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The Minneapolis non-effect


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the-minneapolis-non-effect.php

Paul Mirengoff

July 3, 2020

The Washington Post notes that, although “taxes, for decades, have been redistributed from wealthy suburbs to poorer communities [in Minneapolis] to combat inequality. . .the prosperity fueled by the region’s Fortune 500 companies and progressive policies has not translated into economic equality.” On the contrary, “the wealth gap between Minneapolis’s largely white population and the city’s black residents has deepened, producing some of the nation’s widest racial disparities in income, employment and home-ownership.”

The Post offers an explanation — “structural racism.”

Quote

Economists, lawyers and civil rights advocates in the Twin Cities say progressive tax policies could not make up for other aspects of structural racism, such as access to credit or jobs. Some say investments in affordable housing in low-income neighborhoods deepened segregation and poverty. Others argue for better enforcement of federal laws to combat discrimination in lending, employment and housing.

There is an alternative explanation. It might be that, to a disproportionate degree, African-Americans in Minneapolis aren’t doing the things required to become successful. Things like finishing high school and college, not having children while in the teens, raising children in two-parent homes, avoiding drug use, and abstaining from crime.

The Post never considers this possible explanation. Rather, Post reporter Tracy Jan dismisses it, quoting unnamed “civil rights and community leaders in the Twin Cities” who say that a “focus on fixing things perceived to be wrong in the black community,” instead of “fundamentally reshaping underlying inequities in society” is what’s preventing “racial equity.”

(Snip)

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