History echoes and echoes and echoes. Redlining is still huge in its effects on generational wealth: housing is the single largest mechanism for wealth transfer in American families, and systematically and intentionally excluding black Americans has resulted in billions in dollars of vanished wealth. Go back in history and look at the Freedman's Bank: established during Reconstruction for freed slaves, it was placed under different oversight than other banks of the time and was used by Henry Cooke (a white guy) to give unsecured loans to his other foolish investments. He wiped out the bank, losing $57 million dollars (mildly inflation adjusted) of black American's money in 1874. Imagine if black families from 1874 had retained their $57 million dollars and been able to invest -- the capital they'd have today would be dramatically different. Then look again at today: in Detroit, families are still losing their homes because of confusing tax rules. Many families were exempted from property tax, but didn't get the paperwork properly completed and renewed every year, so they didn't pay property tax as they thought they had the exemption, but now the city is foreclosing on them due to back taxes even though they're now exempt and -- AND -- the city owes them a refund for overstating the same taxes when these families did pay!

It's amazing when you stack up the numbers from redlining, the Freedman's bank failure, these tax shenanigans, and the impact of differential sentencing for minor drug offenses propagating through to inability to access student loans and housing assistance.... (remember, if you rape someone, you can get government student loans, but if you had a baggie of marijuana, you cannot). So much money. And immigrant families, because they're coming here now, have not faced the same systematic impacts.