First it was about civil rights, then affirmative action…now it’s about silver rights,” states a friend of mine from the Southside of Chicago. The wealth gap between whites and Blacks has widened according to a new book by Thomas Shapiro, The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality. Shapiro states that the average Black family has 10 cents for each dollar the average white family has in wealth, about $8,000 to $80,000.

Although African Americans have made substantial progress in education and employment, due primarily to affirmative action, the various forms of discrimination in the past account mostly for Blacks not accumulating the same level of wealth as whites. Wealth is defined as salary, property, investments, savings, etc. Home equity is the most significant basis for net worth, but Blacks, who own less than 50% of their homes compared to 70% for whites, are turned down for home loans 60% more often than white applicants with nearly identical qualifying information.

Another deterrent to Black wealth accumulation is that 44% of state and federal prisoners are Black including 10% of all young Black men, ages 25 to 29. With approximately 30% of all young black men somewhere in the judicial system, there is no question that such conditions, combined with record level unemployment for Blacks, are significant contributing factors to the economic gap between whites and Blacks. Of the 42,000 inmates imprisoned under California’s recent “Three-Strikes” law 45% are Black. U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee has focused extensively on this incarceration issue and her Oakland office is instituting a bi-monthly Expungement Summit. This Summit process will wipe clean the job barring records of those in the judicial system who are not on parole or those who have not served a prison sentence.

Traditionally, one would wonder how Black folks survive, under such dire conditions and worth only “10 cents on the dollar.” Reactive survival is evidenced by big screen TV’s and expensive cars in the poorest Black neighborhoods, as well as the 13% Black population now consuming 30% of all Scotch Whiskey and 85% of all Cognac in the United States. Probably, no one really knows how Black people have survived. Even today, 58% of all new HIV-AIDS cases are African American. U.S. Congressman Danny K Davis, Chicago, who collaborates with Barbara Lee on the survival of the Black male, pushed me in a corner one time and told me how he has survived. “I have had to lie, cheat and steal, and I am not ashamed,” stated the Congressman. “I have had to steal every opportunity denied me. I have had to cheat sickness and death; and in order to survive for another day, I have had to lie with the one I love….”

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