So, I finally got a chance to look at @MattBruenig's piece on the racial wealth gap. It's a useful, but not so much the "real" story, as he'd argue, as another way of looking at the problem. https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2020/06/29/the-racial-wealth-gap-is-about-the-upper-classes/

Most discussions of the racial wealth gap focus on the enormous chasm between the median black & white households. The typical white household has a net worth of $140,000 while for blacks the figure is $3,400.

(Those calculations come from NYU's Ed Wolff, who excludes the value of cars, because the family Ford isn't really wealth in the way most normal people think about the concept. Adding vehicles back in doesn't significantly change the overall picture).
https://www.nber.org/papers/w24085.pdf

However, Matt points out that if you look at AVERAGE wealth among households, the vast majority of the gap due to differences between the upper classes. If you close the entire gap between the bottom 90% of black and white households, you're still left with a $600,000 gap.

Or, to put it another way: Most of the racial wealth gap, on avg, is driven by the fact that richest 10% of whites are much, much richer overall than richest 10% blacks.

Matt thinks this is the real issue we should be focusing, and that medians are a distraction.

I disagree.

The fact that the typical black family has almost no net worth, while the typical white family has six figures, is pretty important for understanding class dynamics and inequalities in opportunity.

That gap is partly driven by gaps in homeownership...

...About 70 percent of white households own their own house, versus 44 percent of blacks. But financial resources also contribute. When you subtract debt, the median white household has $47k to its name, while blacks have zilch.

The white middle class simply has much more home equity, and vastly more cash saved.

If you could close that difference, it would obviously make a big difference in the life of the typical black family, which is why the medians are important.

Looking at the averages, like Matt does, is also useful, since it's a reminder of where resources are actually concentrated in this country. (Namely, UMC professionals and the rich).

But the relative impoverishment of the black middle class is still an important story...

And unless you're interested in closing the "racial wealth gap" as purely an abstract mathematical measure—which I don't think is what's driving this conversation—using the median as one benchmark along the way to greater equality is fine.