[bsanr]

>Considering how much worse off African Americans are socio-economically, on average, than white Americans, it's a no-brainer that their kids end up worse off on average as well.

It's worse than that. There's something about the American system which forces black families to be not just stagnant economically, but often to move backwards (at least in the transition from Boomer/Gen X to later generations). Both of my grandfathers provided a strikingly middle class life for their families, leaving the military after WWII for decent careers: one as a stable, unionized factory employee, the other as a nuclear physicist. All of their children went to college. Both of my parents hold advanced degrees. Even still, they face financial difficulties that their white peers don't seem to, and my generation of siblings and cousins, while along a spectrum of affluence, seems to have inherited a magnified version of their parents' diminished prospects relative to their achievement. On average, the families that were middle class mid-century are now working class, even with degrees.

And we're outliers, in terms of educational attainment in the black community heretofore. That's changing, but to what ends, when black professionals must have a more advanced degree to be considered for the same job as a white applicant with a less advanced degree? When our houses are worth $50k less, our access to credit is restricted, our tax burden relative to income tends to be higher, and we are actively sought out for discrimination by many bedrock institutions of American life? It's not a level playing field.