Image:Â William Darhy : http://photoblog.william-darhy.com

http://www.blackcommentator.com/213/213_along_the_color_line_global_inequality_marable_ed_bd.html
In the past 20 years in the United States, where deregulation and privatization has been carried to extremes, we are witnessing a phenomenon that the media has described as “the very rich” leaving “the merely rich” behind.
The exponential growth of America’s “super-rich” is a direct product of the near-elimination of capital gains taxes, and the sharp decline in federal government income tax rates.

A 2006 study by the World Institute for Development Economic Research of the United Nations University, establishes that as of 2000, the upper 1 percent of the globe’s adult population, approximately 37 million people, who average about $515,000 in net worth per person, collectively control roughly 40 percent of the world’s entire wealth. By contrast, the bottom one-half of the planet’s adult population, 1.85 billion people, most of whom are black and brown, own only 1.1 percent of the world’s total wealth. There is tremendous inequality of wealth between nations, the U.N. report notes. The United States, for example, comprises only 4.7 percent of the world’s people, but it has nearly one-third, or 32.6 percent, of global wealth. By stark contrast, China, which has one-fifth of the world’s population, owns only 2.6 percent of the globe’s wealth. India, which has 16.8 percent of the global population, controls only 0.9 percent of the world’s total wealth.

Within most of the World’s countries, wealth is disproportionately concentrated in the top ten percent of each nation’s population. It comes as no surprise that in the United States, for example, the upper 10 percent of the adult population owns 69.8 percent of the nation’s total wealth. Canada, a nation with more liberal social welfare traditions than the U.S., nevertheless still exhibits significant inequality. More than one-half of Canadian assets, 53 percent, are owned by only ten percent of the population. European countries such as Norway, at 50.5 percent, and Spain, at 41.9 percent, have similar or slightly lower levels of wealth inequality.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-12-28/news/the-numbers-beyond-the-bling/

Approximately 1 million African American men under 40 are behind bars. Twelve percent of African American men ages 20 to 34 are behind bars, compared with 1.6 percent of white men in the same age group.

• America is now No. 1 in the percentage of its population in prison and No. 1 in income inequality among industrialized nations.
• In a dozen states, 30 to 40 percent of young Black men will permanently lose the right to vote because of being convicted felons.
• Fifty percent of New York City’s Black males are unemployed.

Black People are 13% of drug users, about the same as their percentage% of the U.S. Population, but 35% of those arrested for drug possession are Black, 55% of those convicted of drug charges are Black, and 74% of those sent to prison are Black.

Sale of five grams of crack means a five-year minimum sentence under Federal guidelines; it takes 500 grams of powder cocaine to warrant the same Sentence. In 1994, 90% of those convicted of Federal crack offenses were Black, 6% were Latino, and fewer than 4% were White. In 1990, after the new guidelines went into effect, the average Sentence (for crack) was 49% higher for African Americans than for Whites. The majority of crack users, however, are White.

People die younger in Harlem than in Bangladesh. The leading causes of death in poor Black neighborhoods are not AIDS, drugs, or homicide. They are “unrelenting stress,” “cardiovascular disease,” “cancer,” and “untreated medical conditions.”

Five percent of Americans own 59 percent of all wealth; the top 20 percent own 83 percent of all wealth. The bottom 20 percent have zero wealth. Excluding owner-occupied housing, the inequality is worse: 1 percent of families hold half of all non-home wealth.  The average African American family has 60 percent of the income of the average White family. But the average African American family has only 18 percent of the wealth of the average White family.

African Americans are 12.2 percent of the population but account for 37 percent of all AIDS cases. Latinos are 11.9 percent of the population but account for 19.2 percent of all AIDS cases. The fastest-growing population of those infected with the AIDS virus is African American Women.

Overall, American female infants’ life expectancy is 19th in the world; male babies’ is 31st, tied with Brunei. Of the 13 wealthiest countries, the U.S. is last or near the bottom in terms of infant mortality and birth weight.

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