Reimagining Financial Wellbeing in Black Communities

Sometimes the hopelessness and the the desperation comes from, I'm in this bad situation and I don't know how to make it any better. I don't know who to call. I don't know what to do and it just isn't getting any back. And and those are the questions that we as a community need to be answering. Those are the people in our community that we need to be reaching out to. And when those are the resources that we need to be providing. Welcome to reimagining Black Health, a podcast from the Council on Black Health, where we explore what it means to thrive in our communities through the lens of the eight dimensions of well-being. I'm your host, Dr. Melisha Whitglover, Chief Executive Officer for the Council on Black Health. Today's episode is all about financial well-being. A state where an individual has security and freedom of choice in their financial life, both present and future. It's not simply about the amount of money you have, but rather the ability to manage it effectively to meet current and future needs and goals. Today I'm joined by two incredible guests. Stephanie Yates is the Executive Director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Regents Institute for Financial Education, who is passionate about this work because of the impact it has on the lives she touches. We're also joined by Darius Peace. Darius is a master hair stylist, author, speaker, and successful entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the beauty industry. Darius was featured in the October 2019 issue of the Oprah magazine, and has most recently been featured in People magazine, Men's Health magazine, Alure magazine, and Money magazine just to name a few. Thank you both for taking time out of your schedules, today to join us and welcome to the show. Thank you. We always start out with asking folks to define what we're talking about. As you know, we've been focusing on achieving optimal health and black communities and using the wellbeing wheel and financial wellbeing as one of those. When you all think about optimal financial wellbeing, not just income, beyond income, but thinking about financial wellbeing and what it looks like to thrive, what does that, can you tell us what that means, what does that look like to you, and Stephanie will start with you? Sure. So when I think about thriving financially, I first start by thinking about the continuum from surviving to thriving and kind of the steps to get from one place to another. So that means if you are working toward or arrived at the place where you're thriving financially, that means that you have stability and security so that you're able to meet your basic financial needs. It means that you don't have any stress or chronic stress related to your finances. So you're not worried when there's a knock on the door or when the phone rings that it's going to be someone wanting something that you can't deliver. And then as we move a little bit closer to thriving, it starts to mean that you're building wealth. So everything has handled your stable, your house is in order, but now you're building wealth and ideally generational wealth. And you've got some level of financial freedom and flexibility, meaning when you have an unexpected event or expense, you're not scrambling trying to figure out how you're going to handle it because that store of wealth is there to support you for those types of needs. And all of that together puts you in a place where you feel financially confident and in control of your finances. And that's what I think of as financially thriving. And I agree. I would agree that just having that stability. I think that the stability is really that key word in there, but I would also add flow because the stability comes from understanding that there is a flow of money that will allow you to not experience the stress or the worry of, oh, where's the money going to come from to cover these expenses right here. So knowing that there's a flow and that there's a growing flow that the flow is increasing. So that because everything around us is always increasing. There's always inflation. There's always something that's going to increase the expenses. And so knowing that the flow is able to accommodate any of those increases. So. Thank you. That's that's super helpful to get to. So now we're we're going to talk today from that definition of what that thriving looks like and really be beginning to break down. What do we need to do collectively as people to be able to help us move toward thriving and not just surviving. And some of us are not we're not even surviving. I think of the Jefferson songs. We are not keeping our heads above water. Not the Jefferson. That was good time. Yeah, that was good time. We are scratching and surviving. But so. So we're going to be talking about it from that perspective of how we move to thriving. Stephanie, you teach courses in this. Tell me to you do community courses. Tell me what it is that you do and how you and Daria Smith. Because I think you all have a story and you're connected somehow. So talk a little bit about that. So I do workshops in personal finance. I met Daria's when I was leading a workshop for the community leadership academy. And Daria's was a participant. And so my my portion of the academy was to talk about these kinds of topics and ways that that we as leaders can help support our community to on that continuum to thriving financially. And so I think about Stephanie quite often because of how I met her, because I'm actually producing an event right now called the Magic City Expo. And so one of the you know, there were several things that we learned in her presentation. Of course, organization and just organization and networking and really understanding how to glue it all together to create something big. And so that's that's what's happened. So it's so interesting that we're doing this because I think about Stephanie quite often because I am organized because I've been reminded over and over again about these are the steps that you need in order to do that. And this is an event that really does impact, you know, the Greater Birmingham area, both on the consumer end as well as the small business owner in. So it's been really fantastic with that. So that's how we met, you know, but it's a very ongoing thing. That was a pouring when we met and I'm able to use the tools that she shared to keep everything going and to contribute to what we just said, a flow of economic opportunity for everybody, you know, helping to create those channels so that people can experience a thriving, just experience thrive in their financial well-being. So there is where were you? So how do you all met? How long ago? This was a few months ago actually with the earlier like mid this year, maybe March, I think March April, sometime in the time, like March April, but it was with the Community Leadership Academy. And so I started volunteering with my community and was offered the opportunity to participate in a cohort with Community Leadership Alabama. And I'm Yes. So it's funny because I feel like this is going to come up later. I bet you're going to come up, but as we have talked about all the different elements of the well-being wheel from emotional wellness to spiritual, to financial, this theme of connection and connectedness and being in community with each other keeps coming up. And now I'm hearing it again, like you connected, you were a cohort, you're moving, you're thriving together. And the thing that I think if we don't hear anything else from this series of podcasts, what we're going to get from this is a key to us thriving as people is coming back together as community and moving together and supporting each other. So I appreciate you sharing that. Stephanie, as we think about the history of Black folks in America and we think about surviving and thriving, we know that there are some historical and underlying systemic factors that are impacting us. And in particular that we know that there's a racial wealth gap. Can you talk a little bit about what those historical and systemic factors are and how they've contributed to that racial wealth gap both in the past and even how that's continuing? Oh, absolutely. I could probably go on all day on that topic. But when you think about the history of African Americans in this country, there's always been a divide in terms of equality and that absolutely trickles down into finances. You think about coming to this country as enslaved people and virtually having no rights and no ability to build wealth, build that financial foundation. And then moving on after the civil rights era into the Jim and the various Jim Crow laws that perpetuated economic exclusion. And you think about financial inclusion and financial exclusion. And that, I think, is the thing that marks the history of African Americans in this country is that they have been systematically excluded from financial markets and financial opportunities. And that led, particularly early on in the history of this country that has led to this, this racial wealth gap. Moving forward, we have redlining and housing discrimination, which impacted the ability of certain groups of people to purchase homes and build wealth in that way in the manner that they chose in the areas that they chose. When you think about housing as being the primary store of wealth for most people in this country and to have an entire group of people excluded from that opportunity, that again adds to the racial wealth gap. Then when there were times that we tried to, we as a country, tried to help people move on this continuum from surviving to thriving, we still tended to exclude certain people. So when you think about the GI Bill and post-war benefits, black people were often excluded from certain policies. And so again, that add to the divide and made it very difficult for blacks to build wealth. And this just continued through segregation. You think about education and education as a means to opportunity to better paying jobs, build wealth, wealth building, and when you don't have access to education, that again adds to those issues. We've got tremendous examples of employment discrimination. And then once blacks were able to access housing loans, personal loans, small business loans, they were subject often to predatory lending. So maybe we will lend to you, but we're not going to give you the same terms that we give to other groups. And so that means that I'm borrowing at a much higher rate and it's going to cost me more for the same thing that my counter carts are able to get. And so all of this leads to this, this racial wealth gap and the difficulty that African Americans face when it comes to building generational wealth. So not just for me, but for mine and theirs and so on. And that is something that the majority have not had the same issue with. Because when you think about the beginnings of this country, many came as very wealthy people or became very wealthy as when we had the agrarian society as planters and farmers and so on. And they were able to leave land and money and property and other assets to their future generations that African Americans just weren't able to do. So I apologize very long winded answer, but there's just so much packed in there. That that's really helpful. And you did use you said a lot and provided a lot of really great context. So one of the things that the council and black health did in April of 2021 is we released the nation's first black health bill of rights. And it has seven articles in it. And it's it's our the framework that drives the way that we do our work. One of the articles says that it's article six. We have the right to honor and incorporate lessons from our past, present and future as a pathway to restoring our health. And I and I expanded to say our health and our wellness and clean financial wellbeing. So I provide that context just to say you provided a lot of really helpful information about history and how we've been. How the systemic oppression and things like that have have held us back. But then we also see examples of things like black Wall Street. Where we were able to thrive and and and we saw that we saw examples of things like black Wall Street in different communities. Now those those were, uh, were destroyed and race massacres. But can you talk about how were we able to do that in the face of all of the discrimination and the oppression that you talked about. We still managed to figure out how to thrive and to create something like a black Wall Street. So it's a two part question. One, how were we able to do that. And two, how can we get back there because those are examples of things that worked in spite of and we were thriving. What did we do then and how can we do that now. So as we evolve as a country, those opportunities do present themselves. So so even though in the beginning. Americans had no opportunity for wealth building as laws changed as we evolved. Then we were, you know, we earned the right to vote. We earned the right to an education. And so, so. It was separate for it equal, but we started to to develop rights that allowed us to advance economically. And there were just some very, very brave souls in our history who took advantage of that and became very successful African American entrepreneurs creating the black Wall streets. And so it just it takes that type of vision and courage to step up and and create those opportunities for the masses. And so in the second part of your question, what will it take to create another black Wall Street and before I answer that another example is the Friedman's Bank. We have several black banks kind of like the Tulsa massacre, the Friedman's Bank when under and a lot of people lost their money. And so when you think about those two significant examples of kind of the rise and fall of the African American economy in this country fear. And so it drives a lot of people or discourages a lot of people from trying to rebuild what we have. And so. And so also policies make it very, very difficult, you know, you think about what we're seeing today. And so it would be very difficult to create some of the opportunities that we've seen in the past because some of these minority owned businesses benefited from DEI policies. And so those largely being canceled, that makes it difficult to raise the capital to create those opportunities and have a black Wall Street to have a Friedman's Bank to have minority small businesses because again, just like the the history lesson I just gave. And so we don't have the generational well to do it ourselves so we need a little help getting started and right now that helped just isn't there. Do you is there also just a sense of I don't know the exact statistics and statistic and we may be able to loop it in later, but I know that the the amount of time that a dollar sort of a black dollar circulates in the black community is almost as soon as we make a dollar it goes to another community words and other population subgroups they tend to circulate dollars within within their communities. As you say that capital is not there, we don't have the we don't have the support. Black people spend a lot of money in this in this nation. So we've we've got money and you can even look at like what's happening with target right now with the boycott and the amount of money that's being lost. And it's I know it's not just black people, there are others that are supporting. And so this is is it that we are waiting for permission to do something that we can we can already do just by coming together as a community and circulating our dollars or is it really that we need to rely on somebody else and somebody else's DEI policies to be able to move us into this area of thriving. That's my that question are we is it that we need somebody else's permission or is it that we we just need to do it. I think we just need to do it. And you know you talked about our culture versus other cultures and we are very different when you think about Asian cultures for example. They are much, they are, I guess I would say better at keeping dollars in their own community than we are. And it's, I know it seems to be a little bit different messaging in our culture in terms of what it means to arrive and to have money and how you spend it and how you show it and how you present. And how you present yourself and and it is in some segments of our culture. It's just not as important to keep those dollars in our community as it is to take care of oneself and and present that present that image of success. So, so getting back to your question though, I really do think that it's just a matter of doing and in our community, we, we need that glue to pull us together to to make a strong movement economically. And that's what seems to be missing to to move us back to that era of black wall streets and and strong black wealth. That that's my perspective at least. That's helpful. Thank you very much. So, Darious, let me bring you in because we've been talking about, you know, Stephanie gave us the history of systemic racism and how it's impacted the racial wealth gap and then we started talking about yes, but in the face of all that racism, we were able to do things like build a black wall street and was thriving until there was a, you know, racial war and massacre that that tore it all down. And so my question was, you know, then how can we, how can we rebuild that what do we, what can we learn from how we were able to build a black wall street so that we can do that today. I want to turn to you and just ask you from your experience and thinking about now, what are some of the most significant day to day financial challenges that black people or black family space. [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [ Silence ] [ Silence ] >> A booth. >> Now see, Darius, what I heard you say is now we got to bring in all of our emotional well-being and all that stuff because how are we going to have -- I think that's where you're saying. So we've got to -- I love what you said. We have to not be uncomfortable with having financial conversations. We have to recognize the power of coming together and sometimes you might give a little bit more than somebody else, but it's for the good of the whole, but you've got to have those conversations about the benefits of working collectively within families and within communities so that we all move ahead. And I think that might be one of those key things because one of my questions is what's stopping us from getting there. I think not having the conversations, not being willing to compromise. Those are some of those things that are stopping us from getting there. And remember I said early on that community and us coming together keeps coming up as a theme and all these conversations. It just came up again. We have got to come together and work together for us to be able to thrive even as it relates to financial well-being. And I'll even add on to that, that notion of community, you were talking in your first point about land and holding on to land whether it's appreciating in value or not. Most times it is appreciating in value and I think when we're thinking really seriously about building wealth, we've got to go back to that prospecting mindset and look at the plans for the city that we're operating in and where is the development? Where do we want to be and can we buy or build in that area? Can we hold on to what we have in that area so that what we have is as valuable as possible. And again, those are collective conversations thinking about what it is that we have, what our community needs and how we can work together to create that. Stephanie, you know what that is such a good point and I know that there are people that are listening that are like, look, I'm just trying to get from one paycheck to the other. But we also know that there are people in our community that have this space and the freedom to be able to show up to those meetings and pay attention to what's being built and be able to kind of be on the lookout. And I have been in and just with the work that I do, I've been able to be in a number of conversations with developers and people in communities that show those maps. So this is what's coming. This is the community plan. Let's get input and buy and large. The black community really most people in communities do not show up for those meetings. And when we do show up, it is wait, there's a bulldozer getting ready to dig and you're getting ready to knock this house down and I don't want to. And what somebody said, a land developer said one time when you're out there in front of the bulldozer with your picket with your picket sign, you are 10 years too late. Because those plans happen ten years and events and we have to be paying attention and we have to show up. And this is not to put any more pressure on folks that are, you know, full up at the because we know that the life is overwhelming and there's a lot. But there are also those of us who could show up to town hall meetings who could come and speak out and we don't go as we don't go either. And that's how we end up losing. And we don't we miss the boat on what's being developed and where to and we've got to be paying attention and those of us that show up to the meetings have to be willing to as a community as a collective share that information with others. So we all know when I know you should know. We should be gay keeping various go ahead. You know let the but that we just we just over talking you we're sorry. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] I mean sometimes and sometimes the way life is set up we end up making a short a decision that impacts us in the short term when we could have made a different decision that impacts us in the long term. But sometimes life is life and and you need your power to be on and you need that money. And so, you know, I think we also have to there's no there's no right or wrong answer. We have to have this the space and the grace to understand that sometimes people are in that situation. But on one of our other podcasts somebody also mentioned that we also we also have to know within our networks. We have to be in enough connection with people to know when somebody is struggling to pay their power bill if we've got a little bit to be able to help them to be able to help get the have the grace and give them the grace and dignity to be able to help them without them having to beg without them having to. To to to to to to to to feel uncomfortable. Because then those kinds of things is how is how we come together's community. You know, this is like community funds is those those kinds of things to really be able to help move us out of that out of that poverty situations so people can even have this space to think about. Okay, now let me think about this long term decision that I need to make financially. But you know what I'm also hearing is the need for education around some of these topics and not necessarily in the traditional sense of you know degrees and certificates and so on. But it's okay, this is where you are. These are the things that you can you can do. These are the resources that are available to you to get you from where you are to where you want to be sometimes the hopelessness and the the desperation comes from I'm in this bad situation. And I don't know how to make it any better. I don't know what to do and it just isn't getting anybody. And and those are the questions that we as a community need to be answering those are the people in our community that we need to be reaching out to and those are the resources that we need to be providing. And it's easy to make it easy to access those resources because I know that sometimes you there are resources that are available but when you're in that kind of situation it's you know it might be you have to go to one side of town on three buses to access these resource and then another side of town and then you get there and it's closed and you can't take you know you can't take another day of work. I've seen the reality of that so we have to you know we I love the idea of education and making sure that people understand what resources are available and then I think that those of us who have access to either providing those resources or have or can advocate we need to make it easy for people to get those resources but then we also need to be spending just as much time helping to make sure that people don't have to depend on those resources forever because I think sometimes we make it so that people get stuck and they have to keep relying on those resources. Well and when I talk about resources I'm not just talking about food pantries and you know things to get you over the hump I'm talking about empowerment. I'm talking about, you know, so now. giving you the fish but teaching you to fish and teaching you how to start your business by property, clear the title on the family home, all of those things that in our community, we often were not taught at home whereas in other communities, that's the education you get at home. Right and so we're we're left sometimes scrambling because our parents had no how to do it either. We have to redefine home home home for us has to be more of a village because maybe it didn't happen in your home but within your village we need to be we need to be sharing that information out within the village and not just in our home. Darryus can you tell us have you implemented any specific strategies in your own life or things you've observed in the community that have successfully helped to improve financial health what have you seen this worked? (papers rustling) (papers rustling) (papers rustling) (papers rustling) Uh-huh. (papers rustling) You all are doing absolutely incredible work. I'm excited to hear about what you're doing. There is, I do have to say, you threw me when you first said Magic City because I thought you were talking about Atlanta and I was like, "Wait a minute, this is a whole different kind of show." So I'm glad you cleared it. You're talking about, "I got it." But, okay, we're good. (papers rustling) I did not know that. (papers rustling) I was not gonna knock anybody's hustle, but I was like, "Oh, I was like, oh well, you know, I don't, okay. If my mom is listening, I'm sorry. Okay." (laughs) This has been incredible. You all are doing incredible work. I know we could have talked about any number of things as it relates to financial well-being. We got to the question on thriving and then really got into the resources piece. I would love to have you all back another time to talk about even more related to financial well-being 'cause we could talk about this forever. But I do wanna thank you for being here. And as we close out, I wanna go back to your definitions of what it means to thrive financially. And I would love for you to give our listeners one concrete thing that they could either start doing or stop doing this week that would move us toward that definition of financial, of thriving a financial well-being. So what's one concrete thing, not like an abstract, you should think about, but one like, go do this thing and that will move you one step closer towards thriving financially. Stephanie, I'm gonna start with you and then Darrys, I'll give you the last word. Well, I always do this in my financial workshops and that is to ask you to take an inventory of your financial strengths and weaknesses. So think about all the various aspects of personal finance and which ones have you been kind of running from and which ones do you feel like you're comfortable? And then once you identify, you know, that's the first step is identifying those weaknesses, put together a plan on how you're going to get stronger. - Thank you. And I would say, yeah, I would say go and find a financial expert and ask them for help. You know, that could be going to the bank and say, hey, do you know someone who can help me better understand money or my money? Or do you know someone who is offering some classes that will help me better manage what I do have? I think that seeking out financial help is a start for many people. So if you're someone out there who just doesn't know what to do or does not have an understanding of, you know, how money works, you know, how to save, how to set aside, how money flows, how it grows, what are some things that you can do, I would seek help. I go and find helpful resources with that so that you can be educated. - Thank you very much to both of you for those tips. And what we'll do is put some things on our website. We'll ask you all off the air for some recommendations and then, because I think those are concrete steps and I imagine somebody's saying, but what questions do I ask? Or do you have a link to a financial person or a link to a checklist so I can look at my, you know, my assets as it relates to how I manage wellness. So we'll put those on our website and that way people can at least have some place to start if they're saying, I'm ready, I wanna get started moving, but I need some help. So thank you to our incredible guests for helping us rethink what health really means and reminding us that optimal black health is about more than the absence of illness. It's about feeling whole, rested, connected and free. To our listeners, your version of optimal health is yours to define. Whether it starts with rest, movement, joy, boundaries or stillness, the key is that it starts with you. To learn more, follow us and visit councilbh.org. Be sure to subscribe and tune in for future episodes as we explore different dimensions of well-being. I'm Dr. Melissa Wicklover, thanks for listening to Reimagining Black Health.