RACE + MONEY
How Racial Wealth Gap in New Orleans Exposes Segregated Society
The wealth disparity between Black and White people is not some benign difference.
In the days after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans officials pledged to build back better. However, nearly twenty years after the worst urban national disaster in American history, the city remains racially segregated, an oasis of white wealth and black poverty. While most discussions about the racial wealth gap focus on national metrics, a new study shed light on regional disparities. Researchers revealed the "net worth at $14,000 for Black households, $21,000 for Hispanic households, and $185,000 for White households" in New Orleans, Louisiana. While Black residents can sit at the lunch counters on Canal Street, they cannot afford to do so as often as White residents. Nor can they afford to live in the same neighborhoods. While Jim Crow used racial redlining and covenants to control where Black people lived, wealth disparity now strictly controls access to these spaces.
This confirms what many scholars and activists have long asserted—that glaring racial disparities persist in the city. A rising tide should but doesn't lift all boats. These results are also consistent with national metrics. For instance, the U.S. Census Bureau's…
