The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality
Author: Thomas M. Shapiro
List Price: $28.00
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ISBN: 019515147X
Publisher: Oxford University Press (February, 2004)
Sales Rank: 8,837
Average Customer Rating: 5 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
A BOOK WITH PROFOUND IMPLICATIONS
Black people are bringing home bigger paychecks than ever. They face less overt racism on a day-to-day basis. Everything's copacetic, right? WRONG. This book is so important because it shows why African Americans pass along inequality from generation to generation. Most white people who "make it on their own" it turns out, tend to have a little help from their parents in buying their first house. $10,000, $20,000, or more, this means that they can put more money down, get a lower interst rate, move into a better neighborhood, with better schools, so their kids get better educations and all of the priveleges that access to such schools brings. And it all happens again in the next generation.Shapiro brings this to life by talking to black and white people about how they have made their way in the world. Inherited assets, it turns out, have a lot to do with it.
This is a book that will force black and white people alike to think about how racial inequality is passed down from generation to generation. I myself would argue that it makes the case for at least a more serious discussion of reparations in the form of home buying grants or something of that kind, and an INCREASE in the so-called "death tax".
Read it and think about it!
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