The Whiteness of Wealth

“In The Whiteness of Wealth, Brown brings the American tax code to life. Hands shape it and wield it like a shield in the defense of the most powerful among us. The tax code tells a story about American priorities. The news isn’t good, Brown writes, but there’s still time to change the future.”—New York“[An] accessible and lively … primer on how wealth works in America.”—Bloomberg Businessweek“This enlightening book is a vital companion to The New Jim Crow, The Color of Wealth, and Evicted, for how it reimagines everything you thought you knew about U.S. social policy.”—Tressie McMillan Cottom, MacArthur Fellow and author of Thick: And Other Essays“This book is a tour de force. With clarity and conviction, Dorothy Brown reveals how U.S. tax policy sustains and deepens the wealth gap between black and white Americans. As I read The Whiteness of Wealth, I found myself shaking my head as I eagerly turned the pages and shouting ‘damn’ with each revelation. If we are finally to address the long history of racism in this country, we must grapple with the arguments of Brown’s powerful book. This is a MUST read for these troubling times.”—Eddie S. Glaude Jr., New York Times bestselling author of Begin Again and Democracy in Black“I couldn’t put it down! Dorothy Brown skillfully weaves her analysis of the racial bias in tax law with compelling personal stories of both Black and White taxpayers as well as policy recommendations for how to bring equity to our tax system.”—Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?“At once passionate and analytical, The Whiteness of Wealth is a bracing contribution to the history of policy racism that takes us to the heart of taxation’s effects on patterns of economic distribution.”—Ira Katznelson, author of When Affirmative Action Was White“In this urgent account, Dorothy Brown incisively unpacks how racism is embedded in our nation’s tax system, enhancing White wealth at the expense of Black Americans.”—Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist and Stamped from the Beginning“An eye-opening look at race-based economic biases, with reasonable steps to undo them.”—Kirkus Reviews“An illuminating exploration of how U.S. tax policies exacerbate the Black-white wealth gap.”—Publishers Weekly“Brown … writes brilliantly and lucidly on systemic racism and injustice within the American tax system. [The Whiteness of Wealth] is an eye-opening, well-sourced and -argued account of tax law and economic policy at the intersection of racism and social history.”—Booklist (starred review)

Dorothy A. Brown is the Martin D. Ginsburg Chair in Taxation at Georgetown University Law Center. A graduate of Fordham University and Georgetown Law, she received her LLM in Taxation from New York University. A nationally recognized scholar in the areas of race, class, and tax policy, she has published dozens of articles, essays, and book chapters on the topic. She has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and NPR, and her opinion pieces have been published in CNN Opinion, Forbes, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Born and raised in the South Bronx in New York City, Dorothy Brown currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia.