More on racism and wealth

clipped from www1.umn.edu Rich with exhaustive research and statistics, this book is also a compelling history of the United States. The Color of Wealth makes the case that since the founding of the colonies, the U.S. government has systematically enacted policies that favored white wealth acquisition--like Jim Crow laws, the denial of citizenship (and thus property rights) to Chinese immigrants and land theft from Mexican-Americans and Native Americans throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Even the venerated G.I. Bill, which is credited with creating the middle class after World War II, did little to help African-American veterans who were denied admission to predominantly white colleges and redlined out of many neighborhoods. The result today is that white families are more likely to acquire wealth through inheritance, own stocks and other investments and possess homes with a higher average value than families of color.