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For more than a decade I have been trying to push the idea that blackness has evolved past its murky racial and cultural definition. As a college macroeconomics instructor, I taught a class, Race as an Economic Construct, that advocated examining race through the lens of data and numbers. (The science of economics is not limited to the production and distribution of goods, services and wealth.)

One of the easiest ways to illustrate this point is with the history of black homeownership. Homeownership is the biggest builder of wealth in America and is still affected by the history of segregation, Jim Crow and redlining. It fuels every indicator of discrimination in this country and is one of the best examples of the manifestation of white supremacy.

Housing discrimination relegated African Americans to homogeneous, poor black communities with underfunded, segregated schools. Poorer schools create the education gap. The education gap creates employment disparities. Underemployment creates poverty and the phenomenon called “black-on-black crime.” Poverty leads to the inability to acquire affordable housing, which relegates black people to low-income communities, which leads to underfunded schools, which leads to more crime and so on. It is a vicious circle.

It is all about homeownership.

This is the Democratic Party.

Let’s be clear: The Democratic Party is only a viable party because of the black vote. In the 2016 election, 88 percent of blacks voted for the Democratic candidate, while only 37 percent of whites voted for Hillary Clinton, according to exit polls by USA Today. Even before the most recent election, according to Pew Research, only 40 percent of whites identified as Democrats.

If not for black voters, there would not be a Democratic Party. Without the black vote, Dems would lose every election at the local, state and national levels. The Democratic Party’s leadership knows this. The Republican Party knows this.

Yet Democratic politicians repeatedly refuse to stand up for the issues that affect black people the most. They continue to confirm President Donald Trump’s federal court appointees, who will hear cases of police brutality and voter-ID-law discrimination, despite the fact that he has failed to nominate a single African-American or Latino judge to the federal bench.

They ignored the suggestion that they filibuster every bill until the Senate and House look at gun control legislation to curb the violence that affects black communities disproportionately. They caved on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals vote during the recent government shutdown. (We often forget how immigration laws disproportionately affect African and Caribbean immigrants.)