Imagine What Could Be
Imagine if our children did not have to start from scratch; if there was a nice family home for them to live in; college money or specialized training funds already set aside; if they inherited a family business; or received payments from a trust or annuity during key points of their lives? What if they were taught good business sense and could effectively manage their personal finances and in some cases businesses? What could they learn, build, contribute to society if they weren’t scraping just to get by? What dreams could they realize, or talents and gifts could the explore? What influence could they have and what change could they effect?
I don’t want to oversimply things. It takes effort, commitment, and sacrifice. But there are concrete things we could do now that will allow us to, to build wealth in our lifetime; to educate our children; build up our neighborhoods, and/or fund minority business startups? Not overnight, but year by year, we could make a change. And you can still live a very comfortable and fulfilling life. How empowering would that feel?
Our grandparents had the business sense to have life insurance policies, which they called burial polices. Life insurance is as basic as it gets. So, grandma and grandad; mama and daddy, tried. But many paid their whole lives into policies that turned out to be well below what they would need fifty years later. Others lost them along the way- as life happened. People in my generation (40-50 years old) depend on life insurance with work. The problem with that is, when we leave or lose our job, we lose our group life insurance. And still millions more die with no life insurance at all and leave their families to rely on Go-Fund-Me and the generosity of others to fund their arrangements. In each situation, the next generation has to start from scratch.
How do we as a people, build momentum to get to the next step, if each generation has to start at step one? I’ve heard people say, I got my own, they just have to get theirs. Or, I’ll be dead, so I won’t have to worry about that.
In a Washington Post article, The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968, authors Long and Van Dam say, “As of 2016, the most recent year for which data is available, you would have to combine the net worth of 11.5 black households to get the net worth of a typical white U.S. household… Wealth takes into account not just the wages that people earn for work, but homes, stock-market investments and other assets they have. More wealth makes for more a comfortable, safer living. And, more importantly, it is passed on to the next generation. Their parents’ wealth gives many white children an advantage many of their black peers lack.”[i]
There are no guarantees for what the future holds. Instead of letting that talk us out of it, maybe it will fuel us to be more aggressive about learning, about applying, and about teaching these principals to those coming behind us. This will mitigate negative outcomes. The alternative is to deprive another generation at “a boost at birth.” Remember, the wealthy do it, and other races and ethnic groups routinely pull this off, generation after generation. Black and brown fam, we can, too.
If you are like I was four years ago and never really thought about this much or were overwhelmed at the idea, I challenge you to join with a group or person you trust. Re-evaluate your money strategy and commit to taking a baby step, this week. Take it from me. It feels wonderful to see how even the simplest things change the course of our lives- and possibly generations to come.
Long, Heather; Van Dam, Andrew. “The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968.” Web blog post. Democracy Dies in Darkness. The Washington Post. 4 June. 2020. Web. 21 Apr. 2021.1
A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, But the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous. –Proverbs 13:22
