Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

Publication Title

Rhetoric Society Quarterly

Keywords

racial wealth gap, postrace, Fourteenth Amendment, reparations

Abstract

A central component of American inequality has been the persistence of the racial wealth gap between White and Black Americans. In this essay we seek to understand how the racial wealth gap has been rhetorically framed as an unsolvable problem by examining the arguments opponents of structural reforms in the pursuit of racial equality have advanced. We argue that opponents of racial equality and justice have relied on a two-part rhetorical strategy that, first, frames the racial wealth gap as natural and thus no problem at all and, second, derides the pursuit of racial equality as a zero-sum competition wherein the pursuit of remedies for past economic discrimination serves to perpetuate unfair disadvantages to non-Black racial communities. We map how this strategy has been deployed through an analysis of national debates over reparations to African Americans during 2019 and 2021 as well as legal challenges to reparations since 2023. Opponents of solving the racial wealth gap have advanced a new legal hermeneutic for the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that is informed by post-racial logics meant to perpetuate existing racial inequalities under the guise of racial neutrality.

Funding Source

This article was published open access thanks to a transformative agreement between Milner Library and Taylor & Francis.

DOI

10.1080/02773945.2026.2656133

Comments

First published in Rhetoric Society Quarterly (2026): https://doi.org/10.1080/02773945.2026.2656133

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