Generational Wealth Management
Why Black Wealth Matters in White America by Kayla McCullough
Photo by Joslyn Pickens from Pexels
A close examination of wealth in the United States reveals staggering racial disparities between black and white households. In his latest essay - Why Black Wealth Matters in White America - Solomon Ali, Private Equity Investor, confronts the love/hate relationship that most people have with wealth and what blacks must learn in order to survive in the new economy. Mr. Ali and his team have managed and successfully closed more than 140 mergers and acquisitions and arranged more than $250 million in structured investment capital. Mr. Ali is CEO of NDR Energy Group, one of the largest minority-owned energy companies in the United States, and CEO of Revolutionary Concepts, holder of multiple technology patents licensed by smart home companies including RING by Amazon and SkyBell. Mr. Ali is the host of the podcast, MBA: Minority Business Access.
In his essay, Mr. Ali dives into the rules of the wealthy and explores the reasons why many black and brown people have not accumulated any substantial savings. His reason behind the lack of understanding between the nature of money and how it works is in fact because of the systematic racism that has been passed down from generation to generation. Because black Americans have been shut out of the financial system for years and years, wealth has not been able to be accumulated or passed down from generation to generation. Why Black Wealth Matters in White America brings light to many things regarding stigmas around wealth, one, in particular, being - getting wealthy is not easy, but it is simple. Solomon states, “It is not easy, because it requires the ability to delay gratification, however, the rules are quite simple – you must always position yourself as a lender in some capacity because the lender always wins.” This statement comes from his example on how to get wealthy, “The best approach is to leverage your creativity, intelligence, and your network. Pool your resources and partner with people to accomplish the same end, and you would hire someone to form your own company and structure your group deal. My personal belief is to position yourself as the creditor in whatever you invest your money into. You are still considered to be an investor, but you are not investing in equity, you are loaning out money as a creditor so that you stay in first position to collect, no matter the outcome.”
It’s true about what they say, “the wealthy think differently.” In his essay, Mr. Ali touches on how the wealthy have a different mindset. He details out that earning a lot of money will not make you wealthy. In his opinion, someone will never out-earn their lack of financial education or their bad money habits. He states, “…it is like trying to out-exercise your lack of nutritional knowledge or your bad eating habits; it is exhausting to take two steps forward and three steps back, not to mention futile.” This educational essay lectures that wealth is the result of applied knowledge, discipline, behavioral patterns, and time, more than it is about a specific income. “The higher the income, the more opportunities to save and invest, but behavior, values, and discipline are the ultimate deciding factors.”
The black-white wealth gap does indeed reflect a society that does not equate equal opportunities to all of its citizens. Throughout his journey, Mr. Ali has found that the fate of everyone’s finances ultimately relies on one’s ability to establish a committed tie to the concepts he has laid out in his essay Why Black Wealth Matters in White America.
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