Always been hoped that with rise in education,
college graduation rates, when those things became more equal,
that the racial wealth gap would become more equal as well.
But studies of the return on investments in education also find that there
are significant differences along ethnic and racial lines.
And so for whites with a college degree, white families with a college degree,
versus black families, versus Latino families,
the return on investment is much greater.
So college degrees really have not been able to close the wealth gap in ways
that we assumed that they would because the institutional effect's just
as differential in this area as they are in other areas.
Another area what we want to look at the impact of institutional facts or
institutionalized discrimination is housing.
Because housing is so critical to net worth.
In fact, most Americans at the bedrock of their net worth is tied
to the equity in their homes and related kinds of investment
that they're able to make because of home ownership.
Now, one of the things that happened that made a big
difference along ethnic lines was the way in which home ownership
developed through the 1930s and into our own present.
And so it was really in 1933 where the government began to create
programs that were designed to increase home ownership.
And a new book by Richard Rothstein called The Color of Law: A Forgotten History
of How our Government Segregated America, he points out that the American government
created opportunities for home ownership and for people to move in suburban areas.
But they also, particularly through the Federal Housing Authority, the FHA,
instituted racial restrictions that made those opportunities available to white
families and also, at the same time, deny those opportunities to families of color.
And that, in the long run,
the accumulation of wealth from those initial investments in homes had much
to do with the racial wealth gap that would be created in the decades to follow.
A good example of this, at least a good documentary on this,
is Race: The Power of an Illusion.
The third episode actually focuses on, with the title The House We Live In,
it focuses on how the racial gap was created in the early 20th century.
And it looks at one of the developments called Levittown.
When in 1950, the government created, and
actually helped people to move into, Levittown.
It was a place that was in Long Island.
You could get a two bedroom home for around $8,000,
which was great at the time.
And of course that would appreciate in value and
make that investment really important over time.
Now, when the Time magazine reported on this new development and
ways that, particularly for ex-GIs, to get homes, it did not mention
the fact that one of the rules was that Levittown was forbidden to rent or
sell to persons other than members of the Caucasian race.
That was one of the stipulations.
Now, [COUGH] it turns out that Levittown was also
the legendary home of Fox News commentator BIll O'Reilly.
That's where he spent his boyhood.
And it was an interesting sort of illustration of how we have a kind
of national amnesia about the way in which wealth was created,
the way in which wealth is accumulated,
and the consequences of institutionalized discrimination.
There were two cases where there was an interview, one with President Obama,
and the other one was with Jon Stewart.
In the interview with Obama,
Bill O'Reilly began the interview by saying the difference between him and
President Obama was that Obama believed in what he called the nanny state.
That is, a state that was subsidized by the Federal Government,
a state in which individuals would get handouts.
Which he viewed to be unreasonable, and unnecessary, and unfair,
in order to climb the social ladder.
That it would be government-sponsored mobility, social mobility.
He defined himself as a person who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps.
And he believed in the kind of society where that kind of personal
responsibility was at the core.
And then he pointed up that he grew up in Levittown.
Well, he didn't seem to realize that Levittown was one,
home ownership that was subsidized by the federal government.
And also homeownership in which it was available to whites and
not available to persons of color.
And so, he actually was fostering this notion of the bootstrap myth,
that he pulled himself up by his own bootstrap, or
at least his family did, by buying a home in Levittown.
Without realizing that, in fact, it was a privilege that other people did not have.
And also that it wasn't so much a bootstrap operation as it was
a privilege that was subsidized by the Federal Government.
And the second interview he did with Jon Stewart was also interesting.
because Stewart asked him specifically, could black people live in Levittown.
And O'Reilly said, not at that time, they couldn't.
So he actually knew that black people could not live in this sprawling
new neighborhood that was kind of the hallmark of homeownership and
development in the 20th century.
And then Stewart said, so my friend,
it's what we call in the business, white privilege.
And O'Reilly said, well that was 1950.
As if to say, since it was 1950, it was the distant past and
it's not that important.
Stewart did not let it go at that, he asked him again,
were black people living there in 1960.
And he said, I don't know.
Stewart said, well they were not, because he had done research to find out.
And he was trying to point out to him that he was able to
take advantage of an opportunity because of institutional arrangements and
because of routine business practices that were available
to him because of his membership in a particular ethnic group or race.
And that others could not take advantage of the same opportunity
because of membership in a different race, or
a person with a different ethnic background or skin color.
And it goes to the heart of what we mean by institutionalized racism.
Many people don't see the advantages that accrue as a consequence of race.
They don't think that race had anything to do with it.
They think that we were able to go in to buy a home,
we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.
Why can't other people do the same?
Sometimes unconscious, or at least unaware, of the fact that routine
organizational practices at that time, as well as routine organizations today,
often give privileges to the people based on ethnicity.
When look at home ownership today, we can see that those disparages are still there.
That white home ownership is at a rate of around 73%,
for black families 45%, and Latino families 47%.
Home ownership is the foundation of net worth for many families.
And when we go through a crisis as we did with the Great Recession where there's
substantial foreclosures, and particularly if you're living in certain
parts of the country like California where foreclosures were much greater
than they were in other parts of the country, whatever net worth you've
accrued can be wiped out significantly in a very short period of time.
And so as we go forward, we get a sense of where the home ownership breaks off.
And we have some sense of what kinds of stability people have to
weather through another recession.
It's no question that you get fluctuations in the economy.
And whether they come today or much later, the important
question is the capacity to withstand those fluctuations.
And the accumulation of wealth over a long period of time and
the way that it is divided along the lines of race and
ethnicity actually enable some populations to
withstand that crisis much more than others.
And could even widen the racial wealth gap as it has during the Great Recession and
as it did in 2004 as well.
