Racial violence directly suppressed black business formation and wealth

Evidence

According to the Brookings Institution, black Americans comprise 14 percent of the US population today, yet black businesses account for only 2.2 percent of all US businesses with more than one employee. A White House Council of Economic Advisers analysis suggests that “differences in business ownership account for 20 percent of the wealth gap” between white and black households. The limited number of black-owned businesses traces its roots directly to the aftermath of slavery, when lynching and other forms of racial violence were carried out with the intention of preventing black Americans from building wealth, securing economic stability, and attaining a middle-class status. Tommie Moss was able to build a successful business even though he was born enslaved, but his white competitor, jealous and addicted to white supremacy, stopped at nothing—even murder—to take his business away. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 449

Categorization

• XREF: Business-ownership accounting for 20 percent of the wealth gap factors into the saturated-system causal chain that the reparations argument must defend. — connects to: Racial inequality stems from violence and closure strategies, not markets alone — Walter Korpi, The Iceberg of Power below the Surface:…, 21; White violence against black schools only stopped when it created economic self-harm — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 477