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A review by hillsider
The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap by Mehrsa Baradaran
5.0
“The Color of Money” is a crucial read for every American. Firstly, it explains the massive inequalities among the races and gives an answer to “why?” rather than simply stating the data. Banking, like in the broader world of capitalism, has a lot to account for in these inequalities, but Baradaran does not stick to that history. She also discusses housing—redlining, segregation, and the like—at length, and the reason that housing is tremendously important to the black inequalities of today.
What I think is one of the most important takeaways is its revealing of the true, insidious nature of systematic racism. It is no doubt that most of the groundwork was laid on pure white supremacy, but now, it is a system that is set in motion and can run fully autonomously. It’s invisible to the naked eye even though we constantly live it. The self-reinforcing nature of capitalism reveals that it’s not only important not to be hateful of people with a differing skin color, but it is morally necessary to also acknowledge, and attempt to dismantle, structures that carry out the oppression at an institutional level.
Also revealing is an indictment of capitalism itself, and the exposing of the meritocracy as a sham. The simple truth is that a meritocracy, if that is what we desire, is not attainable under capitalism. At least, that’s what seems to me is obvious. To maintain the myth of meritocracy and the denial of the lack of social mobility is to be racist in and of itself, for if we think that there is a meritocracy of which anyone can rise to the top with enough effort and smarts, than why can black people (broadly) not manage to climb out of the abyss of poverty? In a truly meritocratic system we would expect equality across demographics, unless we accept that not doing so would be incredibly racist. But am I ignoring a hard truth? Charles Murray, in his book “The Bell Curve” talks about IQ variation between races, with evidence that the black IQ on average is fifteen points below the average, and the decades-old book is regaining traction with the new crop of white supremacists and white nationalists that occupy a dark corner of cyberspace. Murray uses this to justify inequities of wealth; he essentially says that since the gap in IQ is there, it makes sense in a meritocratic system to be the losers.
On first thought, it seems a reasonable, but grim, assertion. However, the problem with this theory is that it has no consideration for environmental factors, historical context, and analysis of how capital and our society actually interact. All of this, Baradaran writes of deftly. While never broaching this question directly, she talks about things to refute these arguments. She makes mention of a study that shows that poor people seem to act impulsively, but are actually just as considerate of the outcomes as the monied. This is a problem for “The Bell Curve” “race-realists” because it brings materialism and historical perspective to a fight that they would like from which they’d like to exclude. Daniel Keating, in a book published last year called “Born Anxious”, writes of a genetic component to these types of situations. But they are not based in race; rather, they are based in precarity and lack of resources. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs comes to mind, but just filling the needs isn’t enough. Part of being able to rise above the hierarchy and have that broader perspective in life is that we have to feel as if our needs are met tomorrow. If we can’t make that assumption then people remain stuck in this mindset of the downtrodden. Also, IQ is a stupid metric that’s dubious in worth.
Of course, it’s not all personal decisions and biology. In fact, it mostly isn’t at all personal decisions or biology. How did we get the gap in the first place? Why is it so distinctively racial?
The answer is in the institutional discrimination, but also in capitalism itself. It’s often quipped that “it takes money to make money” or that “money begets money”. This is absolutely correct, but what is less talked about is how the lack of capital has the opposite effect (Baradaran does an excellent job laying them out in the book, so I won’t go deeply into them). These two feedback loops are destructive and lead to an ever-persisting inequality that will grow and grow until we put a band-aid on it with social democratic reforms. The problem is, the wealth gap will manage to persist even through the band-aids, large or small, because policies we have gone color-blind. We are now unwilling to acknowledge the differences between the races, and ironically, it hasn’t been that great for black people (it also is selectively turned off at times, and of course there’s no such thing as color-blindness. Anyone who says such a thing is part of the problem).
As much as I am an advocate for non-means-tested socialistic reforms and programs, it will be important to acknowledge that even if we all get a piece of a social wealth fund or UBI, the gap will remain until we specifically target these communities with vast flows capital. There’s simply no way around it, and there’s no moral justification to why it hasn’t happened yet, given the history of exploitation in the US.
Baradaran does an excellent job of providing the contextual framework of arriving at this opinion.
She remains stepped several steps back from the prescriptions that I’ve called for, but it’s all so obvious, lest we are compromised by an extreme denial. “The Color of Money” is a dense book, packed to the brim with citations. It’s so dense that to consume it I had to take small chunks over the period of a month, but it’s the type of book that if you are a highlighter, you will highlight half of the book. The information here is so important for anyone interested in fighting the mythology that racism is simply a personal abhorrence of a few hooded individuals. Racism is a disease that metastasized throughout the body politic, the economy, and as a result, our subconscious.
What I think is one of the most important takeaways is its revealing of the true, insidious nature of systematic racism. It is no doubt that most of the groundwork was laid on pure white supremacy, but now, it is a system that is set in motion and can run fully autonomously. It’s invisible to the naked eye even though we constantly live it. The self-reinforcing nature of capitalism reveals that it’s not only important not to be hateful of people with a differing skin color, but it is morally necessary to also acknowledge, and attempt to dismantle, structures that carry out the oppression at an institutional level.
Also revealing is an indictment of capitalism itself, and the exposing of the meritocracy as a sham. The simple truth is that a meritocracy, if that is what we desire, is not attainable under capitalism. At least, that’s what seems to me is obvious. To maintain the myth of meritocracy and the denial of the lack of social mobility is to be racist in and of itself, for if we think that there is a meritocracy of which anyone can rise to the top with enough effort and smarts, than why can black people (broadly) not manage to climb out of the abyss of poverty? In a truly meritocratic system we would expect equality across demographics, unless we accept that not doing so would be incredibly racist. But am I ignoring a hard truth? Charles Murray, in his book “The Bell Curve” talks about IQ variation between races, with evidence that the black IQ on average is fifteen points below the average, and the decades-old book is regaining traction with the new crop of white supremacists and white nationalists that occupy a dark corner of cyberspace. Murray uses this to justify inequities of wealth; he essentially says that since the gap in IQ is there, it makes sense in a meritocratic system to be the losers.
On first thought, it seems a reasonable, but grim, assertion. However, the problem with this theory is that it has no consideration for environmental factors, historical context, and analysis of how capital and our society actually interact. All of this, Baradaran writes of deftly. While never broaching this question directly, she talks about things to refute these arguments. She makes mention of a study that shows that poor people seem to act impulsively, but are actually just as considerate of the outcomes as the monied. This is a problem for “The Bell Curve” “race-realists” because it brings materialism and historical perspective to a fight that they would like from which they’d like to exclude. Daniel Keating, in a book published last year called “Born Anxious”, writes of a genetic component to these types of situations. But they are not based in race; rather, they are based in precarity and lack of resources. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs comes to mind, but just filling the needs isn’t enough. Part of being able to rise above the hierarchy and have that broader perspective in life is that we have to feel as if our needs are met tomorrow. If we can’t make that assumption then people remain stuck in this mindset of the downtrodden. Also, IQ is a stupid metric that’s dubious in worth.
Of course, it’s not all personal decisions and biology. In fact, it mostly isn’t at all personal decisions or biology. How did we get the gap in the first place? Why is it so distinctively racial?
The answer is in the institutional discrimination, but also in capitalism itself. It’s often quipped that “it takes money to make money” or that “money begets money”. This is absolutely correct, but what is less talked about is how the lack of capital has the opposite effect (Baradaran does an excellent job laying them out in the book, so I won’t go deeply into them). These two feedback loops are destructive and lead to an ever-persisting inequality that will grow and grow until we put a band-aid on it with social democratic reforms. The problem is, the wealth gap will manage to persist even through the band-aids, large or small, because policies we have gone color-blind. We are now unwilling to acknowledge the differences between the races, and ironically, it hasn’t been that great for black people (it also is selectively turned off at times, and of course there’s no such thing as color-blindness. Anyone who says such a thing is part of the problem).
As much as I am an advocate for non-means-tested socialistic reforms and programs, it will be important to acknowledge that even if we all get a piece of a social wealth fund or UBI, the gap will remain until we specifically target these communities with vast flows capital. There’s simply no way around it, and there’s no moral justification to why it hasn’t happened yet, given the history of exploitation in the US.
Baradaran does an excellent job of providing the contextual framework of arriving at this opinion.
She remains stepped several steps back from the prescriptions that I’ve called for, but it’s all so obvious, lest we are compromised by an extreme denial. “The Color of Money” is a dense book, packed to the brim with citations. It’s so dense that to consume it I had to take small chunks over the period of a month, but it’s the type of book that if you are a highlighter, you will highlight half of the book. The information here is so important for anyone interested in fighting the mythology that racism is simply a personal abhorrence of a few hooded individuals. Racism is a disease that metastasized throughout the body politic, the economy, and as a result, our subconscious.