - jdavis703 8y ago
    There’s a lot of complicated reasons. The easiest ones to look at via economic data is the homeownership rate which is significantly lower, higher levels of student debt (a fairly recent phenomenon) and that young black adults start out with less wealth in early adulthood, which means they miss out on the power of compounding interest. All this data can be found from the source I linked to above.
    - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
      I'm pretty sure that they were disproportionately affected by the drug war, also. Large numbers of black men are convicted felons, which has to have an effect on future earnings.
    - subpixel 8y ago
      It's one thing to state that "the homeownership rate which is significantly lower" and another to point out the systematic housing discrimination that has taken place across America for more than a century and which is certainly not over. https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history... Think about it - in most cities the entire shape of our urban landscape is defined by the movement of white people to avoid living near black people. Similarly, the reason public transit in most of the US is near non-existent is b/c people do not want buses and trains bringing 'other' people to where they live.
- weberc2 8y ago
  “Median” doesn’t tell you anything about outliers, so I don’t see how that relates to my post...
  - jdavis703 8y ago
    The average numbers are $900,000 for whites and $140,000 for blacks. Averages are more effected by outliers, so read in to this what you will. Never the less I’m not sure what outliers has to do with people being in the middle class. Also if you want to look at the wealthiest 1% as outliers, only 3% of these outliers are black [0] 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/business/the-1-percent-paint-a-more-nuanced-portrait-of-the-rich.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/business/the-1-percent-pa...
    - weberc2 8y ago
      I was responding to the claim that black people who escape poverty are outliers. I used "middle class" as an approximation for "escaping poverty".

pacala 8y ago

It may surprise a naive audience how recent serfdom and slavery were the norm all over the world. Here's hoping for building today a better tomorrow. Serfdom emancipation in Europe: circa 1800, as late as 1864 in Poland. Slavery abolition in US: circa 1800 in the North, as late as 1865 in the South. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom#Dates_of_emancipation_from_serfdom_in_various_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom#Dates_of_emancipation_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slave...

iguy 8y ago
Indeed, good point. The dates there for Russia etc are accurate, but seem very late for the western countries -- in some places it essentially disappeared centuries before it was legally abolished. (I don't have a great link but e.g. "Serfdom was de facto ended in France by Philip IV, Louis X (1315)," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_serfdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_serfdom ) Barbary corsair slave-raiding also only stopped in 1830, when France decided to invade.
- pacala 8y ago
  Great points, thanks for the link. It appears that serfdom largely disappeared as a mass phenomenon in Western Europe [England/France/Italy/Spain] early [XII - XVI centuries], but persisted in Central and especially Eastern Europe all the way into the XIX century. https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/serfdom-western-europe https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-alm... https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/serfdom-eastern-europe https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-alm... https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/serfdom-russia https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-...