Preface
by Darrick Hamilton, Professor and Executive Director, Kirwan Institute at The Ohio State University; and incoming Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy and University Professor at The New School
This Contract with Black America strikes at the heart of racism and presents a blueprint to achieve racial economic justice. It was written in the backdrop of the killing of George Floyd, which set off a wave of protests not seen since the Civil Rights Era of the 1950’s and '60’s, and a global pandemic in which the Black mortality rate is more than double the White rate and in which 45% (nearly half) of Black-owned businesses closed. That the impact of something presumably random, such as a pandemic, however catastrophic, can be so linked to one's racial identity is highly problematic – and further evidence that, as a nation, we are failing miserably. This links to a larger political and economic vulnerability, whether we’re in a pandemic or not: the immoral devaluation of Black lives has been ingrained in America's political economy and is long overdue for a reckoning.
Authentic agency is grounded in resources, and America’s unjust racial wealth gap is rooted in a history that has privileged White people with financial advantages to “buy” crucial, additional and intergenerational advantages for themselves and their children. Government policy, and literal government giveaways, provided them with the finance, education, land and infrastructure to accumulate and pass down wealth from one generation to the next. In contrast, Black people were largely excluded and, when they were able to accumulate land and enterprise, it was subject to seizure by government-complicit theft, fraud and terror.
This Contract with Black America understands that this disparity is dramatic and that changes on the margin won’t cut it. To reverse decades and generations of discrimination, we need a bold overhaul of our laws and economy. This contract rejects the racist and unsubstantiated rhetoric that ignorance, so-called grit, and personal responsibility are the sources of racial disparity, along with the accompanying “neoliberal paternalism” model in which government attempts to coerce or incentivize insinuated “defective Black people” to behave accordingly and make better decisions. It is abundantly clear that the racial wealth gap has nothing to do with Black behavior and everything to do with White privilege.
So as a nation, are we finally ready to reverse our enduring and immoral blight of racism and authentically live up to the creed “...that all men [and women] are created equal”? I do not know...But, we have witnessed across all 50 states and, pretty much the entire globe, civil protesters shouting with solidarity that “Black Lives Matter.” Younger generations and social movements may be redefining economic good to embrace the principles of morality, humanity, and sustainability. This Contract with Black America is a patriotic pathway to promote our shared prosperity and achieve racial economic justice.
