Tag Archives: financial literacy

The Institutional Imperative: Moving Beyond Individual Black Wealth Narratives

Posted on March 6, 2026 by | Leave a comment

I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts. – John D. Rockefeller

The contrast is stark and telling. On one screen, a promotional poster for a docuseries about Black wealth features accomplished individuals—entrepreneurs, entertainers, and personal finance influencers. On another, the Bloomberg Invest conference lineup showcases representatives from Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, sovereign wealth funds, and central banks. This visual juxtaposition reveals a fundamental problem in how African American wealth building is conceived, discussed, and ultimately constrained in America: we’re having an individual conversation while everyone else is having an institutional one.

When African American wealth is discussed in mainstream media and even within our own communities, the focus overwhelmingly centers on individual achievement and personal financial literacy. The narrative typically revolves around budgeting tips, entrepreneurship stories, side hustles, and the importance of “building your own.” While these elements certainly matter, they represent only a fraction of how wealth is actually created, preserved, and transferred across generations in America.

Compare this to how other communities approach wealth building. Bloomberg conferences don’t feature panels on how to save money or start a small business. Instead, they convene institutional investors managing trillions of dollars, central bankers who set monetary policy, executives from asset management firms overseeing pension funds, and sovereign wealth fund managers representing entire nations’ financial interests. The conversation isn’t about individual wealth accumulation it’s about institutional capital allocation, market infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, and systemic wealth generation. This isn’t merely a difference in scale; it’s a difference in kind. Individual wealth building, no matter how successful, operates within a system. Institutional wealth building shapes that system.

The economic implications of this gap are staggering. Consider the arithmetic presented in the text message exchange: if approximately 95% of African American debt is held by non-Black institutions, and that debt carries an average interest rate of 8%, African American households collectively transfer roughly $120 billion annually in interest payments to institutions that have no vested interest in Black wealth creation or community reinvestment. This figure isn’t just large it’s transformative. To put it in perspective, $120 billion annually exceeds the GDP of many nations. That likely at least 10% of African America’s $2.1 trillion in buying power is leaving the community for interest before a single bill is paid or single investment can be made. It represents capital that flows out of Black communities without generating corresponding wealth-building infrastructure within those communities. This is the cost of institutional absence.

When communities lack their own lending institutions, investment banks, insurance companies, and asset management firms, they become permanent capital exporters. Every mortgage payment, every car loan, every credit card balance becomes a wealth transfer rather than a wealth circulation mechanism. Other communities long ago recognized this dynamic and built institutional frameworks to capture, recycle, and multiply capital within their own ecosystems.

Institutional wealth building operates on fundamentally different principles than individual wealth accumulation. It involves capital pooling and deployment, where institutions aggregate capital from thousands or millions of sources and deploy it strategically for returns that benefit the collective. Pension funds, for instance, don’t teach their beneficiaries how to pick stocks they hire professional managers to generate returns that secure retirements for entire workforces. Large institutions don’t just participate in markets; they shape them. They influence interest rates, capital flows, regulatory frameworks, and investment trends. When BlackRock or Vanguard shifts their investment thesis, entire sectors respond.

Institutions are designed to outlive individuals. They create mechanisms for wealth transfer that transcend personal mortality, ensuring that capital accumulates across generations rather than dispersing with each estate. By pooling resources, institutions can absorb risks that would devastate individuals, enabling them to pursue longer-term, higher-return strategies that individuals cannot access. Perhaps most importantly, institutional capital commands political attention and shapes policy in ways that individual wealth, however substantial, simply cannot.

The current institutional deficit in African American communities isn’t accidental it’s the product of deliberate historical forces. During the early 20th century, Black communities did build impressive institutional infrastructure. Black Wall Street in Tulsa, thriving business districts in Rosewood, Florida, and numerous Black-owned banks, insurance companies, and investment firms represented genuine institutional wealth building. These were systematically destroyed sometimes literally, as in the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, and sometimes through discriminatory policies, denial of business licenses, exclusion from capital markets, and targeted regulatory enforcement. The institutions that survived faced existential challenges during desegregation, as the most affluent Black customers gained access to white institutions that had previously excluded them. The result is that African Americans today face a unique challenge: rebuilding institutional infrastructure in a mature capitalist economy where the institutional landscape is already dominated by established players with centuries of accumulated capital, networks, and political influence.

Given this context, why does African American wealth discourse remain so focused on individual action? Several factors contribute to this pattern. American culture celebrates individual achievement and self-made success. This narrative is particularly seductive for African Americans seeking to overcome discrimination through personal excellence. However, it obscures the reality that most substantial wealth in America is institutional, not individual. Teaching people to budget or start a business is concrete and actionable. Discussing the need for African American-owned asset management firms managing hundreds of billions in capital is abstract and seemingly impossible for most people to influence. Individual success stories make compelling content. Institutional finance is complex, technical, and doesn’t generate the emotional engagement that drives social media metrics and television ratings.

Institutional finance is deliberately exclusionary, with high barriers to entry, specialized knowledge requirements, and established networks that are difficult to penetrate. This makes it harder for diverse voices to participate in and shape these conversations. Moreover, focusing on individual responsibility can deflect attention from systemic inequalities and the need for institutional reform. If wealth gaps are framed as the result of individual choices rather than institutional access, the solution becomes personal change rather than structural change.

The problem is that individual wealth building, while important, simply cannot close the wealth gap or address the capital hemorrhage happening through institutional absence. You cannot budget your way to institutional power. You cannot side-hustle your way to sovereign wealth fund influence. Closing the institutional gap would require coordinated action across multiple domains. This means growing and creating Black-owned banks, credit unions, insurance companies, asset management firms, and investment banks capable of competing at scale—institutions managing not millions but billions and eventually trillions in assets.

It requires ensuring that the substantial capital in public pension funds, university endowments, and foundation assets that serve African American communities is managed with intentionality about wealth creation within those communities. Building investment funds that can provide growth capital to Black-owned businesses beyond the startup phase, enabling them to scale to institutional size, becomes essential. Creating institutions that can acquire, develop, and manage commercial and residential real estate at scale, capturing appreciation and rental income for community benefit, must be prioritized. Developing institutional voices that can effectively advocate for policies that support Black wealth building, from community reinvestment requirements to procurement set-asides to tax structures that favor long-term capital formation, is critical.

This isn’t a call to abandon individual financial responsibility or entrepreneurship both remain important. Rather, it’s a recognition that these individual efforts need institutional infrastructure to support them, multiply their effects, and prevent the constant capital drain that currently undermines them. The Bloomberg conference model reveals what serious wealth building conversations look like among communities that already possess institutional power. The participants aren’t there to learn how to balance their personal checking accounts they’re there to discuss macroeconomic trends, regulatory changes, emerging markets, and trillion-dollar capital allocation decisions.

African American communities need forums that operate at the same level of institutional sophistication. This means convening the leaders of Black-owned financial institutions, pension fund managers, university endowment chiefs, foundation presidents, private equity partners, and policymakers to discuss not individual wealth tips but institutional strategy. It means asking questions like: How do we coordinate capital deployment across Black-owned financial institutions to maximize community impact? How do we leverage public pension fund capital to support Black wealth building without sacrificing returns? What regulatory changes would most effectively support Black institutional development? How do we build the pipeline of talent needed to manage billions in institutional capital?

The real challenge can be distilled into three interconnected imperatives: individually Black people must get wealthier, there must be an increase in Black institutional investing, and the overall wealth of Black people as a whole must increase. All three are important, yet the current discourse focuses almost exclusively on the first element while neglecting the second and third. The reality is that without institutional infrastructure, individual wealth gains will continue to leak out of the community rather than accumulating into collective wealth.

A fundamental truth that much of African American wealth discourse has yet to fully internalize is that wealth is created through institutions. There exists a critical misalignment between how wealth is actually built and how we talk about building it. We prioritize individual wealth accumulation without recognizing that the causality runs in the opposite direction—institutional infrastructure creates the conditions for sustainable individual and collective wealth building, not the other way around. We can celebrate individual achievement, teach financial literacy, promote entrepreneurship, and encourage personal responsibility all we want. But until African American communities build and control institutions that can pool capital, shape markets, influence policy, and deploy resources strategically across generations, the wealth gap will persist and likely widen.

A docuseries about successful individuals may be inspiring. But inspiration without infrastructure leads nowhere. Other communities learned this lesson generations ago (from us) and built accordingly. A critical question cuts to the heart of the matter: Who in these wealth-building conversations is representing an African American institution? When wealth dialogues feature only individuals representing themselves or individual brands rather than institutions representing collective capital and community interests, we’re having the wrong conversation at the wrong altitude.

It’s time for African American wealth conversations to graduate from the individual focus to the institutional imperative. The Bloomberg model isn’t just for other people it’s a template for how serious wealth building actually works. The question isn’t whether African Americans can produce individually wealthy people we’ve proven that repeatedly. The question is whether we can build the institutional infrastructure that turns individual success into collective, multigenerational wealth. That’s the conversation we should be having, and it needs to happen at the same level of sophistication and institutional focus that other communities take for granted. Until then, we’re simply rearranging deck chairs while hundreds of billions if not trillions flow out of our communities annually, enriching institutions that have no stake in our collective prosperity.

Disclaimer: This article was assisted by ClaudeAI.

Leave a comment

Posted in Economics

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I Woke Up in a New Bugatti: Rap’s Poverty Promotion and the Illusion of Wealth Transfer

Posted on December 9, 2025 by | Leave a comment

If you think you’re tops, you won’t do much climbing.  — Arnold Glasow

Hip-hop was born out of necessity. A sonic rebellion against poverty, violence, and systemic neglect, it emerged from the Bronx as a raw reflection of life in America’s forgotten corridors. But over the past four decades, it has transformed from cultural resistance into commercial royalty. Once recorded with borrowed turntables in community centers, it now echoes across Super Bowl halftime shows, luxury brand campaigns, and billion-dollar corporate balance sheets. Artists who once stood on corners are now seated at boardroom tables. The culture won. But the community did not.

The statistics tell a story of growth at the top and stagnation at the bottom. Hip-hop is now a $16 billion industry. It has created artists turned entrepreneurs who have expanded into liquor, fashion, tech, and sports. The music dominates global charts, sets fashion trends, and influences everything from algorithms to political campaigns. Yet this immense cultural capital has not translated into economic sovereignty for the African American community. Instead, the concentration of wealth in a few hands has often disguised the lack of institutional power. For all the charts conquered and headlines generated, African American banks, endowments, universities, and asset management firms remain modest, if not endangered.

At the heart of this failure lies a devastating contradiction. While rappers flaunt wealth more publicly than any generation before them, the economic conditions in many African American communities remain dire. The median net worth of Black households, as of 2022, stands at $44,100 compared to $284,310 for White households—a gap that has barely moved in decades. Hip-hop has become the most visible face of African American success, but that visibility is not backed by scale. There are no Black equivalents to BlackRock or Vanguard. No hip-hop-funded HBCU research lab. No Goldman Sachs of rap. Even the highest echelon of Black-owned investment firms manage a fraction of their white counterparts. Vista Equity Partners, the most prominent, oversees $103.8 billion, an extraordinary feat, yet still a rounding error next to BlackRock’s $10.5 trillion.

And even this level of institutional success is an outlier. Most Black-owned investment firms manage less than $10 billion. Most HBCUs have endowments below $50 million. The largest Black bank, OneUnited, holds roughly $650 million in assets, while Bank of America manages over $2.5 trillion. What hip-hop has delivered in influence, it has not delivered in capital. Instead of building institutions, it has made individuals rich. But those individuals exist within a system that continuously siphons wealth away from their communities.

This is not to say that artists bear the blame for economic injustice. But hip-hop has become a tool of seduction as much as expression. Its dominance in the global marketplace has aligned it with the poor man’s logic of capitalism celebrating consumption, rewarding individualism, and elevating spectacle. In this model, buying a Bugatti becomes a symbol of power, while the absence of a Black mutual fund managing $100 billion barely registers. Lyrics obsess over fashion houses like Balenciaga, but rarely name Black-owned real estate firms or venture capital funds. The dream has shifted from ownership of blocks to ownership of Birkin bags.

This performative wealth is not just cultural; it’s systemic. The music industry itself is structured to extract more than it distributes. Record labels, streaming services, and publishing houses are disproportionately owned by entities with no allegiance to Black institutions. A 2023 report by Rolling Stone noted that artists receive less than $0.004 per stream on major platforms. Even when a track is streamed millions of times, the majority of profits flow to tech firms and record conglomerates, not to the creators or their communities. The money flows up and out. It is the same pattern that defines the broader African American economic experience: labor and creativity are extracted, while ownership and equity are denied.

The disparity is especially stark when one examines capital circulation. A dollar in the Black community circulates for less than 6 hours, according to HBCU Money, while in Jewish and Asian communities, it circulates for 17 and 20 days respectively. The consequence is an economy that is constantly depleted, reliant on external institutions for everything from finance to food. Hip-hop, despite its earnings, has not altered this trajectory. The Bugatti may be new, but the bank that financed it is old—and white.

This failure to institutionalize wealth is not accidental. It reflects deeper structural barriers, including a lack of access to financial infrastructure, intergenerational capital, and legal expertise. But it also reflects a shift in priorities within the culture itself. The era of Public Enemy and X-Clan once channeled music toward collective uplift. The current era often measures success by proximity to luxury, not impact on community. The metrics of power have changed from organization to ostentation.

Still, there are exceptions that point to what is possible. But these efforts remain underfunded and under-celebrated. There is no coordinated movement among hip-hop elites to pool capital, fund cooperative ventures, or launch institutional vehicles capable of rivaling their white counterparts. What could a $1 billion hip-hop endowment fund do for HBCUs? For land ownership? For venture funding of African American startups? These questions are never asked because the Bugatti is louder than the balance sheet.

It’s not just about what rappers buy. It’s about what they build or more accurately, what they have not built. For every luxury watch, there could be a community-owned grocery store. For every $30 million home, there could be a regional loan fund or student scholarship pipeline. The failure to institutionalize success means that when an artist dies, their wealth often dies with them dispersed among heirs or recaptured by the state or private corporations. There is no hip-hop university. No national Black credit union seeded by artists. No sovereign wealth fund of the culture.

Arnold Glasow’s warning—“If you think you’re tops, you won’t do much climbing”—rings like an indictment. The culture believes it has arrived, but the destination is superficial. It has conquered billboards but not balance sheets. The climbing left to do is immense: building a generation of lawyers, financiers, real estate developers, and economists who can institutionalize the gains of cultural dominance. Without this, hip-hop’s economic contribution will remain symbolic, not structural. The world will continue to dance to the music, while Black America stays undercapitalized.

A Bugatti depreciates. Institutions compound. Until hip-hop’s economic power stops ending with the individual and starts building for the collective, the community will remain stuck in a loop of representation without accumulation. The corner coffee shop that became Starbucks is not owned by the block. And the music booming from its speakers will not change that. Not unless the wealth it generates is used to build not just to boast.

Disclaimer: This article was assisted by ChatGPT.

Leave a comment

Posted in Lifestyle

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Monetary Illiteracy In The Halls Of Power: When Grandstanding Replaces Governing

Posted on June 25, 2025 by | Leave a comment

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” — Aristotle

Each time Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell appears before Congress, particularly the House Financial Services Committee, a rare opportunity presents itself—one that could improve financial literacy at the highest levels of government and foster substantive dialogue on monetary policy’s profound impact on American households, businesses, and institutions. But that opportunity is almost always wasted.

Instead, the public is forced to endure yet another performance of political theater where elected officials, both Democrat and Republican, seem more concerned with going viral than going deep—more focused on five-minute gotchas than on fifty-year policy ramifications.

And for African America, whose economic institutions and family wealth face historic and systemic precarity, this continued dysfunction is not simply frustrating. It is dangerous.

The Purpose of Oversight or a Stage for Soundbites?

The Federal Reserve is arguably the most powerful economic institution in the world. Its chair, currently Jerome Powell, wields incredible influence over interest rates, inflation, labor markets, and the credit system. A hearing before Congress should be a time when policymakers probe deeply, ask sophisticated questions, and help inform the public through their own understanding.

Instead, what unfolds is often little more than ideological posturing. Members of Congress use their time to push personal or party agendas, cherry-pick statistics, or lob loaded questions with no intent of hearing the answer.

This isn’t oversight. It’s political performance art.

The House Financial Services Committee, charged with overseeing financial institutions, capital markets, and economic stability, must rise above this. Its role should be more than ceremonial. It should be educational—to itself and to the American people. But the overwhelming sense watching Powell’s recent testimonies is that most of the committee members lack even a basic understanding of how monetary policy functions, let alone how to interrogate it effectively.

Why It Matters for HBCUs and African American Economic Institutions

African America does not have the luxury of political and financial ignorance.

When inflation creeps higher, it isn’t just a line in a Bloomberg terminal. It is the difference between a Black student being able to afford books for the semester or choosing between groceries and tuition. It is a Black-owned small business having to lay off an employee because a loan’s interest rate jumped from 6% to 11%.

The lack of thoughtful interrogation of Powell’s monetary strategy reflects a more structural problem. There is a scarcity of African American economists in monetary policy circles. The Federal Reserve’s own ranks remain largely devoid of HBCU graduates, and few members of the House Financial Services Committee themselves come from economically marginalized backgrounds or have spent real time examining the consequences of macroeconomic policy on communities of color.

Yet these are the same communities most sensitive to interest rate swings, credit market freezes, or inflationary spikes.

And still, with this knowledge, Black America’s representatives—those on the committee and those adjacent—too often use their time during hearings for moral appeals or political slogans. But where is the policy meat? Where is the specificity? Where is the courage to press Powell on structural inequality in the Federal Reserve’s frameworks?

The Federal Reserve and the Myth of Neutrality

To be fair, the Federal Reserve, under Powell or any other chair, does not operate in a vacuum. But the institution often touts its political independence as a form of virtue. That independence, however, should not be mistaken for neutrality. The Fed’s policies have winners and losers.

From 2020 to 2022, the Fed’s monetary expansion saved financial markets—but also exploded asset prices, exacerbating wealth inequality. Homeowners gained equity. Renters fell behind. Banks consolidated more power while local lenders and community institutions—like Black banks—continued to struggle.

The committee could have questioned Powell on these outcomes. It could have demanded a racial wealth gap impact assessment of every major monetary policy decision. It could have interrogated how interest rate hikes disproportionately hurt historically marginalized borrowers. But those questions are never asked.

Instead, Powell is interrupted mid-sentence. Politicians talk over him. They make proclamations but ask no follow-ups. This behavior isn’t just disrespectful—it’s dangerous. And it’s a gross misuse of public time.

What HBCUs Can Teach Congress About Learning

At an HBCU, you learn that education is both a privilege and a weapon. It is something to be studied, sharpened, and used to build institutions. That approach—one rooted in discipline, humility, and preparation—is entirely missing from the House Financial Services Committee’s handling of monetary policy.

If a professor at Spelman or Howard or North Carolina A&T asked students to prepare a critique on central banking and one of those students responded with vague accusations or irrelevant political banter, they would be challenged to do better. Because rigor matters.

Imagine, instead, what would happen if HBCU economics departments had a seat at the table. Imagine if the committee regularly invited young scholars from Hampton, Morehouse, and FAMU to submit briefs or participate in Q&A sessions. Imagine a committee that used Powell’s visit as a chance to uplift new Black monetary scholars, who are often overlooked despite deep institutional knowledge.

There is no reason why an HBCU-trained economist should not be Chair of the Federal Reserve one day. But for that to happen, both access and expectation must change. We must expect more of Congress—and we must prepare ourselves to be in those seats.

The Price of Ignorance Is Paid in Communities Like Ours

Grandstanding doesn’t stabilize mortgage rates.

Political theater doesn’t ensure access to affordable credit.

Viral clips won’t help a Black farmer secure the funding needed to plant next season.

When the committee wastes its opportunity to genuinely understand and shape monetary policy, it abdicates responsibility for protecting those most vulnerable to economic volatility. Black communities cannot afford that negligence.

For instance, Powell was not questioned about how inflation-targeting might undervalue employment gains in Black communities. Nor was he asked whether the Fed’s models even consider racial employment disparities in real time. These are the kinds of questions that would surface if the committee viewed itself as learners—not performers.

A Call for Financial Statesmanship

What is needed in Congress is not just political courage but intellectual humility. An understanding that financial literacy is not just for constituents but must be a discipline practiced by lawmakers themselves.

The House Financial Services Committee could evolve into a place of high economic inquiry, a model of bipartisan dialogue around shared economic goals. But that will require members who read the footnotes of policy briefs, not just the headlines. Who consult experts across ideology. Who admit what they don’t know and ask better questions in return.

It also means creating a pipeline of informed staffers, many of whom should be HBCU-trained. Imagine a rotating fellowship where top students in finance and economics at Prairie View or Tuskegee serve one-year policy internships with members of Congress. Not only would this improve committee function, but it would democratize who gets to shape monetary discourse in the long run.

A Missed Opportunity That Cannot Keep Being Missed

Chair Powell is not infallible. His policies deserve scrutiny. But if the scrutiny is shallow, the Fed wins by default. Monetary policy deserves robust challenge—but that challenge must come with intellectual integrity, not political antics.

African American families, students, and business owners live with the real-world consequences of interest rate decisions every single day. They deserve elected officials who treat these hearings not as soundbite factories, but as classrooms—where hard questions are asked, where policies are dissected, and where the future is imagined more inclusively.

The Federal Reserve will always operate in the shadows unless Congress holds up a light. But to shine that light effectively, the House Financial Services Committee must first turn its cameras inward and ask whether it is performing or learning.

Because for communities like ours, the cost of their ignorance is far too high.

Leave a comment

Posted in Central Banks

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Ariel Capital’s 2020 Black Investor Survey: African America’s Continued Fight To Close The Investment Gap

Posted on January 22, 2022 by | Leave a comment

“On March 23, 2020, the S&P 500 fell 2.9%. In all, the index dropped nearly 34% in about a month, wiping out three years’ worth of gains for the market. It all led to a 76.1% surge for the S&P 500 and a shocking return to record heights. This run looks to be one of the, if not the, best 365-day stretches for the S&P 500 since before World War II. Based on month-end figures, the last time the S&P 500 rose this much in a 12-month stretch was in 1936, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices.” – CBS News

Ariel Capital released their 2020 Black Investor Survey and the results show that there is reason to be pessimistic today, but potentially optimistic for tomorrow. The survey focuses on middle class African American and European American households earning over $50K in 2019. Some key financial points outside of this survey that should be taken into context though are poverty for African American stands at 21.2 percent versus 9.0 percent for European Americans. This high rate of poverty for African Americans means that middle class African Americans, as noted in the survey, are more likely to have high levels of assistance to family and friends which provides a damper on higher investing capabilities. These high levels of poverty are highly reflective of the median wealth gap between African and European Americas, $24,100 versus $188,200, respectively. African America continues to suffer from weak institution building and therefore the ability for its economic and financial ecosystem to strengthen continues to be suffocated. Firms like Ariel Capital and other African American financial institutions need more investment and support from other African American institutions, like HBCUs, in order to scale and create more employment, wealth, and economic opportunities beyond the grassroots level.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS:

  • The deep-rooted gap in stock market participation between the groups persists, with 55% of Black Americans and 71% of white Americans reporting stock market investments.
  • 63% of Black Americans under the age of 40 now participate in the stock market, equal to their white counterparts.
  • Ownership rates of 401(k) plans are now similar between Black and white Americans (53% vs. 55%).
  • White 401(k) plan participants put 26% more per month toward their retirement accounts than Black 401(k) plan participants ($291 vs. $231).
  • Black Americans are less likely than white Americans to own almost every kind of financial vehicle, with the exception of whole life insurance, which is favored in the Black community.
  • They are also less likely than white Americans to have written wills, financial plans, or retirement plans.
  • For Black Americans, disparities grow every month; while they save $393 per month, white Americans are saving 76% more ($693 per month).
  • Black Americans are also far less likely to have inherited (23% vs. 51%) or expect to inherit wealth (15% vs. 35%).
  • Black Americans are less likely to work with financial advisors (21% vs. 45% of whites).
  • Student loan delay or deferral was reported as being three times more common among Black Americans (16%) than whites (5%).
  • More than twice as many Black 401(k) participants (12% vs. 5%) borrowed money from their retirement accounts.
  • Almost twice as many Black Americans (18% vs. 10%) dipped into an emergency fund.
  • And 9% of Black Americans (vs. 4% of white Americans) say they asked their family or friends for financial support in 2020, while 18% of Black Americans and 13% of white Americans acknowledged giving financial support to family and friends last year.
  • Among Black Americans, 10% discussed the stock market with their families growing up, while 37% discuss the stock market with their families now (compared to 23% and 36%, respectively, for white Americans).
The chart above tracks the participation in the stock market through individual stocks, mutual funds, or ETFS. For African and European Americans, 2020 is an all-time low of participation since tracking began in January 1998. However, the gap of participation has closed from 24 percentage points in 1998 to 16 percentage points in 2020. Primarily due to the all-time low of European America’s participation falling by 10 percentage points and African America’s falling by only 2 percentage points. The closest the gap has been was in 2001 and 2002 when it was 10 percentage points and in 2002 saw African America break through 70 percentage points the only time in the survey’s history when we reached 74 percent.

HBCUs can play a significant role in closing the investment gap by introducing students to HBCU alumni who have gone on to become investors and financial advisors – thus circulating both intellectual and financial capital within the HBCU ecosystem. Even more so, they can assist in ensuring students set up investment accounts like a Roth IRA during their freshmen year and throughout matriculation. The earlier students are engaged in investing the more compounding can work for them over their lifetime which in turn makes for wealthier alumni, larger future donations, stronger African American communities, and more value proposition for HBCUs to promote within the African American community.

Leave a comment

Posted in Investing, Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Financier & Norfolk State University Alumnus Ralph Newsome Publishes Children’s Financial Literacy Book

Posted on November 23, 2020 by | Leave a comment

What was the inspiration behind writing this book? I’m a financial book worm and I was trying to find a good introduction book on finances for my daughter and all the books that I came across were either to basic or flat out incorrect.  So, I felt the need to address the problem. 

Your book is definitely targeted at the youth, which we know is a great time to teach about finances. Why did you decide to tackle this age group?  This age group is essential to really move the needle for the next leaders of the world to be totally financially independent. Let’s be honest most kids will receive little to no financial education while in school and at home. Most kids will have to play catch up the rest of their lives.  Repeating the same statements or questions: “If only I would have known this” or “why didn’t someone tell me about that”. I call that the generational trap or curse; most kids do not have the rich uncle to rescue them from a life of financial mishaps so this book will be their rich uncle, mentor, parent if you will. 

You live, eat, and breathe finance and investments, was there anything particularly new or challenging you experienced while writing the book? Yes! Where do I draw the line? There was so much I wanted to add to the book because I believe people are only given the bare minimum of information and then they are left to make critical decisions with very little data. I wanted to break the cycle of a lack of information with a powerful packed book.  I would rather have people complain that the book is overkill than to complain about it being like every other basic book on the market. 


Is there something you would like to see HBCUs and HBCU Alumni Associations do to help further financial literacy and aptitude in our community? Absolutely; it starts with a conversation on finances. I believe people either are too prideful to admit that they need help with finances or they are afraid of being ridicule for not knowing something.  A lot of times, in the Black community, money talk is taboo. Either because family members or friends get offended if someone well off brings up money or it’s perceived as though the well-off person is bragging.  Lastly, the well-off person may not want to bring up money because they may feel as though people will beg for money or the “you too good now” or “money really changed you” statements may come.  I know that was a little off topic but we have to address these issues.  More specifically HBCUs need to be open to using Alumni that have proven to be thought leaders on the subject.  Also, HBCUs (like Frats and Soros) need to collaborate on pulling resources to for investments in real estate, gold, small businesses, etc.  No disrespect but “fish fry” plates will not get it done. If the community could see HBCUs investing, building, and teaching on finances, there will be a 100fold return. 

And last but not least, how can teachers, parents, mentors, etc. go about keeping children engaged in financial learning as they grow up? The teaching must begin early and never stop. Kids will be interested in whatever the adult figure in their life is interested in.  If the adult is playing video games daily, the kid will play daily; if the adult is stuffing their face binge watching their favorite Netflix show the kid will follow suit. If the adult is on social media daily, smoking, drinking, cursing, etc….the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Every day is a teachable moment for kids so find little things each day to tie to finances.  Train up the child the way they should go.

Ralph Newsome is Managing Director of Acquisition– a proud graduate of Norfolk State University with a BS in Accounting. He has been buying assets and returning profits to investors for about a decade. He was invited to attend Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Investors Conference in 2016. What Ralph likes to do the most is help educate others in the complicated world of wealth building. Whether its advising portfolio management, educating on the use of leverage, or distress asset purchasing, Ultimately, he enjoys helping others. Visit his firm at New Level Realty Group.

Leave a comment

Posted in Personal Finance

Tagged , , , , ,