4.1.

Differences in Black/White Accumulation of Wealth: Effects of Slavery

and Decades of Discrimination.

Questions to Consider:
1. Prior to reading this section, had you considered the effects of slavery and subsequent
continued discrimination on the ability of (a) Blacks and (b)
Whites to inherit and earn wealth, savings, and property?

I think I had considered that the effects of slavery and discrimination upon black would
have negative impacts on their abilities to inherit and earn wealth, have property and
savings. Many researches illustrate how Whites were highly more privileged than Blacks,
especially at the beginning. During the first 250 years in what today is the United States
Blacks were only property and did not know how it was to own it yourself. This shows
how big the differences were and how bad Black people were discriminated and not
accepted as equal in society. While Whites lived their lives happy and passed their
properties and treasures to their heirs, Blacks were slaves with no wealth. So the question
here is, how could Blacks inherit wealth under these terrible circumstances? Of course
that they did not manage to have these rights at that time, because slavery and racism
made it impossible for them. Blacks worked as slaves to have the chance to feed their
families in a wild world, where their existence was condemned to racism and
discrimination. Even though they have never deserved any of these, they could change
nothing. Until the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, there was no or just little
inheritance for Blacks to pass. However even after the next decades, racism still made if
very different for Blacks to earn wealth and have good properties. Slavery and
discrimination upon Blacks regarded them as unequal to the rest of the society. These
things prevented them from earning a good wealth; inherit it and own property freely.

2. What specific organizational steps can banks, mortgage companies, and realtors take to
ensure they do not perpetrate credit and housing discrimination?

The differences between Black and White have also been visible in banks, mortgage
companies and realtors that have privileged White people. Discrimination in access to
credit and housing has stopped Black to be strong homeowners or to have their own
business. An analysis in business loans has shown how qualified Black people are less
likely to get credit than Whites. The same differences are also found in mortgage loan
approvals as well as banks and their lending institutions, which have discriminated
African Americans. Amy services and practices to Black people have been come together
with discrimination, by making it more difficult for Blacks in history to accumulate their
wealth. I think that banks and other institutions could take specific organizational steps to
stop carrying out credit and housing discrimination. In today's world the most important
thing to stop discrimination is to spread awareness among people. Banks and mortgage
companies need to start presenting to their workers different discrimination surveys,
which help to spread awareness and minimize discrimination. The idea is to create an
equal society, where respect is equally given to both White and Black people. After these
programs are presented, then companies once in a month should organize their whole
staff to an open discussion. The discussion would cover every problem and
discrimination topics that may have to with the employees. Then the head of the
department would take the responsibility to solve the issues. However these are the easy
steps and in some situations, spreading awareness and discussing could not solve the
problem. At this case, the best thing to do for the one in charge would be to take strict
work measurements for the one, who has been involved in an act of discrimination. The
measures would also include that the worker can get fired for his behaviors. The one who
could take these measures would talk with the whole company stuff and other directions
to come up with specific terms against discrimination.

3. What aspects of Reskin’s “race discrimination system” are evident?

Many aspects of race discrimination system are evident in today's world and many
organizations function to fight these aspects. Discrimination against Black people is
found in many places around this the world, especially in the United States. The Federal
Housing Authority has publicly discriminated Black people and denied loans to Black
families. Black veterans have been denied education, employment and housing benefits
after their services and Black neighborhoods are considered to worth less than White
neighborhoods. In these neighborhoods, the funding, and important institutions like
schools are less both in amount and number. The discrimination has found its way almost
everywhere as well as in American colleges and working environments.

4. Research the Black communities that existed in Tulsa, OK, Rosewood, FL, and
Wilmington, NC, and the loss of assets and wealth resulting from their destruction.

The events and massacres that happened in Tulsa, Wilmington. Rosewood and NC would
change radical politics in these cities. The massacres have to do with a violent overthrow
of a democratically elected government by white supremacists. In the late 1800s,
Wilmington was the largest city on North Carolina and at that time the city had a majority
black population. The black community was highly prospering and many blacks were
successful in their jobs and careers. There were also black elected state officials and most
African Americans would vote for the Republican Party. The opposite party was the
Democratic Party and white supremacy was the main goal. When a new party called
Populists joined the Republicans into a new party called the Fusion Party, the Fusion
Party defeated the Democrats in the elections. This meant that North Carolina's
government shared power between black and white, by favoring black Americans. A
multiracial government was like a humiliation for the Democrats and used media to
highlight the Negro rule, even though the Fusion government was mostly white. The
white voters were angry and when the next elections were coming, white groups attacked
and stopped black people from voting. Democrats won the elections, but many black
individuals remained in power, as there were no elections for their place. This meant that
the new elections did nothing to minimize the economic power that black people held.
The Democrats showed a document in a white men gathering in Wilmington called the
"White Declaration of Independence " saying that they would never again be ruled by
Africans and gave white men most of the employment. Hundreds of white men went and
set the Daily record building of Alex Manly on fire by destroying the way African
communities were informed. The mayor was forced out and Wadell was the new mayor.
The violence spread into the streets and many black residents were killed. Many blacks
went away to never return back and many hid in the woods. In Tulsa a neighborhood
called the Greenwood District was a community of black business owners and then
named the "Black Wall Street". The events started with two teenagers, a black boy and a
white girl. Dick Rowland, the black teenager was arrested for assaulting the girl, named
Page even though Page refused to press charges. The famous neighborhood got to he
famous when many incidents of white men killing black people were taking place. What
happened with the teenager was like a call of action for whites. The white mob set fire to
the "Black Wall Street" and killed many other black individuals.
At each of these cities massacres took place where whites killed Blacks without any good
reason just for being the only ones to govern the cities. The massacres almost destroyed
the wealth and the good possibilities of black people. The black businesses were
destroyed; their homes, properties and nothing remained for the Black to inherit.

Exercise 5 Chapter 7.
What specific steps would you recommend to avoid performance-reward discrimination?

Performance-reward discrimination is the act of giving different amounts of rewards to

members of different groups who have similar performance evaluations. This is a very
common discrimination in the workplace among the employees and the rewards they get
after getting the work done. It is very important because base on the salaries and the
rewards, the worth and skills of the employees are valued. Performance reward
discrimination needs to get eliminated in order for the workplace to be an equal
environment for everyone. I think that the first step to avoid this kind of discrimination is
to spread awareness to understand the laws and how to make fair decisions based on the
performance of the worker. The workers and the managers should all go through
programs of guidelines to be aware of this discrimination and how to share equal rewards
without making differences. They should all understand the idea of respecting each
performance to their rightful reward. There should be no worker to get more rewards
when he does not deserves it or less when he deserves it, in order for the workers to have
better working relationships. This way the company would also perform better on the
overall aspect. The awareness could be spread in the form of different guidelines, surveys
and videos that illustrate this discrimination and why it is important to avoid it. After this
step is successfully fulfilled, I think that the supervisors and managers that control the
rewards should go through training to learn and be conscious of how to stop wage
discrimination. An important state institution should approve the training program, so its
content would be regarded as serious for everyone taking it. Also the third step that I
would recommend is that important organization against wage discrimination and
government officials should form a policy against wage discrimination. The policy
should include what comes after wage discrimination, prohibitions and the actions that
will be taken.