Wealth and Racial Stratification in the United States
The main implication of racial stratification is that it is an inseparable part of the culture in the United States. As DiAngelo explains in his article “White Fragility,” as a white person who spends years examining the race theory, the author concludes that one learns the implications of the race from mainstream sources. Thus, every social institution and structure that exists and functions in the United States supports the race stratification that was established historically and developed over the years.
The main issue is that the mainstream sources that can spread information and share experiences and critical knowledge on inequalities do not fulfill their role, for instance, schools and educational institutions, as well as mainstream media, are usually restricted to portraying only one perspective. Moreover, they do little to explain the phenomena of reproduction for social hierarchies, which result in income inequality and wealth stratification.
From a perspective of social science, the unequal redistribution of resources as a form of racism can explain the wealth inequality in the United States because this theory suggests that racism is highly adaptive. Based on this, one can argue that even with mitigation of racial segregation and cancellation of laws such as Jim Crow laws, the segregation between different races persists to exist since the social structures adapted to new policies and created other forms of stratification one of which is wealth and distribution of it between different groups.
The racial stratification is supported by pay inequality that exists in the United States. For example, African-American people or individuals with Latino ethnicity earn significantly less when compared to white or Asian people, based on the assessment of weekly wages for full-time workers by the United States statistics Bureau. Given that all other aspects that should affect one’s salary, such as experience, skill level, educational background, are the same for these individuals, the issue of wealth inequality highlights severe failures of policies and institutional oppression of minorities that persist to exist.
Wealth Inequalities Perpetuated by Policies or Policy Failures
The heterogeneity of the workforce and the annual income are all aspects of wealth and are a result of workforce policies enacted in a state. When comparing the median annual income for women and men with the same educational background, for instance, using the research by Institute for Women’s Policy Research, one can notice that in all cases, women earn less. This suggests that wealth and wealth inequality is a problem of a broader context that affects the way different groups, for instance, based on their gender or ethnicity, are perceived and what positions and salaries they can have regardless of their qualities.
Policy failures here are reflected in the fact that people that contribute the same value to a business or society are treated differently and, from the perspective of wealth, do not receive the same payment for their work.
A positive aspect of wealth inequalities affecting policies is legal acts that promote hiring women that were enacted in the country, which support the recruitment and promotion of women in the labor force. This allows one to address one aspect of wealth inequality, however, recent research suggests that more needs to be done to address the pay gap and differences in wealth as between different racial groups that receive different reimbursement for the same work, which indicates a severe policy failure. Thus, the issue of systemic and institutional control that allows to redistribute the resources and enable inequalities supports racism and stratification in the United States.