美国国家公共电台 NPR Money May Not Shield Prosperous Blacks From Bigotry, Survey Says

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This next story suggests how hard it can be to avoid racial discrimination. The story comes from a new survey of Americans of all races and ethnicities. It's being released this morning by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and it finds that a majority of people of all races, including white people, report that their group is discriminated¹ against. This morning we focus on one particular finding, money may not shield people from bigotry². The survey included African-Americans, and it found that more prosperous black Americans, those making more than $75,000 a year, report more negative experiences than people who make less. NPR's Brakkton Booker reports.

BRAKKTON BOOKER, BYLINE³: Phillip Thompson is 55 years old and lives in an exclusive gated community with a golf course in one of the wealthiest excerpts⁴ of Washington, D.C.

How you doing?

PHILLIP THOMPSON: I'm all right, bro. How you doing?

(SOUNDBITE OF KEY TURNING IN DOOR)

THOMPSON: Come on in.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR SHUTTING)

BOOKER: Once inside, he gives me a tour of his home. African art decorates the walls. Framed pictures of his kids hang in the entrance. And...

THOMPSON: Of course, an American flag. My wife and I both are military. This is my wife's, what they call a shadowbox. When you retire from the Air Force, they made her a nice shadowbox with all her medals and ribbons and ranks.

BOOKER: Thompson is a retired⁵ lieutenant⁶ colonel in the Marine⁷ Corps⁸, a Gulf⁹ War veteran and a lawyer with his own practice. He's also the president of his local NAACP chapter. But when Thompson moved to this Leesburg, Va., neighborhood 12 years ago, he says many of his mostly white neighbors made assumptions about how he could afford this house.

THOMPSON: You couldn't have gotten here on your guile¹⁰, on your knowledge, on being capable. Had to be a football player.

BOOKER: Well, he found that assumption deeply offensive.

THOMPSON: So I just played to it and said, nah, I'm a rapper. Or, I'm a pimp. I'm a retired pimp. I'm a play to your stereotypes¹¹ because then it makes you look even stupider.

BOOKER: Thompson's wife, Tanja, is a former senior master sergeant¹² in the Air Force and now works as a mediator¹³ for the federal government. She says discrimination plays out in subtle ways.

TANJA: Even living here in a gated community, there's definitely racism¹⁴. And you see it walking down the street. You see people, and you see them maybe in a professional setting, but when you see them out on the street, they turn the other direction. And then, too, they wonder, why are you here? Or, how did you get here?

BOOKER: A new NPR poll finds a little more than half of all black respondents say they have been on the receiving end of negative comments. But that figure jumps to 73 percent for African-Americans making $75,000 and up. Tanja has her theories about why.

TANJA: When you make 75 or more, 100,000, you're dealing¹⁵ with more educated individuals and probably more so people who don't look like you.

BOOKER: Algernon Austin is the author of "America Is Not Post-Racial."

ALGERNON AUSTIN: I think what sometimes people miss is, what are the comparisons?

BOOKER: Austin, who is an economist¹⁶, points out that, yes, college-educated and high-earning black folks are in many ways more likely to be better off than black people who earn less. But, Austin, who did not work on NPR's poll, says there is overwhelming data showing that when comparing educated and high-earning blacks to their white counterparts...

AUSTIN: The college-educated whites are going to have significantly more wealth, they're much less likely to be unemployed¹⁷, they're moving further in terms of their careers. So in that comparison, African-Americans see, you know, that reinforces the sense of inequality in American society.

BOOKER: It's a sense shared by Phillip Thompson.

THOMPSON: I probably should be in a better position.

BOOKER: Thompson believes if he were a white man, he'd be wealthier and more successful. Brakkton Booker, NPR News.