From Common Dreams
By Betsy Leondar-Wright

It’s happening again.

The recent vote in Congress to criminalize undocumented immigrants was just the latest in a centuries-long series of government actions that have blocked people of color from gaining economic security. Employers are getting away with murder, underpaying and overworking people too vulnerable to complain. Our elected officials are not just letting them get away with it — they’re actually aiding and abetting them.

Why does the typical family of color have 18 cents for every white dollar? Literally hundreds of government actions have affected the amount of money that families have today ­ most of them not widely known. Everyone knows that the U.S. government took land from Native Americans and gave it to white settlers. And it’s widely known that some states let white slave owners profit from slave labor.

But most people don’t know that land ownership was restricted to citizens and citizenship was limited to whites in many areas throughout the 1800s. The last racial barriers to naturalized citizenship were lifted in 1952. Almost no-one realizes that one in four white Americans have an ancestor who was given Indian or Mexican land under the Homestead Act.

Most people don’t know that the New Deal excluded many people of color from Social Security because until the 1950s, those laws excluded domestic and agricultural workers, the occupations of most workers of color. The parents and grandparents of some African Americans and Latinos in the labor market today missed out on Social Security benefits. As a result, many in the younger generations are supporting their elders instead of saving for their own retirement.

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