Chuck Collins

People say' slavery was so long ago' or' my family didn't own slaves.' But the key thing to understand is that the unpaid labor of millions -- and the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow laws, discrimination in mortgage lending and a race-based system of mass incarceration -- created uncompensated wealth for individuals and white society as a whole.

This can only be explained through an understanding of the multigenerational legacy of white supremacy in asset building, people say,' slavery was so long ago' or' my family didn't own slaves.' But the key thing to understand is that the unpaid labor of millions -- and the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow laws, discrimination in mortgage lending and a race-based system of mass incarceration -- created uncompensated wealth for individuals and white society as a whole. Immigrants with European heritage directly and indirectly benefited from this system of white supremacy. The past is very much in the present.

Direct benefits could include cash payments and subsidized home mortgages similar to those that built substantial white middle-class wealth after World War II, but targeted to those excluded or preyed upon by predatory lending, it could include free tuition and financial support at universities and colleges for first generation college students.

This is the tale of two pandemics, with very unequal sacrifice.

Senator Sanders was accurately using information that we provided, so we at Institute for Policy Studies are responsible for the error.