Proposal

Racism in the U.S. has been institutionalized to income, wealth and homeownership with each category revealing huge gaps between whites and blacks. According to the Pew Research Center, the racial gaps in household income still persists. The total household income for whites in 1967 was $44,700 which later on increased to $71,300 by 2014. However, the blacks’ income in 1967 was smaller at $24,700 and a very slight increase to $43,300 by 2014. The Hispanics' household income in 2014 is the same as blacks. In 1967, they had an income of $34,000. There was no recorded data of household income of Asians in 1967 until 1987 of which they had $63,400 and later on had a slight increase in 2014 to $77,900.The gaps from 1967 changed over time with increasing numbers between the racial groups apart from the Hispanics and blacks who had the same household incomes by 2014. In conclusion, the gaps between the racial groups stayed the same. Aside from the racial gap in household income, blacks face racial gaps in wealth.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average wealth for white families is seven times higher compared to black families. This is because more than one in four black households has zero or negative net worth. This data refers back to wealth being passed down from generation to generation. Black history played a major factor in the amount of wealth that black families have today. Their generation dates back to slavery and a process of fighting for equality while white families were already privileged with wealth. Based on the “Median and Average Wealth, by Race” bar chart, the median wealth of blacks is twelve times lower than that of white households. This shows how African American families are still facing discrimination.

In addition, the Great Recession took a toll on African American families when the interest rates and mortgage leverages stooped high, leaving them in a sluggish recovery which made matters worse. With the belief that education can close the gap in wealth, they went on to further their education for better wages hoping it would be enough. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the head of the household of a black family that works full-time, has less wealth than the head of a white household that is unemployed. The “Median Wealth, by Degree and Race” chart shows that blacks that have a college degree have an eighth of wealth compared to whites. Looking at the graduate level, the blacks have a third of the wealth compared to whites. As much as wealth increases, having an education does not ensure wealth increases for black families.

Therefore, the large wealth gap between whites and blacks is a result of homeownership. According to Pew Research Center, homeownership of whites in 1976 was sixty-nine percent compared to the forty-three percent of blacks (2016, p.1). That is a difference of twenty-six percent. This is around the time when segregation dominated in a lot of states and not much land was given to the black to own property. Comparing the data from 1976 to 2015, the percentage of homeownership of blacks from the graph, “Homeownership More Common among Whites than Other Racial and Ethnic Groups,” has not changed while the whites’ percentage increased to seventy-two percent. If blacks focused on owning a home as a way of gaining wealth and passing it on for their generations, then homeownership percentage would gradually increase. This took place after the Great Depression and, the FHA was figuring out methods of improving the economy. They passed a bill that promised veterans a guarantee of being able to own a home and many others but only if they were white. Levittown was a result of the new program. The housing developers turned large potato fields into new communities for whites which were constructed far away from black communities. The FHA drew lines on maps where green areas were occupied by whites and red lines were occupied by blacks. They felt that integrating their new communities would cause bad economic risks. The whites living in the Levittown had opportunities of gaining wealth to this date while blacks are still struggling or maybe stuck in similar conditions from the past.

The artist that influenced my project is William L. Pope, based on his works of the “Trinket,” “Burying the blues” and “the Black Factory.” Trinket re-invents the image of the American flag to the current and past events that have been going on in this country and how they do not represent the symbol of the flag. The black factory re-invented the word, “black” to mean other things while burying the blues shows how a culture that was valued by the blacks was stolen from them and lost its meaning. His works are a form of protest that supports some of the things that inspired my topic. I plan on making my project in a form that is educational while grabbing one’s attention at the same time. I want to bring to the open some things that people tend to overlook because they can’t see it.