Hi Cole. First up, great reply and thanks for taking the time to come and debate the matter and for not simply jumping up and down and shouting. It's always a pleasure to get a thought out argument and do a deeper dive into a matter.
I think for the most part we're in agreement - with some caveats. First up, the major caveat is that I'm from the UK and I think we've got a slightly better track record with racism than the US. I say slightly, because it's not always been the case here - but progress is being made faster over here than in the States for a myriad of reasons - a lot of which are explored in the second study that you sent across. The figures in this article are specifically for the UK and our Government policies around education.
The second caveat comes with the mathematics. When we average white earnings, we're talking about a lot of very wealthy people and a lot more very poor people. The average figure explores those in the bell curve not those who fall outside it but who will pull the distribution of the curve upwards. There are far more white millionaires than black millionaires.
Why? Systemic racism. Inherited wealth. Continued racism via all the things you've highlighted. Job denial, trust funds, nod-and-a-wink jobs for the boys.
My argument has never been that racism doesn't exist or that there isn't work to be done (there is). This is what most people interpret when they get to my work. They read any attack on the concept of identity politics as an attack on BIPOC - my case is simply this.
The quickest way to resolve racism is to not let the working class white move to the political right. The quickest way to let a demagogue move the white working class to the political right, is for liberals to berate people on an issue they don't care about. Dirt poor people only really care about being dirt poor, they don't care about the semantic argument you're making or the studies you've cited.
That's what Trump did in 2016 and what the Alt Right will try again in 2024. My argument isn't against BIPOC, it's against the conflation of Marxism with identity politics. It's one that might feel like the right argument to make, but I think will be a tragic misstep for modern liberals. We need to go back to a classic liberal and socialist (in the European sense of the word) agenda.
If you're interested, you can find more of this argument here. https://medium.com/lucid-nightmare/what-we-all-lose-when-society-plays-identity-politics-397dcb896d5b - thanks for taking the time to join the debate. :o)
