Black Wealth in the Age of Trump
The president-elect has pledged tax reform and job creation—policies that should theoretically help poor and minority Americans. But, Will he, that’s the questions most of us have subconsciously been asking ourselves in our community?
White Americans have about 13 times the wealth of black Americans, a Pew Research report found in 2014, the widest this gap has been since the 1980’s. After the 2008 elections when our first black president took office we felt empowered our lives would surely change for the better, but our community has not prospered as we felt on that November evening in Chicago when the reality of having a president who was the same color and persuasion as our ancestors was brought before the entire free world. Now after almost a week of knowing that our next president is a so called racist we are on the absolute verge of full blown panic. Trump is only different from the other 40 something presidents because he actually has said how he feels in front of all the citizens in this country. And he has been voted in office to be the new leader of the free world. We have survived the other unspoken presidents and we shall survive this one in grand fashion. Donald Trump (Massa’ Trump) does not control our survival.
We totally or should understand the wealth discrepancy between black and white Americans is the consequence of decades of housing, land, and education discrimination. Bringing black wealth in line with white american’s would require large systemic policy changes that tackle those underlying problems—and the politics of that solution is not forthcoming. So how can we began to build a better financial arena for black america.
- Improve our own Housing.
- Hold the land we now own dearly.
- Improve our own education system.
During the 60’s civil unrest, leaders from that era spoke of solving those same problems. Every one of those leaders had one thought in common. Creating our own wealth in the communities we live. I believe that thought should be studied in depth by all of us. Trillions of dollar flow through our community but we do not hold that wealth. It is fleeting, gone before we have a chance to feel, save or sometimes even spend that wealth for our own benefit. We have:
- Very few black owned banks in our community
- Almost no credit unions owned by black business or organizations.
- No black owned currency exchanges
- Very little support for our HBCU schools
- Have allowed incarceration of our male youth to flourish
- Very few of us in the urban area have bank accounts
- Almost no one wants to save money. So no savings accounts
- We rent almost everything from apartments to furniture
- We borrow money at juice loan rates
- January first to March we make small car lot owners rich along with tax preparer companies. We’re talking billions of dollars in wealth going right through our hands.
We have lost the vision of our slave ancestors. The first thing desired by them after being freed was ownership of property and assets. They were uneducated but still realized the value of wealth. You build wealth through ownership.
By: E. Bishop III