User:Mblackford1

Black Tax- the price that people of African descent pay, economically, socially, and emotionally for the mere color of their skin, in order to get gain resources in society and advance in society as  citizens in America. The term “Black-tax” is often used in instances where African Americans our mistreated, or misrepresented, in society when it come to allotting them they same opportunities in America that their white counterparts have. Often times referred to as the reason for black people suffer from oppression and hardships post-slavery, more simplistically explains the racist attitudes of people of society towards African American. Socioeconomics Evidence of black people “paying” for the color of their skin can be tracked through the socioeconomics that occur in America’s capitalistic society. Black – tax can best be examined by the never multiplying wealth that African Americans have in America. While it is true that African Americans contribute a great deal to the American economy by being one of the largest consumer bases, African Americans own only 7 cents for every dollar of net worth that white Americans own; for Hispanics the figure is only slightly higher at 9 cents for every dollar. Over the course of time it has very hard for African Americans to gain a scene of ownership in American, due to racial discrimination, compared to other ethnic groups. Today, home equity is the most important pool of wealth for average American familie white net worth. According to the Economic Policy Institute's State of Working America 20 s and disproportionately so for African Americans. For black households, home equity accounts for 63 percent of total average net worth. In a sharp contrast, home equity represents only 38.5 percent of average 08/2009, black homeownership rates dropped a full percentage point between 2005 and 2007 -- the largest decrease for any racial or ethnic group. When families want or have to make a changes to their lifestyles, they use home equity to finance retirement, start small businesses, pay for college educations, and tide themselves over during hard times. Home equity often is the collateral for small business start-up in minority communities. Housing markets are still segmented by class and race, what realtors politely call location (in which code words are used like “urban” to describe black communities), forty years after the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Homes appreciate most in value when they are in predominantly white communities, and they appreciate least in value when in low-income minority or integrated communities. Minority communities received a unequal share of sub-prime mortgages. As a result, they are suffering a disproportionate burden of the harm and losses. In addition to being the target of mortgage companies specializing in sub-prime lending, minorities were steered away from safer, conventional loans by brokers who received incentives for jacking up the interest rate. Worst of all, African Americans who qualified for conventional mortgages were steered to riskier, and more profitable, sub-prime loans. African Americans were more than three times as likely as white households to end up with riskier loans with features like exploding adjustable rates, deceptive teaser rates, and balloon payments. Good credit scores often made no difference, as people were often steer into homogenous neighborhoods. The fault of redlining to sub-prime is directly related to the filtering system of modern day mortgage companies that push people into homogenous communities in terms of both race and class status. However, in 2006 many upper-income African Americans fell subject to sub-prime mortgages. Education The notion that Black people have to work and perform regular task twice as well as White people, also can be examined through African Americans access to quality education compared to white Americans. According to the Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell case in, “all-Afro –American schools suffer from high student-faculty ratios, lower quality, lower quality teachers, inferior facilities and physical conditions and lower quality course offerings”. Although this statement is quite harsh, the proof is in the numbers. According to NAEP National Mathematics/Reading results, white students in the 4th, 8th, and 12th grade score on a national average 15% -18% better than black students on this academic exam. 62% of Black children in the 4th grade that same year scored below basic in mathematics; which tested  key skills like adding, subtracting, multiplying and division. In today’ economy college education is key to making a better life for oneself, it is the key to better opportunities and higher salaries which in turn means a better standard of living. However, as of the new millennium only 16.4% of African American had actually received a 4 year college degree. This alarming statistics is the main reason that African Americans have problems acquiring wealth in society. With no quality education and no aide from the rest of society, and the government over looking this “error”, black people continue to be marginalized as the lower class of society by being systematically force to educated themselves on less means and living in areas where there are very little opportunities to change.