Closing the wealth gap requires white Americans to act against their own interests.

Evidence

The conservatives are correct about one thing: The black-white wealth gap can be decreased if people make different decisions. But it is the decision-making by white Americans that is largely responsible for black outcomes today. The solution? Behavioral changes at every level. Black Americans need to be defensive players in an anti-black system unless or until it changes, choosing strategies in their educations, careers, and family lives that compensate for oppressive practices and policies. Meanwhile, white Americans need to recognize these anti-black practices and policies and actively work against them, even when doing so harms their pocketbooks. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 79

Categorization

• SEED: The inversion — conservatives right that decisions matter, wrong about who decides — is a strong essay frame for explaining structural racism as mechanism.