Rich Thanks to Racism

How the Ultra-Wealthy Profit from Racial Injustice

De: Jim Freeman

Narrado por: Gary Roelofs

More than 50 years after the civil rights movement, there are still glaring racial inequities all across the United States. In Rich Thanks to Racism, Jim Freeman, one of the country's leading civil rights lawyers, explains why as he reveals the hidden strategy behind systemic racism. He details how the driving force behind the public policies that continue to devastate communities of color across the United States is a small group of ultra-wealthy individuals who profit mightily from racial inequality.

In this groundbreaking examination of "strategic racism", Freeman carefully dissects the cruel and deeply harmful policies within the education, criminal justice, and immigration systems to discover their origins and why they persist. He uncovers billions of dollars in aligned investments by Bill Gates, Charles Koch, Mark Zuckerberg, and a handful of other billionaires that are dismantling public school systems across the United States. He exposes how the greed of prominent US corporations and Wall Street banks was instrumental in creating the world's largest prison population and our most extreme anti-immigrant policies. Freeman also demonstrates how these "racism profiteers" prevent flagrant injustices from being addressed by pitting white communities against communities of color, obscuring the fact that the struggles faced by white people are deeply connected with those faced by people of color.

The book is published by Cornell University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

"This important new book will open eyes and minds for those who are ready to be challenged." (Pedro Noguera, Dean, Rossier School of Education)

"This book inspires...action." (Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder in Residence, PolicyLink)

©2021 Cornell University (P)2021 Redwood Audiobooks

Must Read!

If you value our democracy and/or believe that our government could do better. this book is essential. we must understand in order to make change.

Evil white people

a bit tiring all these books about evil white people all people discriminate and even within black community we seem to kill our own people at an alarming rate then get angry when police join in. untill we come together as a community whatever help white people give us it will be of no use.

Bloated, Subjective, Obvious, and Right

This seems like a necessary premise but it's awfully bloated and feels more rhetorical than fact based to a point I stopped about half way.  Once it was talking about 'menacing police cars' like 'in a warzone' and making Robocop and Simpsons references; it just kept feeling too subjective or exaggerated (even when I agree with the sentiment).  The setup here involved a lot of banter about privilege and statements of inequity, stuff like “most Americans are aware of the existing and rapidly expanding wealth inequity…” [yes, but I’m not here for obvious or common knowledge; data dump me or at least be sociology theory minded].  Disclosure that I am a liberal democrat white guy who believes minorities are systematically repressed.  The narrator here seems a bit slow speaking so I moved the speed up.  The text often feels anecdotal with some interesting examples lacking a clear empirical basis tossing around statements that feel like conjecture.  While I personally agree with much of the book stuff like comparing school privatization to the Tuskegee airmen is itself a bit racist and loses itself in rhetoric.  It says things like 'its little wonder that all the major investment banks have established special funds devoted to profiting from school privatization' which is an example of being too frequently overly general (if true I'd like to know more).  There are some solutions offered but it's problem based (awareness is important).