blackmodel:

phoenix-ace:

amarretto-cowboy:

lagonegirl:

Black people have been persistently & systematically excluded from opportunities to build generational wealth.

This is bullshit. Sorry but it is. It takes one generation to create wealth. It also takes one generation to lose wealth.

I’m a son of PoC immigrants that came to the US with the shirts on their backs.

I achieved middle class wealth on par with the average white family.

What’s my secret? Worked, went to school, got a job, worked some more.

It isn’t bullshit.  Yo used an ahistorical argument based on claiming that your “PoC immigrant” parents (suuuurrre, from where? usually anti-sj blogs that claim to be “PoC” to talk over black people are usually caught lying about that OR they’re just so anti-black that take these positions, either way, your blog is pretty suspect) achieved “middle class wealth” in one generation, but your immigrant parents were never property, were never bared from benefiting from any laws that helped other groups build capital, were never purposely kept from building businesses, owning houses, etc.  I find it highly unlikely they came here with nothing if you are already middle class in one generation, tbh.    Also, since they came over after the Civil Right’s Movement than they were pretty much sheltered from any and all of the multi-generational racism and xenophobia that might have impeded any kind of upward mobility for future generations. 

The claim that black people didn’t work or go to school and that’s why we’re stuck is one of the biggest lies crafted by white supremacy, to justify all of the exploitation, segregation and violence inflicted on us.  I don’t know why people purposely miss the point this hard, but the fact is that slave descended black people have been here as long as the first white settlers have been here and yet there is such a huge discrepancy of wealth, its clear that the reason for that is the discrimination and anti-black laws that prevented any consistent upwards mobility for black people as opposed to white people who (obviously) weren’t targets of those laws and weren’t excluded from legislation that gave free property I.e. the Homestead Act or the original affirmative action.  

You can’t use “PoC” as a stand in for Black people in the U.S. because the histories are too different and that contributes to a lot of wealth.  Black people were literal slaves and went from that to an exploited class that was so heavily worked that we were arrested if we didn’t for the longest time, and yet, despite all of that “hard work” the wealth gap widened.  Black people DID try to build businesses after we were free, once Reconstruction was dismantled we lost all of the rights and representation we needed to keep them (meaning white people used the law to take them from us, they could even appoint themselves as our “guardians” and take all of our wealth and leave us in shacks) and the few business enclaves we *did* have were razed to the ground so that the residents (including the business owners) were forcibly removed, often penniless, so that white people could buy up the property for cheaper and build over it.  When we were hired we were often underpaid (if we were paid at all), many of us had to work off debt to the same people who owned us (even though they were paid for freeing us).  We were effectively thrown to the wolves with no property or money.  Also, building businesses was a sure way to get yourself and your family lynched for being “uppity”.  

When you aren’t allowed to legally own property and you aren’t allowed to open businesses or be left alone to grow than that affects what wealth you can pass on to your descendants.  When you can’t represent yourself and your future is in the hands of people who used to enslave you than what often happens is that they pass laws that will benefit their bottom line by exploiting you and keep you in your designated “place” for generations.  When you are legally barred from attending university for generations you can’t get high paying jobs, and when you can’t get that capital you can’t afford to send your children to college, and the cycle continues.  The ones who do get to college are still underpaid if they’re hired at all, while white people can simply be a high school grad and still get more opportunities.  They (along with the high school students who can’t afford college) often have to resort to the military. That ability to build multi-generational wealth without intervention from white people is the reason why even black immigrants who aren’t slave descended are often wealthier than African Americans and other slave descended black people. 

Tl;dr:  It isn’t a case of work ethic, its a case of generations worth of racist laws stemming from slavery onward that literally kept black people from the majority of these resources and opportunities till very recently. You should really read up on history before you try to project your bootstrap myth on to other groups of people. 

WIG