No matter if you’re reading this during Black History Month, Juneteenth or a day ending in “y”, the perception African Americans have always been an interesting one to watch and honestly, live out. Reaching for centuries, our culture has not only endured racism but also restrictions when it has come to wealth generation. Honestly, I never thought that this would become like an annual thought piece that could hold statistics, but both previous entries have set the groundwork for this one. I kept pondering what I could write about this year and then I happened to be scrolling through Twitter one day and came across this via CNBC -

Yes, that tweet was the headline to an article that the typical narrative that we see in the media often portray about African Americans when it comes to wealth. The article stated that we not only lacked participation in investing within securities (stocks), but they used insights from 2019. The pandemic was just getting started in 2019. And to give context that our lack of participation investing could set the stage for how we were to build wealth post-pandemic lacked telling the full story about African Americans.

In true me fashion, I took to flip the overview context of what this article was talking about to drill down some statistics from my review of the Black Investor Survey of 2020 (released in 2021). Within the context of their article they referenced this stat: “Only 34% of Black American households owned equity investments as compared with 61% of white families” which came from a study by the Federal Reserve Board in 2019. And if you click the link from the Ariel Investments and Charles Schwab study (Black Investor Study), you will see those figures higher for demographics collectively and zoned in on ages around 40.

One thing I did agree with was this call out: “The primary way that Americans build wealth and invest is through retirement plans, and there have been enormous racial disparities in that area.” Yes, there are racial disparities not just for wealth but for just being African American in general. But while we’re talking about wealth, let’s talk about the context around the ‘participation’ that was referenced in the article. You see, right after that 2019 survey was released more than likely the pandemic started. And a good bit of African Americans found themselves out of work because of it and those who were still working found themselves unable to afford inflation due to the wage gap that many face. For many, being able to participate in investing comes down to confidence, community and coin. And for the collective many aren’t able to invest in the stock market due to not making enough money to do so or contribute to retirement due to that % could mean a difference in how much they can budget for the month ahead. 

Another thing that I wish CNBC brought up was another P - positioning. You see - many African Americans need to be in better positions and learn about personal finance to leverage their wealth building. No matter if it’s REIT or Retirement. While I love to see The Culture implementing buying the block while there’s zones and red tape that could be blocking them from doing so due to the fact that deeper pockets want that same plot of land. Learned of this going on with Morris Brown while they go through their Reset campaign.

There’s even articles now that highlight how we are the ones unbanked and soon to be un-crypto’ed. While there are some articles that call out how many of us are finding wealth within the crypto space. When with the same scroll of Twitter, I see many winning at NFT’s, DAOs and start-ups with hues that match mine. I also see many investing and leveraging their company backed retirement funds to help build stronger Golden Years than what their Parents and Grandparents could even imagine due to  — lack of pay and positioning. Those two things slow the pace to that perception of lack of participation that is often called up African Americans or even POC. 

You see, CNBC and America articles like these articles don’t help close the wealth gap of over 200 years that was widened with the burning of Tulsa. They only magnify what we know, see and live as we push the needle forward. We have to FUBU’ed it along with having Allies who help while reading articles with statistics listing no solutions. 

While I often cite CNBC for Stock and Personal Finance, I couldn’t scroll past this one.