THE LONGER ONE TALKS TO DARITY, the more the sad irony of the situation becomes clear. The statistics he has helped uncover—for example, that white households in Boston have a median net worth of $247,500; for African Americans, that number is a mere eight dollars—are striking snapshots that at first seem like typos. “It’s disturbing,” Darity says, “but before examining this work or this data, I would not have expected the gaps to be this large.”