THE OTHER
AMERICANS
macy to such assessments.
But they rankle experts like
Meizhou Lui, the former director
of the Closing the Racial Wealth
Gap Initiative at the Insight Center
for Community Economic Development, a California-based nonprofit, and the lead author of the
2006 book, The Color of Wealth:
The Story Behind the U.S. Racial
Wealth Divide.
For starters, Lui points out that
numerous studies have shown
that economic collapse or struggle
in any American enclave—urban,
rural, white, black, Latino—is often attended by higher rates of
depression, drink, drug abuse and
other social ills. She also notes
that a more humane social safety
net has been documented to prevent similar outcomes in European communities where factories
have