Hey! How about deconstructing one of the foundational myths surrounding contemporary American race relations and urban theory? Turns out white kids do more drugs than black kids! A lot more.
In other cases of factual-divergence-from-widely-accepted-social-narratives, we’ve got: direct federal assistance (aka welfare) as the foundation of the American middle class; a criminal justice system in which evidence is often flawed and punitive measures fundamentally unsound; and state budget imbalances owed more to steep (30%!) drops in tax revenue, rather than overspending.
The locus of these overlapping mythologies — some centering on economics, others on race — is best expressed in this shocking chart. It turns out that when all these narratives intersect, rich white people stay rich, and other categories don’t do as well as rich whites. Raise your hand if this is remotely surprising…
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