One of the greatest challenges for the African American community is a severe lack of power. Like caged animals in the zoo, millions of black people in America and across the world often feel that our lives are controlled by other people or that opportunities only enter our lives when they are created by our oppressors. This debilitating mindset can lead to hopelessness, depression and decision-making that is driven by fear rather than desire. Instead of believing that we possess the ability to improve our lives, we simply wait and hope that White Americans will one day have a change of heart. Black American Money is written to kill the victim mentality and help us to see the world for what it really is. There is no power for the victim, the beggar, or the one who simply prays, hopes and waits for their oppressor to give them what they need. According to Finance PhD and noted scholar Dr Boyce Watkins, the world is never going to be nicer to black people and whites are never going to give us enough opportunity to sustain the masses. Instead, they will only volunteer enough crumbs to keep us under control and offer superficial congratulations for meaningless accomplishments within the pre-approved context of white supremacist institutions. It is only through proactive positioning, extensive preparation and institution building that black people can ever have any true power in America and beyond. Through a series of compelling essays and thought-provoking analysis, Dr Watkins hits the nail on the head in ways that only he can do. This book will shape your thinking, rivet your mindset and lead you to a whole new way of seeing racial inequality in America and beyond. This book will make you a champion.

In 1863 black communities owned less than 1 percent of total U.S. wealth. Today that number has barely budged. Mehrsa Baradaran pursues this wealth gap by focusing on black banks. She challenges the myth that black banking is the solution to the racial wealth gap and argues that black communities can never accumulate wealth in a segregated economy.

Ebony, a twenty-eight-year-old Black woman living in Texas, was going through a divorce, living with her mom in poverty, and finding it hard to make ends meet. After years of working dead end jobs, she received a phone call from a temp agency that changed her life in the best way, and also the worst way. A call that began her six-figure career in higher education, and her descent into Racial Discrimination Hell. The temp assignment was at Daebrun Career Institute, a popular, for-profit college with several campuses in the State of Texas. And after only two short months, Daebrun hired Ebony permanently, and she was thrilled to have a chance to live the American dream. But the American dream, the dream that made her believe she could have the same opportunities given to White employees, became a living nightmare, after Ebony's boss resigned, and was replaced with a racist one.Over the course of five years, Ebony's bosses changed, but the racism didn't as each one tried to break her, like she was a wild horse they were determined to tame. She was degraded and dehumanized with threats and fear, humiliated on a daily basis, and stripped of all dignity, confidence, and strength. The environment she was forced to work in was so hostile she considered killing her boss, or herself, to escape the torment.After years of suffering, Ebony found courage through faith and the love of her mom, learned how to fight back through trial and error, and made the transition from racial discrimination victim to racial discrimination victor by proving the existence of systemic racism in her workplace, obtaining a six-figure settlement from her employer to buy her silence, and maintaining her employment for several more years.

The history of African American studies is often told as a heroic tale, with compelling images of black power and passionate African American students who refused to take no for an answer. Noliwe M. Rooks argues for the recognition of another story, which proves that many of the programs that survived actually began as a result of white philanthropy. With unflinching honesty, Rooks shows that the only way to create a stable future for African American studies is by confronting its complex past.

Racism and discrimination have choked economic opportunity for African Americans at nearly every turn. At several historic moments, the trajectory of racial inequality could have been altered dramatically. But neither Reconstruction nor the New Deal nor the civil rights struggle led to an economically just and fair nation. Today, systematic inequality persists in the form of housing discrimination, unequal education, police brutality, mass incarceration, employment discrimination, and massive wealth and opportunity gaps. Economic data indicates that for every dollar the average white household holds in wealth the average black household possesses a mere ten cents. This compelling and sharply argued book addresses economic injustices head-on and make the most comprehensive case to date for economic reparations for U.S. descendants of slavery. Using innovative methods that link monetary values to historical wrongs, William Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen assess the literal and figurative costs of justice denied in the 155 years since the end of the Civil War and offer a detailed roadmap for an effective reparations program, including a substantial payment to each documented U.S. black descendant of slavery. This new edition features a new foreword addressing the latest developments on the local, state, and federal level and considering current prospects for a comprehensive reparations program.

The authors analyse wealth - total assets and debts rather than income alone - to uncover deep and persistent racial inequality in America, and show how public policies fail to redress this problem.

Over the past three decades, racial prejudice in America has declined significantly and many African American families have seen a steady rise in employment and annual income. But alongside these encouraging signs, Thomas Shapiro argues in The Hidden Cost of Being African American, fundamental levels of racial inequality persist, particularly in the area of asset accumulation--inheritance, savings accounts, stocks, bonds, home equity, and other investments-. Shapiro reveals how the lack of these family assets along with continuing racial discrimination in crucial areas like homeownership dramatically impact the everyday lives of many black families, reversing gains earned in schools and on jobs, and perpetuating the cycle of poverty in which far too many find themselves trapped. Shapiro uses a combination of in-depth interviews with almost 200 families from Los Angeles, Boston, and St. Louis, and national survey data with 10,000 families to show how racial inequality is transmitted across generations. We see how those families with private wealth are able to move up from generation to generation, relocating to safer communities with better schools and passing along the accompanying advantages to their children. At the same time those without significant wealth remain trapped in communities that don't allow them to move up, no matter how hard they work. Shapiro challenges white middle class families to consider how the privileges that wealth brings not only improve their own chances but also hold back people who don't have them. This "wealthfare" is a legacy of inequality that, if unchanged, will project social injustice far into the future. Showing that over half of black families fall below the asset poverty line at the beginning of the new century, The Hidden Cost of Being African American will challenge all Americans to reconsider what must be done to end racial inequality.