Black/White Racial Wealth Gap: Myths and Realities

The racial wealth gap has become a central component of claims of systemic racism and one of the core justifications for reparations. The main focus has been on housing market dynamics. Supreme Court Justice Jackson made reference to the racial bias of 1940s federal housing policies in her dissent on the college affirmative action case. Quoting a selective group of researchers, she wrote, thus, based on their race, Black people were “[l]ocked out of the greatest mass-based opportunity for wealth accumulation in American history.”