Twelve years ago, the inauguration of America’s first Black president had many Americans believing that a future free of racial discrimination and inequality was finally within reach.
This year, as Obama’s former vice president Joe Biden takes office amid a surge in far-right violence, it’s clear we have a long way to go — not just to build a safer country for all of us, but to close the vast racial wealth divide.
Despite Obama’s historic victory, his administration made little to no progress in bridging this divide.
Over Obama’s presidency, median Black wealth never returned to even its modest $10,700 from before the Great Recession. By 2013, it had dropped to just $1,700 — virtually nothing — even as white wealth rebounded.
In fact, the racial wealth divide in the latter half of the Obama presidency was the largest it’s been in the last 30 years. Income inequality remained virtually unchanged, too. In 2007, Black Americans earned about 60 percent as much as whites. By 2016, that had fallen to 58 percent.
In the aftermath of the Great Recession, homeownership — the key source of wealth for most middle-class families — decreased for most Americans. But new Black homeowners were hit hardest, driving the Black homeownership rate down from 49 to just 44 percent, nearly 30 percentage points lower than the rate for white Americans.
Of course, the failure to bridge racial economic inequality is not unique to the Obama presidency. Whether under Trump, Clinton, or either Bush, there has been little to no progress in bridging the economic divide for African Americans in wealth, homeownership, and income.
This lack of progress should be a wake-up call: Bold action is necessary. That’s why we’re calling on President Biden to announce a White House Office of Racial Economic Equity on his first day.
This office should develop a government-wide audit to rigorously assess all significant economic policies and programs for how they affect racial inequality. This office should also issue a public report with actionable reforms and legislative proposals for Congress.
Biden’s inauguration falls just two days after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It was almost 60 years ago, in the famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” that Dr. King bemoaned that moderation was the “Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom.”
He was right. In the 21st century, we have seen Black progress go from a “stride toward freedom” to being stuck in economic apartheid. Moderate reforms by Democrats — along with often open hostility from Republicans — have corresponded with decades of failure in addressing racial economic inequality.
Biden will be the 45th white man to take the presidency. Unlike Obama, or his own vice president Kamala Harris, Biden’s inauguration will not make history. Still, Biden has the opportunity to do what the Obama administration and every other administration has failed to do over the last 40 years.
Opening a White House Office of Racial Economic Equity should be a first step in steering the country toward greater opportunity and financial security for African Americans. It is way past due to finally “Build Back Better” for Black America.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 253 new monthly donors in the next 3 days.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy