This is Black History Month, so I’m focusing this article on African Americans but the knowledge contained herein can benefit anyone. The wealth gap is widening and African Americans need to learn new strategies for building wealth. “Median black household income was 59% of median white household income in 2011, up modestly from 55% in 1967; as recently as 2007, black income was 63% of white income.” [Source: PEW] It is often said that African Americans are a nation of consumers instead of creators. However, our survival depends on us changing from primarily being consumers to being the suppliers and creators of the products and services we consume.
African Americans have a projected buying power of $1.1 trillion by 2015. That’s a lot of dough to be distributed. Wealth is not a dirty or evil word reserved for those who are lucky, greedy, or lazy and seeking to take advantage of others! Wealth is a vital birthright that offers the freedom to make choices that allow us to live joyful and fulfilling lives. Everyone has the right to life in dignity and to pursue their dreams.
Watching my stepmother get denied medical services at age 85, and watching her toes blacken and almost rot off as she screamed in pain, taught me a very valuable lesson. Poverty is not pretty, spiritual, or dignified. She could not afford the care she desperately needed to live in dignity and I was powerless to help her. It takes money to help those you love, to choose the medical care of your choice, to buy the materials, training, and resources we need to excel in our crafts, to invest in our businesses, to give to charity, to tithe generously, to eat healthily, to travel, to vacation, to be there mentally for our families, or to live in safe and beautiful neighborhoods.
Growing up, I had only been trained how to trade time for dollars, which rarely if ever, builds wealth. At times my father was an entrepreneur, and during those times we worked even harder. I realized that if I kept following that old paradigm I would be destined to end up like those written about in a recent Forbes article, The Greatest Retirement Crisis in American History, which dismally projects that 75% of those now approaching retirement have less than $30,000 in savings. And, that paltry amount won’t last that long, with the average nursing home stay (God forbid) being around $248.00 a day or $90,000 a year. So for that reason, as well as, the dollar declining since 1972, and the cost of living projected to double over the next decade, the vast majority of people today are forced to delay their retirement. I did not grow up around wealth nor did my parents talk about wealth or teach me about it. They taught me to work hard, so I know how to do that. They worked hard their entire lives and still only barely eked out a living and died practically penniless. They could not teach me what they did not know. They did not know that the only way to build wealth was to have money work for you or people work for you. That explains why the majority of small black entrepreneurs fail to build wealth either. They are primarily sole proprietors and thus still trading time for money. To continue to part two, click here.
Warren Buffet advises aspiring wealth builders to have multiple streams of income. Speaking, authorship, and training is my passion work. I love doing it! But, I’ve learned that if I stop speaking or training, the income also stops. I too want the freedom that comes with wealth, to be able to work with populations who can’t afford me, to be able to help my children and grandchildren, and to not have to worry about retirement after raising six children and working over 50 years already.
Email me for more information about how to bring me in to speak to your group, OR train your employees. Luck has very little to do with wealth, but timing has everything to do with it. What if you had been able to be part of the beginning of Google, Facebook, and Microsoft? How would your life be different now? You missed them but you haven’t missed them all. Email me to learn more about Talkfusion, a disruptive technology poised to be the next billion dollar brand. I’ll direct you to an on-line presentation that explains it all.
Barbara Talley
To your wealth
barbara.talley@gmail.com
ESPN Commenter Parker made the remark that Robert Griffin (RGIII) wasn’t black enough and the Stuff#*@ hit the fan. As a celebrity, he’s now a proud member of the “Black, but Not Black Enough Club” joining the likes of POTUS Obama, Tiger Woods, Clarence Thomas, and OJ Simpson. Comments flew from outraged people from both sides of the fence; some were agitated that ESPN would censor the black commenter from speaking his mind and others incensed that we’re still talking race in 2012. Robert Parker called out Griffin on the air, asking: ”Is he a brother, or is he a cornball brother?” Some of Parker’s rationale for calling RGIII “NOT black enough” was his engagement to a white woman, talk of him being a Republican, and that he was “not real.” One African-American person commenting on the ordeal on 
So, just what does it mean to not be “black enough?” While it was the most recent controversy between two high profile black men in sports that brings this question to the forefront, the questions of race and identity and what it means to be black have never been sufficiently addressed. First of all, I’m not into sports, so the fact that RGIII is a celebrity, makes little difference to me. But the race and identity discussion does catch my attention, since I am African-American, I work in Diversity, and this question unfortunately hits too close to home. As a mother, I’ve been dealing with this issue on behalf of my children for decades unabated. My fifteen year old daughter was outraged just a few months ago when she experienced this in her “magnet school” that lacks much diversity. A kid at her school told her she wasn’t black like the kids at a different school. I too faced this same challenge as a child when my father took us from the north to the south while doing migrant work. My sisters and I were often mocked and ridiculed by the other kids who said, “We talked proper.” It didn’t stop there, many times in my career have I heard the ignorant comment, “You’re different!” What’s that supposed to mean? Although it was usually meant as a compliment, it left me with the same distaste as it did as a child. I interpreted that comment as:”I’ve got this definition of what it is to be black, and you don’t fit it!” Rather than the person admitting that perhaps their definition of blackness was flawed, instead I was the anomaly. “I was different!” So I got it from both sides, both black and white.
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