[Music] [Music] [Applause] good morning good morning i remember the very first time i ever flew on a plane let me paint the picture for you the year was 2 000 i was 22 years old i had survived the threat that was y2k for those of you old enough to remember what that was and here i am flying to the other side of the ocean to do a summer internship in london now oddly enough one of the memories that has stayed with me the most from my time in the united kingdom it wasn't you know seeing big ben or visiting buckingham palace it was riding the tube system which is this train network in london and you would think for a guy that grew up in the south side of chicago riding the train really wouldn't be that big of a deal oh man it was you see what made it so interesting i was absolutely fascinated by the fact that there are all these signs and automated messages that kept repeating the same three words over and over again mind the gap i remember thinking to myself wow people in london must be very ignorant and clueless if they actually have to be told that there's a gap from when you get on a train and step off of the train i was even from london and i could very clearly see that there was a gap there it's pretty obvious why was everybody else struggling to see something that i thought was obvious and more importantly why did they need to be reminded so often you know it took a london or friend of mine to explain she said that sometimes people can get so caught up in their own daily lives and their own issues that they can become distracted and they can ignore the gap in the dangers it represents so they need to be reminded i wonder are you blind to a gap just like those londoners in that tube system we too can be blind to gaps that exist around us blind to gaps and disparities that exist even in our own communities blind to gaps because they've become so commonplace so a part of our everyday lives that we just forget that they exist i want to do for you today what those mind the gap signs do for millions of people that travel the train system in london i want to inform and remind you of a gap that often goes unnoticed but if left unchecked will continue to negatively impact people's lives the gap that i'm referring to impacted my parents life it impacted my life and without you even realizing it it's impacted your life as well the gap that i'm referring to is the racial wealth gap that exists in america today for hundreds of years black families have been denied the proper channels to create wealth and pass it on generationally which has created a gap in wealth that now falls along racial lines let's talk about it well how big is the gap well according to a 2019 survey of consumer finance conducted by the federal reserve board the typical white household has eight times the wealth of the typical black household and five times the wealth of the typical hispanic household if we look at median net worth the median net worth for white families in the u.s sits at a hundred and eighty eight thousand two hundred dollars compared to black families whose median net worth sits at twenty four thousand one hundred dollars black families own less than thirteen percent of the wealth that white families own let me put it another way you would have to combine the net worth of eight black families to equal the net worth of just one typical white u.s household further data from that same survey shows that african americans make up roughly 13 percent of the nation's total population yet own less than three percent of the nation's total wealth and these disparities in wealth continue even when you factor in things like age education and occupation when discussing the injustices of the racial wealth gap amongst communities of color economist kuhn stiller constins in a 2018 paper on income and wealth inequality in america said this the historical data reveal that no progress has been made in reducing income and wealth inequalities between black and white households over the past 70 years really think about that statement there has been no progress made since 1951. the racial wealth gap that we face is not just a black problem or a minority problem it is an american problem whenever one group of our population is constrained from growing wealth and contributing to our economy then we all suffer and all of our growth as a country is being hindered in 2019 mckenzie and company did a research report titled the economic impact of closing the racial wealth gap and in this report they found that the wealth gap has a constricting effect on the u.s economy that it dampens investment in production and that the gap is gonna actually cost the us economy between one and one and a half trillion dollars between 2019 and 2028. mackenzie and company further estimated that by closing the racial wealth gap that we could increase us gdp by four to six percent by 2028. let me put that in plain english that's a lot of numbers and stats what that really means is that for every man woman and child in america you are missing out on literally thousands of dollars that should be in your wallets the gap is costing all of us increased standards of living and more opportunities so for your sake i want to remind you mind the gap so why does the gap exist and has it gotten so large and gone virtually unchanged for so long sometimes people will jump to conclusions and assume that the gap is the result of cultural issues facing the black community oh why don't you just focus more on education why don't you just focus more on family why don't you just work harder it's always easy to blame the people instead of confronting the problem i want to challenge all of those assumptions today by asking you to look at this issue through a different lens imagine if you would two relay runners getting ready to start a race the first relay runner takes off as soon as the gun goes off pow and they start running as fast as they can and starts passing the baton the second runner is forced to stay at the starting gate for five minutes before being allowed to run well the outcome is exactly what you would expect the first runner and every runner that comes after that runner is going to be much further ahead in the race than the second runner and the people that came after them generational wealth in the creation of wealth works much the same way it's a compounding domino effect the reason we have a gap can be seen in the very structural makeup of the american economy and the policies that we've passed you see policies and laws can have either a positive or a negative impact on somebody's ability to create wealth and if policies historically favor one group more than another then it creates a bridge in creating wealth that's hard to fix this is a hard truth but the truth is america's economic policies have been infused with racism and discriminatory practices since its founding and it's the compounding effect over the years of these policies that have hindered black families from being able to create wealth policies for example like the black codes the black codes were a strict set of state and local laws that detailed when where and how formerly enslaved people could work and for how much policies like jim crow laws which were a collection of statutes that legalized racial segregation until 1968. discrimination in policies like the gi bill the gi bill was passed after world war ii to help veterans get acclimated to being citizens again and it did this by providing them access to things like home loans financial education financial support etc but because of the way the program was structured black veterans did not benefit from this program nearly as much for example let's say you had a black veteran and they qualified for a loan under the gi bill they still had to contend with racist policies like redlining now maybe you've heard of redlining but if not don't worry i'm going to tell you how it works so under redlining banks and insurers would color code maps of american cities and neighborhoods and they denied funding loans and refused to sell homes to black people and forced them to live in redlined areas of the city that they deemed poor and undesirable they even restricted funding from going into these red line neighborhoods and areas of the city this process was a legally bagged way to channel money and resources away from the black community and in my observation over my career i've observed that many of the same neighborhoods that were formerly red-lined neighborhoods looked them up they still struggle with poverty and stagnant home growth to this day so i say again why in the gap so how do we close the gap it's a complex issue it dates back hundreds of years and it's been held in place by policies and laws that have evolved and changed with time maybe we do need more financial education now i'm an advocate of financial education i've been an advocate for close to 20 years and i even started my own organization to promote the power of financial literacy but let me be very clear changes in individual behavior while needed are not enough and will not close the racial wealth gap the gap that we all face was created by a compounding effect of implicit racist policies and if policies got us into this situation then we have to turn again to systematic structural policy to help close the gap i'd like to present you with three options that i believe help move us in the right direction first we need to create programs and policies that channel money resources and education into communities that have been historically hindered the proper channels for creating wealth now these programs need to focus on what i call the bang for the buck issues things that hold potential to close the gap for us so for example getting more people in the african-american community banked versus unbanked so according to research and work done by the directors council in their 2020 january edition of the blueprint we see that in des moines 32 of black des moines iowa residents are under banked while 22 are unbanked now compare that to the statewide average of thirteen and a half and three percent respectively now when you're unbanked under bank that means you're more likely to utilize alternative financial products like check cashing places payday loans money orders etc by creating programs that focus on helping these individuals get banked and we allow them the opportunity to use more traditional banking products and stop paying these predatory usery rates at these alternative lenders a second area that we should strengthen is home ownership we should invest more in down payment assistance first-time homebuyer programs specifically targeting these areas and neighborhoods that were formerly redlined neighborhoods if we look at the work done in the vacancies and home ownership report by the census bureau we see that the current rate of home ownership for white americans sits at 74 and a half percent compared to black households the rate of homeownership is just 44.1 one of the driving factors in wealth creation is home ownership because it gives you the opportunity to take that home and the income from that home and pass it down to the next generation and pass the baton and give them a financial head start there's one other option that i would like to let people know about is just one word acknowledgement we we have to acknowledge our past and acknowledge the histories that have been done so that we can forge and create laws that counteract the negative policies and the negative laws that we've been dealing with in her book the some of us heather mcgee writes this statement that i love she says wealth is where history shows up in your wallet i love that statement i want to show you a picture of my my family this is my mother and my father daisy and leon jackson they were born in the 1940s and grew up in the deep south of mississippi and arkansas they lived through many of the same policies that i just talked to you about history showed up in their wallets and eventually showed up in mind it impacted the neighborhood that i grew up in which was a formerly red line neighborhood in chicago i'm the first generation in my family to not pick or touch cotton since slavery i'm the first generation in my family to go to college and get a master's degree i'm the first generation in my family to have a real understanding of money in economics i'm the first generation in my family to be born with all of my rights protected by law i'm the first generation in my family to get past the baton and it's 20 21. is closing the racial wealth gap difficult yes it is but it's possible it's possible if we come together as a country and and and confront the injustices that have been done to so many of its own citizens if we're brave enough if we're bold enough that we can pass laws and policies that forge a brighter future for those of us still yet to come so i close by leaving you with just three very simple words mind the gap thank you you