The Historic Rondo Community

The U.S. racial wealth gap is substantial and is driven by public policy decisions. smartasset.com describes the wealth gap as assets and net worth (assets minus debt), rather than looking at just income. Whites in America have 90% of the wealth Blacks have  2.8% This is a result of 400 years of oppression via Chattel slavery, convict- leasing, the lynching period, redlining & redistricting, racial covenants, the war on drug the crack epidemic and predatory lending that lead to the great recession and countless other policies that have contributed to the racial wealth gap. Our belief is that reparations for Foundational Black Americans is the best way to close the racial  wealth gap in the United States including the city of Saint Paul and the state of Minnesota.

According to Brookings  A close examination of wealth in the U.S. finds evidence of staggering racial disparities. At $171,000, the net worth of a typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family ($17,150) in 2016.

We also see these same numbers in Saint Paul  MN  In a recent article by NPR entitled Minneapolis ranks near the bottom in racial inequality the writer says  The median black family in the Twin Cities area earns $38,178 a year — which is less than half of the median white family income of  $84,459 a year. The Racial wealth gap in Saint Paul Minnesota is a direct result of  Institutional Racism and should be addressed via Reparatory Justice Policies.

Covid 19 is exposing the harsh realities of the racial inequalities in Minnesota. The Saint Paul Recovery Act is designed to create reparatory justice policies  that will close the lineageracial wealth gap and address systemic racism  with a holistic approach in the city of Saint Paul.

Homeownership is defined as a household living in a space they own and control. Homeownership is also one of the building blocks of the American Dream which also generates generational wealth. The American Descendants of Slavery who reside in Saint Paul MN  have been deprived of homeownership due to systemic institutional racism. Foundational Black Americans were denied home loans and were subject to racial covenant laws that prohibited Blacks from buying homes in certain neighborhoods Minnesota has one of the biggest racial homeownership gaps in the nation and the city of Saint Paul mirrors that. 61.2% of whites are homeowners as opposed to 16.9% of Black Americans in the city of Saint Paul. 

In 1956 construction began on the  I 94 freeway which came through the Rondo community and displaced Black homeowners in Saint Paul which has contributed to the racial wealth gap like it has done in other states where interstate hiways were built. When the Black community in Saint Paul began to recover from the loss of the Historic Rondo neighborhood in the late 70s the crack epidemic began.  The crack epidemic and the war on drugs exclusively targeted the Black community in Saint Paul and throughout the nation. This also had a devastating impact on homeownership amongst the Black population and contribued to health disparities and mass incarceration.

The Great Recession of 2008 was a big step backwards for Black homeoners in America especially in the city of Saint Paul. Unfair lending practices in the Black community contributed to the crisis now that same crisis is revealing itself during Covid 19 with The Black community being hit particularly hard because of the racial wealth gap.

  The Saint Paul Recovery Act should address housing disparities via reparations proposals that will generate and put aside funding for homeownership solutions via reparations policies for the American Descendants of Slavery who live in Saint Paul. This will begin to close the racial wealth gap in the city of Saint Paul.

According to Saintpaul.gov Income is defined as the average amount of income earned among a group of people in a year. Over the decades the gap in pay between workers at the top and the bottom of the income scale has consistently grown nationally and in Saint Paul, widening the gap in per capita income between white people and people of color. According to the American Bar Association, Structural racism operates at the societal level and is the power used by the dominant group to provide members of the group with advantages, while disadvantaging the nondominant group.  In a study by Ramsey countys anti racism audit found that its policy & procedure harmed the people that society fears the most and the people that society fears the most are Black Americans. The barriers most Blacks find to employment are rooted in historical institutional racism. According to the American Bar Association the unemployment rate for African Americans has been at least twice as high as Caucasian unemployment for all but seven years during the 53-year period between 1962 and 2015. Historic systemic racism in the United States has resulted in employment disparities that adversely harm Black Americans nationally and in the city of Saint Paul.

One of the goals of the Saint Paul Recovery Act is to find reparatory solutions to eliminate the income disparities between Blacks & Whites in the city of Saint Paul via reparatory justice policies and procedures.