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.
