When I look in the mirror, I see more than my milk chocolate skin color. I see the joys and traumas, the victories and defeats, and the pride and challenges of my life and the lives of generations that preceded me. I also see a woman with an easy smile, a heart full of love and compassion, empathy, creativity, and far too many worries. I see a woman who struggles with weight, hypertension, bad eyesight, and kidney disease. I see a mother and grandmother who is passionate about making the lives of the next generation better than her own. I see a human being who is concerned that mankind continues to fail black people and worse, that black people too often continue to fail ourselves. I see a woman who is tired but determined.
I learned early on that people and governments will disappoint me and that the only person I can rely on is myself. But at times, even I disappoint myself. I know as well as anyone that emotions often get in the way of doing what is good, right, and best for myself. For example, how many times have I sought comfort inside a bowl of potato chips? Too many times. However, I still consider myself one of the lucky ones.
Despite my shortcomings, I managed to get a good education, survive childbirth, retire from a good career, be happily married, be financially well off, and to live long enough to see my grandchildren. I didn’t need to be perfect to achieve this, just good enough and lucky enough to escape a few traps, dodge a few bullets, and circumvent a few pitfalls strategically laid to ensnare African Americans.
It’s disheartening to know that seventy percent of African Americans households are making less than $75,000 per year and are therefore not living as well as most Americans. According to Pew, 40% of African American households earn less than $30,000 per year. And having a household net worth over 1 million dollars puts me in the top 2% of black families while 20% of us live below the poverty level lets me know outside forces are actively at work. I fully recognize that a large part of my success can be attributed to pure luck (since God is no respecter of persons), but another part can be attributed to an alternative mindset I adopted, abandoning some aspects of black culture. I weaved together these desperate cultural attributes from my multicultural experience growing up and formed new habits that served me well. That’s what I want to talk about first.
I learned from my church friends to love God, to love others, to forgive, to walk humbly, to do justice, to be generous, and that faith without works is dead. From my alcoholic father, I learned to avoid alcohol and mind-altering substances, but I also learned the virtues of hard work, entrepreneurial endeavors, and to only buy property where the property values will rise. I learned from my mother that the pursuit of personal interests and talents was a worthwhile financial investment and to insist upon opportunities to prove the naysayers wrong. I learned from my Asian friends that competition can drive personal achievement upwards, and that competence has real world value. I learned from white people to value time and the efficient use of it and to watch my back. I learned from my Jewish friends to be frugal and to invest money and that investing is far better than spending. I learned from my Latino friends to value family relationships. I learned from my AKA sorority sisters that Black Girl Magic is real and that I’m not alone in wanting to improve black communities. I learned from my black friends and family to lean into color, creativity, and confidence. I learned from my international students that culture is a powerful driving force in human behavior, but that aspects of a culture can be rejected, revised, and eventually changed. Watching their transformation gave me hope.
As I was introduced to attributes from other cultures, I questioned some of the black cultural cues I absorbed growing up. For example, prior to attending school with a lot of Asians, high grades were easy to achieve because expectations were low, and the academic rigor was even lower. It was at the Asian elementary school that I came to understand that too much time spent playing sports, dancing, and listening to music jeopardized my academic achievement. Admittedly, my favorite past time before going to that school was watching television, listening to music, singing in the church choir, learning the newest dances, and playing sports. But I didn’t want to look stupid among my new classmates, so I had to change how I was spending my time. I wanted to compete academically, so I eventually spent less time singing, dancing, watching television and playing sports and a lot more time reading and studying. Surprisingly, I found that I enjoyed the acquisition of knowledge. I loved learning and the reward of high grades. I never abandoned the fun things, but they were no longer my biggest priority. However, among black family and friends, I became a lot less hip. I was known for (and not really appreciated) for my school smarts.
I learned from my father that home values increase more rapidly in white neighborhoods and that the free public schools are as good as the private schools in poor neighborhoods, so that is where we purchased homes. Since the fourth grade, I’ve only lived in white neighborhoods, and I think experiencing white culture (including being banned from the white neighborhood school) has helped me appreciate the vibrancy of black creativity and cuisine while also learning to navigate white spaces while fully understanding my “outsider” status.
Other encounters eventually shaped other aspects of my life as well. Spending time with my Jewish friends taught me that building wealth came from spending as little as possible on worthwhile products and investing as much as possible. Eventually, my investment growth outpaced my monthly income from my job. Latino encounters taught me to accept and enjoy the diversity of personalities within my family, to invest in family members, and not to cut ties with family members so easily. Growing up, I saw how easily ties were cut among black family and friends for offenses that went unforgiven. I saw jealously instead of financial investment in each other’s ideas. Beyond my family’s unique culture of investing in each other’s endeavors, I saw that pooling resources was like pulling teeth because there was too little trust in each other. I often asked my black college students if they could ask extended family to help them study abroad or pay for books and they said, “no”. The first time I studied abroad, the funds came from multiple extended family members. My mother helped me start a business and purchase my first house. I in turn helped my children with their endeavors and they in turn are willing and able to invest in each other without hesitation.
My point is that although African Americans in this country face very real problems with systemic racism, a few aspects of our culture work against our progress as a people. For example, our emphasis on sports and entertainment above academics, especially among our young males limits our educational and job prospects. Our obsession with fancy hair, fancy cars and expensive trendy clothes hampers our ability to purchase property and invest in the market. And finally, our lack of trust and loyalty to each other and the insane willingness to step on each other and even kill each other to preserve face or to get ahead is destroying us from within and ruining our collective reputation. I can say from the experience of my extended family that living in a black neighborhood is more dangerous, more expensive, less healthy, and more oppressive than living as a black family among whites. These are aspects of our culture that are within our power to change. However, other issues are harder to address.
For example, we are more prone to hypertension because of our genetics. Slave traders licked the faces of potential slaves to select the saltiest prospects because they were more likely to survive the middle passage. Those are the ancestors of most African Americans and account for our higher incidence of hypertension. However, our limited access to healthy foods, exposure to toxins, and inadequate healthcare have a lot to do with our poor health outcomes as well.
I have little faith in the government to improve our situation. In fact, Republican leaders are moving towards making things worse for us across the spectrum, including the removal of our historic contributions to this nation. In red states in the South where most of us reside (56%) the rollback of abortion rights will most negatively affect black women. We already have the highest abortion rates, but we also have the highest maternal mortality rates. Black women are three times more likely to die from complications in pregnancy and childbirth than white women. And of those born, the challenges they will face are enormous. But we are not helpless against these forces.
I advise my African American brothers and sisters to do the following: 1) Value, support and maintain relationships with each other by quickly forgiving forgivable trespasses; 2) Support leaders who uplift us by contributing to their campaigns and voting; 3) Stop wasting money and start saving and investing; 4) Move, eat better, avoid substances, and exercise; 5) Prioritize education in academic or trades; 6) Use birth control; 7) Work hard and seek promotion and better pay; 8) Know and understand your detractors; 9) Contribute to the community; 10) Keep the faith while doing the work.
People without boots have a difficult time pulling themselves up by them. I suggest we start putting on the boots we can find in our schools, among successful family members, and inside the few social programs remaining. And with a little luck and a few cultural tweaks, we can then start pulling ourselves up.