Veronica had at least two tribes of which she considered her and her family members: black, and poor. Her dad made the decision to abandon one (the black group) in favor of joining another poor group, this one predominantly white. I’m sure if he could have chosen to desert the poor group and join a wealthy black group, he would have preferred to do so, but that was not one of his options.
Color segregates, but it’s nothing compared to wealth-based segregation. When one is on the wealthy side of the divide, there is nothing in the world that would cause one to choose to live in in the poorest parts of town. And when you’re poor, you simply aren’t allowed into the rich sections, because you can’t afford it.
Are there wealthy black enclaves and wealthy white enclaves, or are there just wealthy ones, which happen to be almost exclusively white? There are definitely poor black areas and poor white areas, because anyone can be poor.
Why does it appear that only white people can be wealthy? Why is it that, for the most part, black people aren’t wealthy? Is it “their” fault? Are they too stupid? Too lazy? No. Is it cultural – is it that they don’t WANT to be wealthy? Uh, no. Then what is it? Is it that something keeps wealth from transferring to a representative proportion of the black population?
Yes. A big part of that “something” is time itself: there hasn’t been a lot of time in which the black population has been free to operate without legalized racial bias. We’re only a generation or two into that world in America. Eventually, it could happen. But humans are not always patient, especially when on the crappy side of inequity, and for them, “eventually” isn’t soon enough. So the shortest, quickest path to where the money is will undoubtedly lead to where the white people are. If it’s not wrong to move to the poor white neighborhood, away from the poor black neighborhood, in order to increase the chance of surviving childhood, then is it wrong to do things like naming your baby with a “white” name in order to increase his or her chance of landing an interview with a white manager, getting a nice job, and earning more wealth?
