need to catch up. We need to focus more on real sources of disparities. The evidence that racism is directed at Black people to impede their social and economic progress keeps growing (and growing), but the focus on disparity and individual behaviors persists.
For instance, 2018 research from the Quality of Opportunity Project, a research undertaking led by noted economist Raj Chetty, shows that even wealthy Black men who live in tony neighborhoods are more likely than their White male counterparts to have sons who will grow up to be poor.7 The researchers controlled for many factors, including the family’s socioeconomic background, neighborhood, education, and wealth, among other things, and still disparities existed. The New York Times created a stunning data visualization based on the study that showed how Black children in wealthy families become adults in lower income brackets.8 The graphics also represent how different racial groups that started out rich end up poor; even here, more Black children end up poor than kids of other races. Many are calling this research groundbreaking.9
The charts presented in the Times’ reporting also highlighted White men’s elevated position in society. Instead of focusing on the negative impact of racism on Black boys, the headline of that story could have read, “Racism enables Whites to maintain wealth.” Yet the reporting on the study and most of the feedback inexplicably placed the scrutiny on Black men. So I was partly wrong. There are instances when we should center White people: when we spotlight racism and privilege.
Of all the reactions to the amazing charts in the Times article, you didn’t hear much about White male power. Economist Arindrajit Dube summarized this in a tweet: “If you overlay the @nhendren82 (+coauthors) percentile-percentile plots, it suggests the exceptional mobility is for White men. This point should be discussed more when hypothesizing explanations for these patterns.”10 Dube is saying we need to scrutinize White privilege. What society needs is more evidence of how racism works—for the benefit of White people. Expose that. Put that in the headline.
Research that merely lays out racial disparities without acknowledging the role of racism ignores the sources of inequality. It ultimately leaves little option but to blame Black people for hurting themselves. It fuels fears that inferior populations are ruining cities. Worse, the only people empowered by these data are the people who produce them. Communities burdened by racism don’t need comparison studies that, in essence, suggest they have to catch up to or become White. Disenfranchised groups need studies they can use in court to litigate against discrimination; information that can be used to build wealth; knowledge that reveals the erasing of history; and inquiries that dismantle racist systems. In addition, Black communities need research that highlights assets worth building on. By accounting for racism, researchers can better examine true value. In housing, for instance, if we can show the tax that people pay for racism, we are better able to assess the true value of homes. Then, we can begin to find ways to restore the value that Black communities deserve and identify systems that rob Black communities of the American dream.
When you get right down to it, many comparisons of Blacks to Whites are unconsciously (or consciously) asking these questions: Why can’t you be more like White people? Why can’t you get married and act like “normal” middle-class White families (without the leg up that federal policies have given White people over the decades)? Why can’t you achieve academically like White people?
In addition, when White people are assumed to be the norm or standard, everyone else is deemed abnormal. Then, the underlying question driving the research is: Why can’t Blacks be normal?
Mom never once referred to my home or my friends’ homes as broken or as the source of failure. She knew the importance of narrative on the emotional well-being of children and communities. I grew up getting only tidbits about my biological parents’ story from Mom and Mary, and that was deliberate. They carefully curated information about my biological family to protect them and me from incurring any shame from a world that claimed I was a deficit.
I learned about what happened to Floyd and Karen much later in life. Mom would impress upon us that Floyd died in prison while breaking up a fight. (My brothers and I did believe the “dying in jail” part, but her portrayal of him as a Good Samaritan didn’t quite add up.) I mostly didn’t mind the insistence on rendering my biological parents, especially my father, in a good light. I eventually learned that he was very human and had plenty of good in him. As a child, I didn’t fully grasp Mom’s insistence on his goodness. Now that I’m a father myself, I have a deeper appreciation of the stories we tell our children—and why we tell them.
This book picks up where Mom left off.
Mom presented the narrative of Karen and Floyd’s lives so that we wouldn’t be scarred by others’ interpretations of their shortcomings and so we could leverage their strengths. The story we told about ourselves wasn’t one of poverty and a lack of love; we were never made to feel that the way we grew up was abnormal. We had a loving home, a Mom who fought like a lioness to protect her cubs, and a city that, for the most part, shared her values.
Mom and Mary both had to leave 1320 Hill Avenue so they could receive adequate health services in their final years, leaving Hotsy alone in the home. Unable to keep up with the taxes and his own health, Hotsy also left the home, moving to an independent living facility where he resided until his death. Wilkinsburg now owns the home. Its price is nowhere near its true value in relation to the children Mom reared and the parents she undergirded, as well as its market worth—it is devalued.
I have a responsibility to restore my home and community’s value. Know Your Price is not about viewing Black communities through rose-tinted glasses. This book, like Mom, is about seeing—not devaluing—our true potential free from bigoted judges. It’s about understanding root causes. My home, upbringing, community, and culture have significant value even though others devalue them. In addition, my children’s future—and your son’s, and your daughter’s—is linked to our abilities to give value back to Wilkinsburg and other Black-majority cities. Those children could live in a Black-majority city. Approximately 9 million Black people do, roughly 20 percent of the country’s Black population. And many other ethnicities live in these cities, as well.
Know Your Price is not an argument for creating all-Black cities. Wanting one’s culture and background not to be insulted, invalidated, or erased isn’t an argument for segregation. White, Hispanic, and Asian people already live and love in Black-majority places. And we love this multiculturalism (especially when we’re not targeted by 911 calls) because Black folk are inherently diverse, representing different ethnicities, socioeconomic classes, and gender constructions. To disavow the presence of others is to deny parts of ourselves.
If there is a direct message to White people in the book, it’s to relay that helping individuals doesn’t require fixing them. Try fixing policy, instead. Likewise, we can’t wait for White folks to see that Black people aren’t broken. Researchers will write yet another (and another) Moynihan Report, so Know Your Price is also a call to researchers. We need the tools, analytics, and frameworks to properly assess the cities, neighborhoods, and people others devalue.
In addition to calling attention to assets (investment opportunities) in Black-majority cities as well as structural change, I write this book for people who find themselves in the same situation I was in that day in 1986—fighting to belong, to stay in your homes, your communities. It would be foolish to assume that investors will immediately reverse their thinking upon reading my work and start financing Black people, firms, and institutions instead of exploiting devaluation as a path to make profits. Seeing value in inner-city housing stock has helped spur gentrification—just ask the residents of Harlem, Oakland, or Washington, D.C.
Mom moved to Wilkinsburg during the massive
