>while maybe slavery was long ago to have been "worked out" of the genes, it was roughly just two or three generations ago that there was segregation, Jim Crow laws, lynchings etc.
Slavery in the US was only two human lifetimes ago. My grandfather has living memory of older relatives who were born slaves. And then white people who's grandparents were homesteaders, farmers, or small business owners wonder why black people today have no wealth.
In the 1920s or so, black men were 24% self employed or had their own small business. Now it is a lot less than that. What exactly happened is up for debate but the results are certainly sad.
Can you show where that stat came from? 24% seems so high that it must be reflecting some major obvious phenomenon. Was there a big class of jobs that doesn't exist anymore? Were a quarter of white men self employed too? Was discrimination was so great that self-employment was a far better way to get work? Is that 24% of black men or working black men, or working-age black men? The statistic on its own leave so much confusion. Maybe self-employed meant itinerant farm laborer? It might not be so sad for that to stop existing.
I would believe it and I also believe the decline was due to racism. Southern racists didn’t like seeing prosperous black people. Just look at what happened to Rosewood:
Slavery in the US was only two human lifetimes ago. My grandfather has living memory of older relatives who were born slaves. And then white people who's grandparents were homesteaders, farmers, or small business owners wonder why black people today have no wealth.