Is Financial Independence a White Privilege? Part 1 - Episode 27

Join us on a thought-provoking journey as we delve into the question: Is financial independence a white privilege? In this podcast, we aim to examine the complex interplay between race, socioeconomic status, and the pursuit of financial freedom. Hear an honest discussions, valuable insights, and a call to action as we uncover the truth about financial independence and its relationship to privilege. It's time to break down barriers and pave the way for a more equitable and inclusive financial future for everyone.

Check out Jeff’s Is Financial Indepence a White Privildege article.

About Our Guest: Jeff is a former Naval officer who lost everything in the 2008 market crash, the same year he was honorably discharged. After a couple years of scraping by and living on credit card advances, he landed a stable government job in 2010 and started to rebuild. 13 years later, he's approaching a net worth of $900,000 and his story can provide hope.

In Part 1 of this episode, we discuss the following:

• Financial Independence as a White Privilege

• Challenging Social Norms and Embracing Financial Responsibility

• Leveraging the GI Bill for Financial Advantage

• The Power of Surrounding Yourself with Like-Minded Individuals

• Normalizing Wealth and Creating Representation
  
  

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00]

Naseema: Hello, my financially intentional people. I'm super honored to be joined by Jeff Underwood of Homo Money. We are going to dive into the very interesting topic of financial independence being possibly a white privilege. And I just think that it's just something to consider whether you agree or disagree, it really doesn't matter.

What it really does is help us understand. Like the racial wealth gap and what contributes to that in this country. And be able to have a conversation around like what is true financial independence. So Jeff, thank you so much for joining me. I'm so excited about getting to have a conversation with you about this.

And just for background, like this is a subject that you [00:01:00] presented as one of your master's projects in school for like a critical thinking class. But you also put it on your social media platform, homo Money. So let's talk about, a little bit about your background, how and why you chose this topic and kind of what the revelations that you discovered in researching this.

Jeff: Yeah. Well, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here, to have this conversation and hoping that it can maybe bridge some gaps for a lot of other people who maybe they're afraid to even to bring it up, with their friends and colleagues. I started my blog Homo Money a couple years ago during the pandemic, and it was because I felt alone, to be honest.

I had just gone through a breakup and I had some friends that I considered family. They were like part of my covid bubble, and because I was the guy who was the money nerd I feel like my friend, our [00:02:00] mutual friends ended up going with my ex and because he was the fun one who had all this debt, but he was still fun and still liked to go out and

Naseema: is always the fun ones. Be irresponsible.

Jeff: And then I'm being faulted for wanting to think about my future and be financially intentional and not just blow money.

As soon as somebody you know has some kind of idea of let's go. Do something that we could easily do at home or we could, do we have to get the bottomless mimosas at the bar can, or can we do that at home before we go out to the brunch place? Little things like that. Because I was the guy who always wanted to go to happy hour, and I would say, Hey, if we're gonna go out to dinner, can we just go out like an hour earlier?

And then they would make fun of me. Cause they're like, oh yeah, Jeff wants to save $1 on his beer. It's not just the drinks. It's like sometimes they have food discounts too, and those can be like half the price of if you go

Naseema: Oh, I love a good happy hour. Listen, preaching to the choir.

Jeff: and I [00:03:00] don't want to go out to dinner one time and it's like, all right, I blew my whole budget for the whole week. Like I would rather go out multiple times if I can just be a little bit more intentional and then kind of choose those hours, when they do have a good happy hour.

So I think that my blog was born out of this sense of Well, I feel isolated and alone and alienated just like everybody did during Covid.

But it felt amplified because it was like, well, not only am I isolated at home, but I also feel isolated by this friend's circle that I used to consider family because and it made me reflect and think, well, if I'm so different because I am this money nerd who actually wants to be responsible with my money and not just for the sake of building this big pile of cash, but so that I can have freedom for myself.

If I am considered weird and odd because of that. Well, then I'm just gonna embrace that I'm gonna create a brand about that and [00:04:00] hopefully I can normalize wealth and living a rich life for the L G B T community. And then hopefully I can shine a light where then they'll kind of have a place to go and I can create community the same way that you seem to be on a mission creating representation of normalizing black wealth.

So

Naseema: Yes. Yes. I love it.

Jeff: yeah, so that's what got me started. And then do you want me to go into some of my discoveries or revelations from doing this research on.

Naseema: Yeah. Let's talk about like how this started. So first of all, when did you go back to school, decide to get your master's and then, how did this paper idea come

Jeff: Yeah. Again, like being Mr. Money nerd and being all about optimizing every opportunity and being a hustler, not wanting to let an opportunity pass by, because

after the financial trauma of losing everything in 2010, like losing more than everything, or not only had I lost my one rental property, my house my [00:05:00] job because I had gotten honorably discharged, but like I started living off of credit card advances.

I had spent all of my 401k money. I had cashed that out and then I started the credit card advances. So I was actually $10,000 in debt when I started my government job. Which was my lifeline in 2010. That financial trauma was like so impactful for me that I like swore to myself I'm never going to put myself in that position again.

I'm going to live a modest lifestyle as long as possible. And so I lived with two roommates for 10 years. Even as my income started to go up, even as I started to get multiple streams of income, like I kept that modest lifestyle and had a very low cost of living and drove the same used car for 16 years.

Just upgraded to a new one like last year. But it was still like, I still wasn't gonna break the bank on a new car. Like I still got a reasonable car, like $29,000.[00:06:00]

Naseema: Nice. Nice. Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah, the I think that my story of losing everything that was part of wanting to I guess kind of process it and understand okay, if I'm starting to get on top of this whole money issue, like maybe there's some gems there that I can share with other people and maybe my story of what I'm doing.

I thought it was unique. I didn't know that the whole idea of house hacking existed. I was, I didn't own the place where I lived, so I guess I could say I was apartment hacking by having two roommates. And so I thought all of that stuff was like, oh I'm one of the few people doing it, not even knowing that the community existed.

And to answer your question about the the master's degree. So I got my bachelor's from usc, graduated in 2001 from film school, go Trojans.

Naseema: Yes.

Jeff: And luckily I graduated with no student loan debt because I had a R O T C scholarship. So I served for [00:07:00] six years in the Navy. And after getting out, that's when I, had that financial trauma of losing everything because of the market collapse.

And then got my new job, which I still have. In 2010, started rebuilding. And in the back of my mind I always felt like, all right, I've got this GI Bill benefit where I can get free education and a housing allowance, but how am I gonna make this work because I'm working full-time. Are there any programs I could even do while I'm working full-time?

For the longest time I thought this benefit I had 15 years before it would expire When I got out and I thought, this is gonna expire on me, I really want to use this so it doesn't go to waste. And so I happened to hear about a program at National University where it was designed for people who were working professionals night and weekend classes and condensed.

So you had one class per month. So then I looked into [00:08:00] that and got started five years ago. And then I just got one master's degree in HR management. Cause I thought that might be a new like career pivot for me. And then after that they were advertising, they had a new marketing master's.

Then I was like, oh, well I already do video production and graphic design. So then I got a mass, a marketing master's and then and then I was like, okay, I finished that and I was like, I am done with school. I think I'm gonna never go to school again. And then I moved into this new condo two years ago and it was tight.

Like my cost of living was a little bit, it was uncomfortable cuz I was used to being able to max out my 401k, my Roth ira, and doing the whole anti budget where I paid myself first. And then I usually had enough to cover everything else. So then I was like, oh, this is not comfortable. I wanna be able to max out my retirement accounts and then have plenty [00:09:00] left over to live life.

So then

I was like, all right, I've got a year left of GI Bill, I'll get one more degree. And everybody's looking at me like I'm crazy. Why are you getting another degree? Why do you need another degree? Well, first off it's not really that I need a degree. It's like that housing allowance is tax free.

And in California it was like, I don't know, over $2,000 a month. So like to me, I'm like, I'm gonna hustle. Like it's gonna be tough burning the camel at both ends. It's like a second job, at least I'm getting paid for that second job.

Naseema: Explain how the GI bill the housing allowance works with the GI Bill. For people that

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

You can look up the military pay scale and you get paid the equivalent of what an E five with dependents would get paid by the military. And so that pay is gonna vary depending on where you [00:10:00] live. So if you're in San Francisco, you're gonna get like the top tier housing allowance, whereas if you're like, in the Midwest where I'm from, it's gonna be a lot less.

So it really since I'm already in San Diego, I'm in a high cost of living, like I wanted to max that out. And so you get the highest possible housing allowance with when it's an onsite Program. It has to be like for a degree or a certification to qualify. But yeah, that was the other thing, like if you do an online degree, then they figure, well, you can probably do that anywhere.

So you're n you don't justify getting the full housing allowance. And then I think it was like, worked out to be maybe like 800 a month. But yeah, doing an onsite program. It was like closer to $2,000 a month tax free.

Naseema: The, that is crazy. I, how did not know that existed? Like I need to follow more military bloggers. Cause I'm just like, what? That's crazy. So you. Get paid to go to [00:11:00] school and then you get a housing allowance by the time, four of the time you're in school, but you can also work.

Jeff: so you know, tuition is totally covered. And then on top of that, they give you that housing allowance cuz they figure as a full-time student you might not be able to work while you're going to school. So like my thing is, well if they give it to me, being a full-time student, I'm gonna find a way to make this work.

I'm gonna keep working full-time and then I will just take on the equivalent of what a full-time student would be doing. So I get that full housing allowance paid out to me.

Naseema: Wow. Talk about a hack. I love it. I love it. Okay. I learned

Jeff: Yeah. And that was

three years. So you

figure $2,000 in one year that would be 24,000. So then ma multiplied by three years, that was about, $72,000 tax free that I was able to pull together. And that pretty much was the bulk of [00:12:00] my. Rental property that I bought it was like seven years ago.

I put 20% down and then my primary residence where I live now, I put 10% down. And having that money was pretty much like what gave me the ability to be able to purchase both. And then my full-time job essentially just allowed me to max out my retirement accounts and then have enough to still enjoy life and travel and do all that.

Naseema: Wow, that's incredible. So I was wondering how you gotta coast by. Cause we talked about that pre-show, jeff is cos by right now, meaning that he has enough in his retirement accounts that he doesn't have to contribute anymore for him to be able to live off of the funds in his retirement comfortably.

And so that makes a lot of sense. So your housing expenses were basically covered by your housing allowance. You didn't have to pay for school and you were using your income to maximize your retirement accounts. I [00:13:00] think that is so freaking genius and I love it. See? Yeah. These are the people that you need to be surrounded with.

But

I understand why, people will wanna be with the fun person because it's that's normal, right? And being broke is normal, you guys. And one of the things that I tell people when they ask me like, well what really, how do I get started on building wealth? I'm like, you know what?

She gotta change her circle of

And like we were talking about, the people that you surround yourself with. If you surround yourself with people who live under this consumer mentality, which is really easy to do because those are the messages that, we're inundated with. But if you surround yourself when people who are focused on building wealth, cutting expenses, maximizing the benefits, and using them to their full potential that they have access to, then you're gonna change your, the way that you approach money.

And that's more [00:14:00] important than any kind of investing calculator. I can show you budgeting worksheet, any kind of, tool that I can give you to optimize your wealth because it's about the mindset shift that happens when you're surrounded by people who are doing things that you aspire to.

Jeff: And you know that how that military housing allowance is a perfect example of that nasima, because I think the average person in the military would say all right, well the military's gonna pay me $2,000 a month. Now it's probably, in San Diego, it's probably closer to $3,500 a month. Because, housing has gone up so much in the last few years.

But let's say the average person says, oh, well they're paying me $3,500 a month for housing, therefore, well then I need to find a place. Or I can, I'm allowed to find a place that's up to $3,500 just for myself, cuz that's what they're giving me money for. And so After that financial trauma of losing everything.

I knew like, all right, when I have this extra housing allowance coming to me, [00:15:00] that doesn't mean that I'm gonna be spending $2,000 for a place to myself, like I'm gonna keep renting this bedroom. That was like, it started out at $600 a month. I kept that same place renting with two other roommates for over 10 years.

Even when I had a housing allowance coming in, I wasn't using that housing allowance to allow myself to have lifestyle creep and then start having a more expensive lifestyle to, to live in a more expensive place. Like I knew how valuable that little bit of extra was, so I wasn't gonna squander it because I had already lost everything.

Naseema: Oh my god. That's just gems. Like seriously, because that's what most people do. Well, I have $3,500 to spend on housing, so that's what I'm gonna spend while on myself. Not okay. What would this allow me to afford and then be able to minimize my housing costs? Like I can understand if you were like, okay, now I have 3,500, I can get a three [00:16:00] bedroom apartment and actually have my roommates pay for the apartment in pocket, that whole 3,500.

But no, it's just oh no, this is what I can afford, so this is what I'm gonna get is usually the mentality that people have. And yep, it's about who you surround yourself

with.

yeah.

Jeff: So I went from less than zero, like 10,000 in debt in 2010 to now. It's 13 years later and I'm at 930 something thousand. I figure I'll probably hit a million in the next few months and,

Naseema: Yes.

Jeff: Thank you. I like to share the, those numbers because people who have known me from the beginning are just like shocked cuz they knew when I was like so destitute on the verge of am I gonna be homeless?

Is that gonna be, because there was a time, honestly, Naima, when I thought trying to make ends meet as a self-employed video producer, I thought, I could actually save a lot of money if I showered at the gym. And then if [00:17:00] I just slept in my car imagine I wouldn't have to pay rent. I didn't even, it didn't even occur to me like, Jeff, you're thinking about becoming homeless.

I didn't even think that's homelessness. And I was like, well, that would, I thought that would be easier because then it would be a lower cost of living. That's how down and out I was. I made $10,000 one year trying to be self-employed in the great recession.

Naseema: Ooh, that's hard. That's hard. Like that's, I, we talked a little bit about mindset before the show also, and I think, if that's what you think is possible, the, you have those limitations that you self-imposed, but only because you probably have seen or heard somebody that made that work for them.

And so that must be a guy thing cuz the only time I hear people talking about that are like, guys that I can never do that. But you're not the first person that I [00:18:00] heard this is the way I'm gonna cut expenses. And I'm just like, oh my God. There's only men that say that. But it's like the mindset shift that you went from hold on actually.

We can do this another way. I have access to this. I can do this. This is my potential. I have all this experience and maybe entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship ain't for me right now. Get this good government job real quick while I stack my money and now you can do whatever you want.

And I just wanna highlight again what you said, Jeff, that it only took you 13 years to go from a negative network to being almost a millionaire. And it didn't become because of some crazy windfall. It just came from you maximizing the opportunities that were in front of you and not inflating your lifestyle.

And those things aren't hard and those things are accessible for most

Jeff: Yeah. And my net worth [00:19:00] is I would say about half of that. Came from real estate. So I think that's a really important point to highlight because like we were talking about before the interview started one of the things that I was shocked by that was redlining. And I had never been exposed to that idea until I saw the Netflix special the racial wealth gap.

And so when I learned about that like not only were black Americans kept out of certain neighborhoods where they would have some upward mobility with better school systems and better jobs, but then when they got alone, they were being charged higher interest rates too. They were really being exploited

Naseema: And even like in even those VA benefits that you were able to access weren't being black people coming out in the military weren't able to access those during those

Jeff: Oh wow.

Naseema: My dad was one. Yeah, so that was part of the redlining as

Jeff: Wow.

Naseema: Yeah, so even to [00:20:00] access education, they would get put like thrown through loops.

Oh no, you, this isn't available for you. No, you can't access these housing allowances. It was a lot of that, that was going on at the same time as well. And so that's where the Fair Housing Act kind of came into play later on down the line, but it was like compounded, it wasn't just like one thing, like you can't buy a house in this neighborhood.

It was like you said, you can't buy a house and where you can buy a house, even though. The property values are less because, everybody is moving out of there. It's not a desirable area. Now you have to pay more for your loan, even if you do qualify for the same loans. And

like you couldn't have couldn't access FHA loans, which were given at a lower interest rate, which lowered down payments. You couldn't access VA loans. So it was like a whole level of complexity that basically [00:21:00] skyrocketed wealth and income skyrocketed wealth for one portion of the population.

Jeff: And generational will too.

Naseema: And generational wealth. Exactly, because a lot of those houses were passed down or, now people could afford to give people their kids down payments for houses and all of that kind of stuff. Where you see a generation now was kept back from that and only kept back from that.

But the banking systems that, black people had access to, often closed down, stole their money, did not give them loans. It, and so it was a whole lot that went into just just that topic of redlining. That was just one factor of systemic racism that you talked about like in your story.

And so let's go back to this paper that you wrote for your masters and it is titled, is Financial. Independence, a white privilege. And I think like [00:22:00] most of it just goes into talking about like the way the racial wealth app are and like,

are we playing on a equal playing field? Right. A level playing field right now, or from back then and now because, the things that affected our generations before, are things that are still affecting us. And so I think like what it helped you do was explore a lot of the topics and sometimes the common misconceptions like that occur when you talk about, wealth in this country and privilege and access.

And so I just wanna dive into some of the major things that you were able to uncover. In writing this paper because I really feel like they're just great conversation points,

Jeff: Yeah. And I should also point out that I grew up in a suburb of St. Louis near East St. Louis, which is predominantly black. My hometown is half black, half white. When I was growing up and I was in the the [00:23:00] advanced classes in junior high and high school where like I, I had a mix of black and white classmates who were all, very focused on school and wanting to better themself.

And so even. Even though there might have been some kind of perception about certain racial stereotypes, like I saw the positives in my black classmates and my white classmates, cuz we were all like that whole idea of what you said about, be careful who you surround yourself with. So I, even though I had been surrounded by people who look different from me it was interesting to me that it wasn't until 20, 30 years later that I'm doing this paper on critical thinking that I learned about things like redlining and like that had never come into my periphery prior to that.

So yeah, a few besides the redlining, other things that I was really surprised by was how over time the median household [00:24:00] income has just been getting wider and wider between the median white household and the median black household. That it's 10 times difference of, whereas with the median black household, the median family wealth is 17,000 for, this was in 2016, and then for the median white household it was 170 1010 times more.

And just to see that trending line. Over the last few decades, how it's getting further and further apart. So we have all of this awareness and this wokeness and people are more aware of this issue, it's not solving itself and that line is not coming to the middle because of so many systemic problems.

And even though we don't have things like Jim Crow laws and redlining, even though that is kind of been banned I think that we do have things like voter suppression. We do have things where like people are being incarcerated and then they get out of prison and they can't vote anymore.

So they don't have the same [00:25:00] access, the same voice that, somebody else who's not of color, they don't ha they're not at that same level playing field. And so the quote by Martin Luther King that was at the end of the the Netflix special. Really resonated with me. He says you can't expect two runners of a race to be able to compete with each other if, when they fire off the gun and they, the black person, the black runner's starting line is 300 years behind the white runner.

That's gonna take some superhuman feat of strength to actually catch up to that white runner who has had decades and generations of some type of privilege and advantage to get them to that starting point. And I'm really interested in your story because you actually have overcome those odds.

You are a great example of somebody who found a way to make it work. But yeah, that was a big one. Another big finding for me during that class was we have cognitive biases that will keep us [00:26:00] from seeing the other side. So one of the cognitive biases that really made sense for me is the self-serving bias.

Self-serving bias will say that if we have any kind of success in our life, we will attribute that to our own positive effort to say like, well, you know, I I've been able to get a good job and I've been able to afford to buy a house because I worked hard. And so that's the positive. We give ourselves, we attribute that positive to ourselves.

And then self-serving bias will say, if something bad happens to us, Well, it's not my fault. It's the other person's fault. So the negative things, we try to put the blame on somebody else. So I think self-serving bias is one of the big ones that can be preventing the two sides of this debate of white privilege from seeing eye to eye because they're just seeing the world that's around them and the people that are around them.

They're not really understanding that these two sides are operating from a different lens [00:27:00] and the world looks very different to each side and I also think that self-serving bias, like I hate the idea that a black American who's working hard trying to bring themselves up in the world, that they're going to just automatically count themselves out and say, well, I can't get ahead because the system's against me.

And so that whole like negative kind of putting any negative things toward somebody else's fault, I hate the idea that somebody might not even. Give themselves a chance at the starting line of the race. And so I love that you are putting your story out there, that you're showing people. It is possible that whole like idea of the four minute mile, like you ran the four minute mile and now other people can see like they can run the four minute mile too.

Naseema: Yeah, I don't wanna devalue the importance of seeing what's possible and seeing the representation and what that actually does to [00:28:00] people. Because I mean, like you can learn from anybody, but if you see somebody that you can really relate to and for the first time, like you said, the four minute mile like that you see it's possible, then it becomes possible for you.

And I think, like you said, there are these certain mindset shifts that can hold you the certain mindset that can hold you back, but it is those shifts that occur when you see what's possible. So yeah, I think that's super important. What's also important to understand is that. Even though we don't have formalized laws in place that are, systemically of systemic oppression is still all around us.

And even something that I've experienced and been able to achieve so much in spite of even like this house that I'm sitting in right now. I had to pop my collar on a couple of people because they were trying to get me like a subprime loan. Even though [00:29:00] I had a one credit down, I had the money to pay just because they thought I wouldn't

Jeff: Hmm.

Naseema: I, I have been in situations, I mean like even right now, as a pregnant black woman, even though with two master's degrees went to the same school. Like my chances of dying, just having my a baby to no matter how much money I have, is crazy. Just because of me being a black woman in a, a hospital system that is historically racist.

And if I didn't have the tools to advocate for myself, either me or my baby could've easily die in this current situation. And there's still a lot of things in place and that has a heavy economic, that's plays heavily into the black economics and why we can't generate wealth because something were to happen to me, the whole wealth of my family would be.[00:30:00]

Essentially wiped out. Right. And a lot of it is because we have to like, keep on starting over and then even if we don't have to keep on starting over, like we don't have the same systems in place. If something were to happen to my dad, I can, my net worth to be wiped out taking care of him for long-term care.

If I couldn't go back to work, a lot of my net worth would be wiped out just taking care of my family. And that happens because we oftentimes, I started from zero, I started from a negative and we don't have the family structures and the generations of people we can lean on and turn to because, Systemic issues that have denied us from the things that'll help, that have helped other people build wealth tr traditionally, and so it's a lot of those things that are still happening right now that are affecting black wealth.

And [00:31:00] like you were saying, black wealth was, a quarter of that, of white people. But actually it's like approaching zero. And I'm, and I was talking to you about it accelerating even more just because of the current economy, inflation, people losing their jobs. And COVID did a number on a lot of people too, as far as getting back in the workforce.

So it's just, there's so many factors that play into this this racial wealth gap that are really interesting to learn and explore and understand where it comes from. But fundamentally, a lot of people are in survival mode, and that crosses, racial lines, period. But if you don't know that it's possible for you to gain financial independence and that financial independence, like we talked about, is beyond just like scraping by paycheck to paycheck, being able to [00:32:00] meet all your bills, but it's actually being able to live off of, invested income and not have to worry about generating income.

If you don't even know that's possible, how can you even look to

Jeff: Have hope

to.

Naseema: reach towards that goal? Exactly. Like you don't even know. And so that's why these conversations are really important because a lot of times people just don't know what's possible for them because number one, they, it is never been modeled for them.

Number two. Like they have a, like it's survival mentality, like it's hard to get out of that. And then number three, like what messages are we really inundated with day and day out? Like consumerism, buying stuff, having things going to have fun, yolo, all of those things that keep us in this trap, in this cycle of being in [00:33:00] debt, being dependent on, outside resources to be able to take care of our finances and not being in a place where we're actually in a position to build wealth.

Even if you do make a good income, like I talk about often, it's not about how much money you make, it's

how you

Jeff: much you keep.

Naseema: It's about being intentional about your finances and it's about how much you keep and then how you are using that money to influence the next generation. So we can stop starting over from zero.

Jeff: There's a couple things.

Naseema: that's what really

Jeff: There's a couple things you said that I would love to comment on. The whole idea of generational wealth really resonated with me when I was listening to, I think it was the Choose Fi podcast. And they were talking about how most professional athletes, even though they make millions of dollars, they end up going bankrupt.

And it's not because they're living the Yolo lifestyle, it's really because they are the one person from their community who have made it. So then they wanna buy their mama [00:34:00] house, they wanna take care of their brother, their sister, their neighbor. And so then all of these people come to them for their little piece of the pie, and then it just drains them, even if they're not living this extravagant lifestyle.

And then, I think that speaks to the idea of how. With generational wealth, if you are the first person from your community to actually, rise up above everybody else, well then you're gonna need to somehow pull everybody else up with you somehow. Whereas if you come from, let's say multiple generations of a white family that's been middle class, upper middle class, you don't have to take care of everybody else.

You don't have to worry about, providing that long-term care for your parents and grandparents and taking care of kids at the same time. They're good on their own. You can just focus on yourself when you have that generational wealth working for you. So I think that's a good thing for people to have empathy for.

To understand how difficult that [00:35:00] is. If there's not generational wealth that's kind of creating that, that that win that's kind of blowing you from behind, making life easier for you. Having that win that's kind of going against you and kind of making it harder. Cause I don't think that it's fair that, for somebody to be in your position where you've achieved a lot of success.

We mentioned the four minute mile. I don't think it's fair to say well, every Black American needs to just run a four minute mile when the average white person, maybe they're just taking a jog and they're kinda keeping up, Hey,

Naseema: Let's say that again. Yes.

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