29, fugitives ascended to a rooftop helicopter, secured a place among the symbolic images of that era. for me, as for all my generation, the struggle was among the foremost experiences of our careers. i was one of those who flew out of the u.s. embassy on that tumultuous terrified day. >> his most recent book is the soon to be release "operation pedestal." other books you "catastrophe," chas niced" and overlord." join the conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts and tweets on in-depth live at noon eastern sunday with max hastings on book tv on c-span2.

>> dietrich joins us now he's with the everybodies a as a institute for policy studies. and a quote from the 2020 federal reserve report on this issue to the racial wealth gap in america. -- host: the question -- how did we get here that the typical white family has eight times the wealth of the typical black family? guest: yeah, i mean, the question is more what did we not do to remain with this great disparity?

we've had this deep wealth and equality in our country since the beginning. the country was founded on racialized wealth and equality where black people, african-american people were made the wealth, of whites where native-american and indigenous lands were taken to be utilized this private wealth by a white immigrant. so racial wealth divide is at the foundation of the country and great sadness how little the country has done to abridge this deep inequality. host: what about the past year? what did the pandemic mean to this issue issue of the racial wealth gap in america? guest: what it means is pretty much what it means to every crisis, right? when you have low levels of wealth, not including depreciating assets, when you

have such little amount of wealth, any type of economic bump or an international health pandemic will have more much severe consequences because you do not have much money to fall back upon and what is what we are seeing with covid. that's what we saw with the great recession. that's what we see with small recessions and it just multiplies the economic instability of african-americans, latinos as well, native-americans. host: dedrick asante-muhammed, our guest in this segment of the "washington journal." you can go ahead and start calling in as we talk about the issue of racial wealth gap in the country. do you just want to give a one-on-one on what your group does? guest: it's a multi-issue think tank founded in the 1960's. has a wide breadth of different types of analysis and has a great website page equality.org.

and ncrc is advancing community economic development for people across the country of being a major advocate around the community reinvestment act, c.r.a. host: you mentioned at the top of our show today. based on president biden's visit for the 100th anniversary of the tulsa race mass kerr, as part of his remarks at that event he announced a couple of initiatives aimed at black communities, aimed at this issue of racial wealth gap of this country. here's two minutes of president biden from yesterday. president biden: today, we're announcing two expand efforts target toward black wealth creation that will also help the entire community. the first is my administration has launched an aggressive effort to launch housing from redlining to the cruel fact that

a home owned by a black family is too often appraised at lower value than a similar home owned by a white family. [applause] and i might add and i need help to answer this. and i can't figure this one out. but if you live in a black community and there's another one on the other side of the highway, it's a white community and built by the same builder and you have a better driving record than the guy with the same car in the white community, you're getting paid more for your autoinsurance. shockingly, the percentage of black american home ownership is lower today in america than when the fair housing act was passed more than 50 years ago. lower today. that's wrong. and we're committed to changing that. just imagine. the ability to own their own

home and build generational wealth we made it possible to build equity and provide for their families. second, small businesses are the engines of our economy and the glue of our communities. as president, my administration oversees hundreds of billions of dollars in federal contracts for everything from refurbishing decks of aircraft carriers and installing railings in federal buildings. to professional services. we have a thing called -- i won't go into it all -- but i'm determined to use every taxpayer's dollars that is assigned to me to spend, going to american companies, and american workers to build american products. and as part of that, i'm going to increase the share of the dollars, the federal government spends to small disadvantaged businesses, including black and brown small businesses. right now it calls for 10%.

i'm going to move that to 15% of every dollar pent. [applause] host: dedrick asante-muhammed, that was president biden yesterday announcing those two initiatives in tulsa, oklahoma. are they going to make a difference? guest: well, you know, home ownership is very important and i think it's important that he recognized that african-american home ownership is is around 44%, 45% compared to white, 73%. that has to be bridged. i don't think the primary problem is the kind of evaluation of value of homes, though that should be investigated and looked at. i think the primary problem, again, is when the median wealth for african-americans is 9,000 and the median household income is $45,000. that is not much money in order to purchase a home. and we're going to have to have a serious investment to help with down payments and actually, you know, increase affordable housing supply so we can have a

mass boom in african-american home ownership, hopefully latino home ownership. whites became majority homeowners through restructuring mortgage programs that allowed whites to move from minority homeowners to majority homeowners over 50%. that same thing is going to have to occur in the 21st century and for the first time be racially inclusive. on the small business base, it's important. i've read that he's talking about maybe an extra $20 billion a year for small disadvantaged businesses that's a positive step we need to have more clear analysis of what percentage that money's going to latino businesses, african-american businesses asian american businesses, other businesses that might fit under that rubric and we're going to need more than that to bridge the huge entrepreneurship disparity that we have in our country. host: for our visual learners from what dedrick asante-muhammed was talking

about, this chart from inequality.org. look at these three columns here. this is black overwhelm ownership in 2016. about in the low 40%. hasn't changed much since 1983. white home ownership in the 7%, up a bit from 1983. latino home ownership is the far right column in the low 40's as well. but up significantly from 1983. is there any lessons there? what caused that jump in latino home ownership and can those lessons be applied to black home ownership? guest: yeah, we're still learning. latino home ownership and latino wealth was lower than blacks until some time in the 2000's. one challenge also with latino numbers is that we're looking oftentimes at new populations the latino population in 1983

this different than the latino population in 2003, in terms of immigrants and what they represent. i think also one of the big differences is where latinos live. more in urban areas. particularly in the northeast, south, suburbs, while latinos are more likely to be in suburban and rural areas where there is higher level of homeownership. there are things to learn and investigate, but also different situations and scenarios. host: a racial wealth gap in this country, that's our topic. we have this conversation until the bottom of the hour. we start with wilma, out of florida. you're up first with dedrick asante-muhammed. are you with us? caller: yes. host: go ahead. caller: i'm fine. host: turned on your television

and go ahead with your question. we will let you figure that out as we go to darnell, in san jose, california. good morning. caller: how are you doing? what's up dedrick? i was wondering, i wonder where you guys always talk about -- are always comparing blacks to whites and owning this and owning that. did you guys forget about the asians? are the asian people invisible? i live in the san fernando valley and it's overpriced. we owned the house but we get paying -- but we are paying $14,000 a year in property tax. we basically never on the house and we are white.

host: dedrick asante-muhammed? guest: i did miss some of that. for asian americans i would check out the asian american wealth divide snapshot which you can find on the ncrc website. i focus on blacks, latinos, and native americans because those of the ethnic groups with the usually the greatest economic disparity. asian americans have much closer homeownership rates to whites, i think in the high 60%. not quite what whites have that much closer. host: to baltimore city, maryland, this is leroy. caller: we were talking about homeownership. this is what i've noticed. the asian, the spanish, african, anybody that comes to this

country, they are coming here with -- look, i've been living here my whole life. my credit score is good but a lot of us don't have good credit. but-- when these other people ce here, they give us a leg up. getting a leg up there whole life to help them get out. so, by then good -- getting a leg up, that is why they seem to prosper a little bit more. it's held against us, they pull the credit record and say this, this, this, this. the guy coming into the country with a clean slate, let's give him a leg up. host: dedrick asante-muhammed, you want to take that? caller: we did a snapshot -- guest: we did a snapshot called immigrants and the racial divide. the basic analysis that i put forward is that immigrants who

come here with highly skilled, highly trained with income, they do well, they have good income and high owner -- high homeownership rates. those who come without it don't do as well in part of the challenge is we are in a very regressive economy. it's been a big challenge for african-americans in those who experienced racism in this country because as the country bifurcated more and more, over the last 40 years we have seen a regressive economy keep lacked progress from moving forward in what we similarly see his immigrant communities, if they come in lower income, they stay lower income and are given the negative consequences of a regressive economy but with a high income they do much better and i think that's what you are seeing in terms of different immigrant groups and how some are doing much better than those, black, white, or latino, who have been here for a long time because they may have come with high skills into their

regressive, elite part of the economy. host: going back to your charts, one thing that african-americans have in this country is a larger student debt burden. these charts here, african-american men and women, the debt ridden is above $35,000 for either and you can see how that compares to whites, closer to the 30,000 dollar range, asian americans more in the $20,000 range for men and women. why is that? guest: of course, why that would be is if african-americans have such lower wealth, they have to borrow more just to get into higher education as african-americans borrow a low -- larger proportion for their mortgage. it's very similar, african-americans and latinos borrow more to get to be a part of these wealth building

vehicles and have less equity in their home. there is also less value given to blacks with a college degree or black homes compared to whites. it's a challenging situation and it is something that we need to address, particularly at looking at colleges being made more affordable and particularly free. host: you mentioned wealth building vehicles. what's a baby bond? guest: there are two economists that really helped bring this to the public like. cory booker put forth a bill to give i think all americans $1000 of a baby bond, any americans born get about $1000, depending on their household income level. then they would get maybe another 2000 or less each year. the idea is that when people become 18 or 25, become a certain age, they would have

capital to help them move forward in their lives, whether it is to go to college or buy a home. you have her jet -- jesse jackson say it's challenging to be a capitalist economy without capital and a baby bond would be an important instrument for the 21st century to give all americans a greater opportunity to move forward and particularly help those in deep asset poverty to help bridge the inequality we have been talking about today. host: new baltimore, michigan, holly, good morning. caller: yes, i have a lot to say. first and foremost, how can somebody control how somebody else spends the money? why not call it what it is. i think sometimes people have poor spending habits. they spend their money on hair, nails, eating out and food choices. you can't control that. you talk about have an have-nots

. because i spend fiscally responsibly doesn't mean somebody else is going to do that and we need to start teaching kids in school economic responsibility, fiscal responsibility, not to spend what you don't have with credit card debt. host: you think poor spending habits are the reason for the racial wealth gap in this country? caller: it can be. yes, yes i do. i don't tickets or racial wealth gap, i think it's a gap. guest: but it is a racial wealth gap. there are other wealth gaps. gender wealth gaps. concentration of wealth in high income versus low income whites. i do not believe, it is not about financial literacy. we can look at the history of the country and understand that discrimination and disenfranchisement through policy, corporate and individual practice that has created the

situation. i do not believe financial education will solve the problem but i do think that part of it should be understanding the reality of inequality and what it will take to help bridge that and i think anyone could use better understandings of our increasingly complex economy but part of that is understanding the structural inequality that has been proliferating over the past 50 years. host: we began this conversation talking about the gap in 2020 and the federal reserve report upon -- report said it hadn't changed much but can you sort of expand the view backwards and perhaps for words as well? is this something that you expect to grow in the years to come? how much has it grown until now? guest: that's the most upsetting aspect, most people if they talk about race and acknowledge and equality they might not take --

so they get you on the lower levels with the labor, they hire them coming over, then you higher on the hiring end. then you got that lady called in, what are you talking about? like people have a very superhard time. if you do want to dive, you have to be the best, of the best, of the best. >> let's take up the issue of hiring. >> this is part of why it is so important for programs biden has put forward a anyone has put forward that we have the data as to spending on infrastructure and we will be hiring for construction. that we make sure government dollars or not reinforcing unemployment inequality or employment inequality and we make sure when dollars are spent, what percentage is going to cover african-american

laborers, latina laborers, white laborers, making sure there is equity in this amount of money spending in infrastructure development. it is true in very much every sector, whether it is outright labor or whether it is middle-management or senior management, you see a strong racial ethnic disparities in terms of who has the position of who's being hired. this is also something we need to address dealing with racial and ethical inequality. host: if you had the president's ear, what proposals would you put forward to fix this national crisis you say must be addressed? guest: you know, you have mentioned one that i did a report with derek hamilton in congress earlier and chuck collins, head of inequality.org.

we talked about for the employment, african-americans, people were talking about the economy is bouncing back and african-american unemployed rate is near 10%. that is i think the height of what white unemployed it was during the great recession. so we see these great issues and challenges, and again, i think the country has to have a new, strong goal around homeownership. we put out a report called 60% black on him -- black homeownership, a radical goal for black homeowner development. we have an idea of how we ensure a majority of americans and what type investments and subsidies we put forward to make that a reality. host: they're on twitter talking about the issues of credit

scores. how it rises and falls and other aspects of this important element of money lending and borrowing. guest: i would think in the context of racial, equitable -- equity inequality, when you have lower well, you have lower income and greater job instability as a whole. blacks and latinos have. wealth is often coming from generations of wealth, being in a community that has strong assets and allows you to build assets off of that, so having even stronger incomes for lower wealth leads you to weaker credit scores, which then makes it more expensive to do the basic loaning that you might need to have a car, so you could get to work or try to get a mortgage loan.

again, this idea of credit scores highlights the challenges of how expensive it is to be wealth for in our society. host: michigan, this is nancy, good morning. caller: hi there. i'm just here to say i think everybody can better themselves. i just want to give you a brief history. my husband and i were married when we were 19. he was going for a scholarship on university of michigan and he lost it because we got married. i won't go into that. we had a small child. he was working and going to school full-time, driving an hour each way, every day. i was working with a child. we did this for six years. we did not own a home until after he graduated. we had government loans. we were in debt. then, we paid off -- we pay those off, 10 years later, i went to school. we did the same thing, and you can do this. today, i give workshops trying

to -- i'm in the mental health field, i give workshops trying to help people, saying about owning response ability and their -- in your life. if you own your responsibility, you take power. i just want to tell people you can do this. guest: thank you for that. i think it is important to own responsibility. and crc does 20 workshops on how to buy a home and strengthen your financial literacy. those are important but the way we got today is not people failing in personal responsibility, it was government policies, government structures that created an unequal system. it is government policies that have created a place where, over the last 40 years, has the national gdp rises, most income is going to the highest income earners, or in the past, we have had issues like redlining. there wasn't the ability for african-americans to get loans to buy homes.

there are structural issues that also need to be dealt with as you are trying to deal with your own personal finance and responsibility issues. i'm glad you have been able to move forward in your life. i thing many african-americans have moved forward in their lives but we are not bridging that racial wealth divide that was created by policy. host: promoter city, this is most, good morning. caller: good morning. i was listening to the gentleman who said a lot of people come in here with skills. where i was working, they were bringing ronald reagan, bringing the grease in, giving them tax, don't take out no federal tax in seven years. none of them were experienced because i worked with them. that is how these people get ahead, from abroad, they give them federal tax breaks. they don't even take out federal taxes for seven years.

then, when they find out they will take out federal taxes, they move to another state. and they gets the same thing when they move. that is how they get ahead. host: on this issue of immigrants in this country. guest: yes. i'm not familiar with the program he is referring to in the 80's with greek immigrants, but we have, over the last i think since the great recession, we have seen, overall, a decline in immigrants from this country. i think immigration can be a positive thing. i think we need to figure out, again, i think the primary issue is not immigrants. immigrants have not caused the wealth divide, we had the wealth divide, we had much less immigrants coming to our country. it has been a refusal to invest in communities of color, including immigrants of color. i think that is my perspective and focus on how do we bridge these inequalities. as we are bringing in immigrants

into this country, we are bringing them to a country where there is greater prosperity for all and more equity, not into an economy increasing bifurcated between the haves and have-nots. host: you mentioned redlining a little bit ago. on that issue, mary brings up, you are talking about the unfair government policies and programs that contributed, but she talks about the private industry. i think there should not be any such thing as a black part of town at a white part of town. what was government section redlining still exists in all kinds of informal ways and is perpetuated by real -- realtors both black and white. guest: i think that is true. it is also perpetuated by homebuyers. i used to be if a black person would move into a neighborhood, it could create white flight and scare white homeowners out of an area. now it is more so when a neighborhood comes 20% black, you see white flight.

individually, people have to be less scared of living in diverse neighborhoods. but we also have to create a system that allows communities like african-americans and latinos who do not have much wealth and income to become homeowners and allow there to be greater integrated communities of homeowners instead of kind of a cities that are bifurcated between a small amount of homeowners and a whole bunch of renders -- renters, where still we see great divisions. we should be holding private companies accountable, real estate agents accountable, to not build upon the segregation of this country that we still live in. which is amazing that we are in the 21st century and still dealing with segregation throughout this country. host: to virginia, this is greg. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. there is a lot of frustrating comments coming in. you must be pulling your hair out hearing some of these.

it is hard for people to understand the benefit of generational wealth. they keep bringing up stories that are pull yourself up by the bootstraps kind of stories, and they don't consider the fact that they can take risks that may be black folks can't take because they do not have a community around them that we'll sort of pick them up if they take a risk that goes bad, or family and friends with extended wealth. so it's gotta be really frustrating hearing the stories over and over again. but i want to point this out, you keep pointing to how we need to create more opportunities for folks that own houses, and i would caution against that. it seems like we have a disproportionate benefit in this country to owning houses. and all the benefits and tax breaks echo along with that, it seems like we tried too hard to force people into homeownership,

sibley because it is a way of wealth building. it seems like we ought to decrease the benefits of homeownership to begin with. guest: where i would partially agree with you is we should decrease the tax benefits of homeownep ownership for high ine ople. that's what i do think is ridiculous. i would even increase tax benefits of homeownership for first time homeownership income levels between $70,000 median household, but it is ridiculous, the more expensive the house, up to a point, the more tax benefits we get to the household. i see no reason to give tax exit needs to higher income people so they could have a bigger and more expensive home. i think particularly in communities like african-americans, latinos, that we need to strengthen homeownership for those communities, that we also need to strengthen affordable rentals as well. that is a crisis throughout the

country. host: back up to baltimore, good morning. caller: can you hear me? host: yes, sir. caller: kind of to expand on what you have been talking about and what the last two colors have said, it is a known fact that -- callers have said, it is a known fact that events in tulsa and other communities terrorized during the jim crow era, and we know for a fact the federal government denied home loans to the black community and basically trapped them in the inner-city while white communities escaped, quote unquote, to the suburbs. if we know all this information and about hiring discrimination, how can we move forward without reparation's? because there is a debt that needs to be paid and danish -- and an issue that needs to be addressed. generational wealth has been denied to far too many people of

color. i don't see is moving forward until we address that. guest: i am in agreement that, without mass investment, people will often talk about race relations and discuss earlier, on sunday, sitting at your dining room table with someone of another race and talking about race. we don't need to just talk about race, we need to invest in bridging racial and equality. reparation's meaning investments, particularly for african-americans because of what they have gone through, and maybe native americans, what they have gone through, is necessary. we also need to repair our increasingly unequal economy where wealth and income is concentrated at the highest. it will take a redistribution of resources and investments. we spent over $750 billion per year in wealth development. the problem is most of the money is going to the already wealthy. we do not have to create new wealthy and we can take $750 billion per year and make sure

it is mostly going to those assets for to have a positive effect. host: davenport, iowa, this is jack. caller: good morning. guest: good morning. caller: do you think african-american kids overinvest their time and effort in things like sports with these overpaid athletes? and the black music culture? and the same kids underinvest in things like the math insights culture or medical science culture, and that is a bigger part of the african-american lack of success? in other words, it is currently a values crisis. guest: i don't believe that the crisis is values. again, tulsa was not come out of a lack of values of african-americans. redlining was not because of a lack of values. neither was jim crow, enslavement, or the fact you were born to grandparents that dealt with those issues.

i don't think it is a value space. i have seen studies that say african-american children invest too much in sports. i have african-american children, they do sports but they have plenty of white teammates, so i'm not sure where you are getting that analysis from. host: what aspect of the racial wealth gap have we not touched on in the segment that you want to talk about? guest: i think the point brought up earlier, actually, a point brought up that joe biden said during his speech, i think was really important, we talk a lot about tulsa and its horrific impact. everyone can look and say that is horrible, but biden also mentioned, if you years later, there was an attempt to rebuild, but there were things like redlining where they could not get government investment into rebuilding these homes and get government loans to do these things. there was a highway built on top of that black community. so it was not just a white riot that really weakened the black tulsa community, it was

generations upon generations later of ongoing discriminatory policies and practices that have kept tulsa -- i've mentioned derek hamilton's name several times, an economist, he put out a paper on the racial wealth divide in tulsa. i think you will see the depth of deep inequality that still exists in tulsa today, and it is not just because of what happened 100 years ago. 80 years ago, 60 years ago, and what is happening now. my biggest concern is that i am really happy that many people are talking about racial wealth inequality, but i'm concerned you're not willing to invest the dollars and have the metrics to really see are we bridging this inequality. i don't want to, 20 to 40 years from now, talk about how we are going in the wrong direction with the racial wealth divide. host: what parts of the american families plan, the infrastructure proposal, what aspects of that do you see helping these issues we are

talking about? guest: my concern about most of those is that there aren't clear goals of what -- of how much of the funds will ensure increase in black employment or increase in black infrastructure -- an info sector in black neighborhoods. where does that money go? the government will do these big things, then we are not really clear how the money is spent, then we find actually, five years later, it did little to address racial economic inequality. i think having quantitative goals and making sure you are collecting clear data on how the money is spent will be essential if we want to address these issues. host: time for maybe one or two more phone calls. larry has been waiting in illinois. good morning. guest: good morning. i think horrific -- caller: good morning. horrific. i think that is where you have

13% of the population committing 70% of the crime. i think what is horrible what is happened to the black community. congratulations to the democrat party. i think what you guys have done is brilliant. what you guys managed to has done -- have done is turn the police force into the bad guys, and i think the black community needs to look within before you come raising taxes on every single person in this country, because you guys cannot get it together. guest: i agree with the gentleman that what has happened to african-americans and native americans is horrific, and i think it is sad people still have these stereotypes. that the reason african-americans and native americans and latinos don't extend to where they are is because of their inferiority, versus the clear structural inequality that has been placed in front of them throughout america's history. host: dedrick asante-muhammed

's associate fellow for the instituto policy studies and has been with us for the past 45 minutes. before you go, i wanted to give you the final minute or two. he said you watched the first hour of our program today or heard some of it. the question we asked in the wake of president biden going to tulsa and the remembrances of the 1921 race massacre, we asked, how have race relations changed in the past years. it is what we are going to talk about in the last segment of the program coming up. how would you answer that question? guest: i think race relations clearly has changed. i think there is much more interaction, particularly between african-americans and white americans, much more intermarriage, much more personal friendships. but again, that does not radically change the economics of a situation. we have not gotten to a point of race relations where the country as a whole is united in

saying this is wrong -- this equality is wrong and we -- this inequality is wrong and we will end this inequality. i'm looking forward to the country getting to and working to advocate that we allow -- because it is allowed to have great race relations when we have great racial economic inequality. it is hard to sit down with your neighbor of an opposite race -- i'm sorry, of another race, when most of your neighbors are all of one race. dealing with racial economic inequality and the racial wealth to -- wealth divide will be the next steps in strengthening race relations in the future. host: if you want to read more of his work, a good place to go is mcrc. -- ncrc.org. and you can follow him on twitter. @dedrickm. now, caitlin glover, the natural resources executive director at the cattlemen's beef

association. on the association itself, expand who you represent and what your group does here in washington and around the country. guest: good morning, john, and thank you for having me on this morning. as you said, i am from the national cattlemen's beef association, which is the largest trade association. we represent members throughout the sector of the funk -- beef and cattle production. we are from grassroots, from our communities all the way to washington. i represent a proximally to any 5000 individual members, but i more than 175,000 members in total across the country. we do have affiliates in each state to deal with a more state-focused issue, but then they bring issues to us in washington, not only for things like nutrition. then, -- that we will talk about this morning, and land policy and really telling a story on a national stage.