Racism & Wealth
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani claims that a “long history of racism” in NYC is the reason why the “wealth of a median white household in the city is more than $200,000, while that of a black household is less than $20,000.”
IN FACT, inheritances account for only 11% of the median wealth gap between blacks and whites. Moreover, racial disparities in wealth, income, education, violence, and health are unassociated with racism and are strongly associated with leftist policies and mindsets, like these:
- Education that doesn’t equip students with practical skills because curriculums are packed with progressive priorities like critical race theory, social justice, environmentalism, and LGBT indoctrination.
- Instilling a victim mentality in people, which is associated with weak self-control, less ability to persist in challenging tasks, and poor money management.
- Liberal sexual ethics that fuel household fragmentation, thus diluting workers’ incomes and creating fatherless homes, which are highly correlated with child emotional problems, drug abuse, and criminal behavior.
- Lax disciplinary standards that allow unruly students to disrupt the learning of entire classrooms.
- Placing the demands of teachers’ unions — a major source of funding to Democrats — over the desires of parents and the welfare of students.
- Social programs that reduce incentives to work and the ability to save.
- Criminal justice policies that allow repeat offenders to terrorize neighborhoods.
Because of the empirical fact that association does not prove causation, these connections cannot prove that leftist doctrines — like those embraced by Mamdani — caused these outcomes, but they open the door to this possibility.
