“We’re so far in debt because we ask two questions when we get a loan – “’What’s our interest rate and what’s our payment,’” said Ronnell Burns, regional vice president for Primerica Financial Services. “So you end up paying three times as much because you’ve been told to ask those questions. But it’s not the amount of the interest rate, it’s how long am I going to be exposed to it.”
He was speaking Saturday at the 3rd Annual MLK Financial Freedom Seminar hosted by the Society of Black Student Social Workers at Washington University’s George Warren Brown School of Social Work. The day-long seminar’s main theme was the mis-education of African Americans regarding financial practices that are passed down as tried and true, and which have been moving blacks further and further away from the horizon of financial freedom.
“This conference could not have come at a better time with respect to the topic, as millions of Americans are experiencing severe social and economic stresses in their everyday lives,” said keynote speaker Dr. Bessie House-Soremekun.
The financial savvy of the African-American community was up for dissection. On the first Saturday of Black History Month, Wash U.’s black social work student organization was hoping to help African Americans take control of their economic status.
“Many of the things that people in the community are doing is because they feel as if they don’t have any other alternatives,” said Shirley Emerson of the Third Ward Neighborhood council. “But when we meet with them and show them other ways that they can get things done and they can get banking services without going the route of the predators, it becomes very beneficial.”
Topics from home ownership, credit, financial planning, loans, debt reduction, life insurance were covered in a full day of workshops and presentations offered by industry professionals and educators.
“When the majority community gets a cough, the minority community catches the flu,” House-Soremekun said. “So you can imagine the greater impact that the minority community is facing at this time when their very survival is being pushed to the limits.”
According to the presentations, the difference between what blacks are doing and what they need to be doing is night and day. The economic struggles of African Americans have become systematic and greatly benefit the institutions that serve (or feed upon) the population.
“A financial institution is not interested in you becoming debt-free,” Burns said. “They want to keep you lifelong clients, continually refinancing over and over.”
Burns’ breakdown of the long-running exploitation of blacks in the life insurance industry was profound.
“They knock on doors and tell our community to get the type of policy where you can borrow from,” Burns said. “If you have to borrow, isn’t that a good indication that it doesn’t belong to you? They sell us a policy that tells us to borrow our own money, and we pay it back with interest. Isn’t that beautiful?”
While there was finger pointing at the mainstream regarding the financial status of the black community, there was also a cry to the crowd for accountability.
“I don’t want it to turn into excuses for people to keep from moving forward,” House-Soremekun said. “Because while there are many structural barriers, there are more opportunities today than every before in the history of this country for homeownership, business development, college education.”
She said a change in priorities and thinking is crucial for African Americans to move into a place of financial security.
“We have to reorientate our thinking – other communities have done it, and we have to do the same thing,” House- Soremekun said. “I don’t buy into the fact that you are too poor to save, even if it is a penny a day,”
The seminar illustrated that what black people don’t know will hurt them financially.
According to House-Soremekun, African Americans don’t always speak with one voice and the lack of unity and trust has hindered their economic growth.
“How in the world can we get someone to put a thousand dollars on the table when we don’t trust each other?” House-Soremekun said. “We have to talk about how we can operate collectively as a unit, like every ethnic unit in this country that has survived and thrived. It’s about sharing information, because if you succeed, I succeed.”