Racism Keeps You From Achieving Your Greatest Economic Potential — Here Is What To Do About It.
I mentioned this in a previous blog post. Economic Racism, the book, was my form of therapy to have somewhere to store my deep emotions from the real world. I thought that if I wrote it down, I would dissipate the swelling anger and be able to cope with what I was feeling. Besides, polite people should not talk about racism, I thought. As a result, I wrote a very angry first draft, and I hope that the remainder still has some residue of the outrage while showing some calm to give me the distance to come up with solutions. People close to me kept me grounded, helping me to cope while I wrote this, often with dismay as I searched for a solution to a complex and long-standing global dilemma of Economic Racism.
I wrote this thought-provoking book because I still have hope despite the horrors we see on television and social media and what we hear daily from friends and family and often experience. Economic Racism is a comprehensive analysis of how economic policies and practices perpetuate racial inequality in the United States. Racism is not just a social issue but also a macroeconomic failure that affects the opportunities and outcomes of, primarily, people of color and, to a lesser extent, the European descendants who now call themselves “white.”
The history of racism in the United States started with the enslavement of non-white people in the Americas from the 1600s to various forms of discrimination in the present day. It highlights how the government has implemented policies and practices contributing to the racial wealth gap. Institutional racism is deeply embedded in the American economic system, perpetuating the economic disadvantage of people of color while denigrating the mental capacity and moral core of people who identify as white or aspire to whiteness.
Economic policies and practices create and maintain racial segregation. Policies like redlining and exclusionary zoning have created segregated communities predominantly made up of brown people. These policies lead to non-white people having limited access to quality education, healthcare, business entrepreneurship, credit, and job opportunities, limiting the economic mobility of people of color. It’s like being stuck in a financial quicksand because the more you work and struggle to escape, the deeper you sink into a pit of debt, mental and physical health deterioration, and despair.
Another critical point is that the criminal justice system perpetuates economic racism. The criminal justice system disproportionately targets people of color and imposes harsher sentences than white people. This discrimination leads to a cycle of poverty, unemployment, and limited economic opportunities for brown people. Likewise, the aggregate effect is the reduced accessibility of a population group to wealth leading to a suboptimal country that never reaches its full potential because it creates a varied level of citizenry with associated rights and obligations.
Furthermore, regarding the impact of economic racism on the health of people of color, the lack of access to affordable healthcare, healthy food options, and safe living environments all contribute to the racial health disparities in the United States. No time was this obvious than during the COVID-19 pandemic. The US Census Bureau pointed out that the “Black population was more likely to be poor, less likely to have health insurance and more likely to work in the front-line jobs that put them at risk of both infection and unemployment during the pandemic.”
People sometimes refer to Economics as a dismal social science subject. Yet I still see the light at the end of this tunnel. Challenged by friends and family to not just complain, I have suggested several policy solutions that could help address economic racism in the US, including progressive and restructured taxation, stronger labor protections, and investment in communities of color. I also emphasized the importance of building cross-racial solidarity. Racism does not just affect one group, nor are those white aspiring people immune to the damages it causes. We must work together in all groups towards a more equitable society.
Overall, my research for this book was an eye-opening experience. I highlight how economic policies and practices have perpetuated racial inequality in the United States. The research on the history of racism and its impact on the economic opportunities and outcomes of people of color, or as I call them, throughout the book “brown people,” is well documented in research.
If you want to understand the root causes of racial inequality and the steps needed to create a more just and equitable society, read this book and tell me what you think in the comments. The book is available on Amazon.com and many online bookstores.
I have finished the workbook. Get your copy for yourself or as a gift to a friend, even one you suspect s racist to help in self-improvement. Go to this Amazon link to purchase.
