While there are all sorts of comparisons that can be done in regards to the unfairness of the distribution of wealth and opportunity for those that are American, such as a comparison of how much more wealth whites have as compared to African-Americans or Hispanics, the bottom line when it comes down to wealth in America, is less about how much white people have, though they have an awful lot, and more about how few have so much and how so many have so little. For instance, as reported by forbes.com, "the top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion (or 30.4% of all household wealth in the U.S.), while the bottom 50% of the population holds just $2.1 trillion combined (or 1.9% of all wealth)." That statistic absolutely puts the lie to those that believe that America is fair in its opportunity, fair in its taxation, fair in its justice, equable, egalitarian, as well as being a country that is the true land of good opportunity for all. Rather, having that much wealth in so few hands is indicative that this country is unfair in all of its aspects, without exception, and clearly corrupt in all of its meaningful institutions, despite what rules and regulations, have been enacted and enforced. In America, there is, in reality, the law, opportunity, and taxation as applied to all those that are exceedingly rich, and then there is how such is applied against all those that are effectively disenfranchised, poor, disadvantaged and thereby having zero meaningful say, whatsoever, in their governance.
The reason that there is seldom any fundamental change in America, and in fact, why the disparity between rich and poor, ever increases, is the fact that at the highest echelons of governmental power, of corporate power, and of policing power, we find that all of these important institutions are effectively controlled by those that have, so as to obtain even more of what they want, at the obvious expense of all those that have little or nothing, except for empty hopes, broken hearts, and dead-end streets. If would be one thing if all those that are wealthy accomplished such through honest hard work, but rather a significant amount of the wealth so accumulated is simply transferred from one generation to the next, with a minimum amount of taxation; and additionally there is a significant amount of wealth so having been created by favorable corporate structures that reward the elite with the lion's share of profits at the expense of those that labor for them as well as those that purchase such, often done through the power of near monopoly or duopoly positions or cartel like structures.
It seems amazing that there would be such a disparity of wealth in America, in which, fair competition, innovation, and dedicated effort would seem to mitigate such from ever occurring, but in fact, the system as constructed is fundamentally flawed, and the only institution large enough and strong enough that could ever effectively negate such wealth from accumulating into so few hands, is our national government, which is either the unwitting enabler of this tilted wealth, or co-opted to such a degree that it does little or nothing to level the playing field. The real reason then why there is so much disharmony in America comes down to the simple fact that the distribution of wealth is skewed so dramatically to the few, that this thereby leaves the masses to fight for the scrapes, and far too often against one another, rather than effecting the utilization of their numbers in order to unite in cause so as to throw out the scoundrels that have eviscerated the very reason as to what this country was dedicated to and created for.