Avi Lewis hosts a town hall debate in Washington DC on how race shapes the impact of the US recession, part of Al Jazeera's Fault Lines series. The episode puts economists, activists, and community members in the same room to argue over why minority communities have absorbed a disproportionate share of the downturn, from job losses to foreclosures. Lewis pushes the panel on whether policy responses coming out of Washington have addressed that gap or ignored it, and the debate turns directly to Barack Obama, asking whether the first Black president has the standing or the will to confront the racial dimension of an economic crisis he inherited. There is no narrator smoothing over the disagreements; the format is live argument, with audience members and panelists talking over each other about systemic causes versus individual responsibility. The episode stays inside that one room and one hour, using the debate itself as the evidence, and it ends without the panel reaching consensus on what Washington owes the communities hit hardest.