Speaker 1: Last year, Like a lot of black Americans, I started
Speaker 1: thinking more about our collective history in America in my
Speaker 1: own place in it. My family had a plot of
Speaker 1: land in East Texas, near a town called Mount Pleasant.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Arizona, and as far as I
Speaker 1: was concerned, Texas was another planet. Big hats, rodeos that
Speaker 1: showed Dallas. We drove through Mount Pleasant once, but I
Speaker 1: don't remember much. As I got older, my dad would
Speaker 1: call and talk about the Texas property. He daydream about
Speaker 1: all the ways that might one day give him a
Speaker 1: financial cushion, How would buy a better life for him
Speaker 1: and my brother, who has a disability, How there might
Speaker 1: be oil on the land or some kind of rare timber,
Speaker 1: And if I'm being honest, he planted some of those
Speaker 1: thoughts in my head too. Then came the pandemic and
Speaker 1: George Floyd and I started thinking more about inequality in America,
Speaker 1: and because I'm a business journalist, the racial wealth gap.
Speaker 1: I started digging into my past in Texas. I learned
Speaker 1: that the land would never be our ticket to prosperity.
Speaker 1: It was gone. When I found out why, I realized
Speaker 1: my family's story isn't much different from other black Americans.
Speaker 1: I started wondering, how did other black people build wealth
Speaker 1: in America and how did they hold onto it, or
Speaker 1: like my family failed to hold onto it. That's what
Speaker 1: we'll be exploring on this season of The Paycheck, the
Speaker 1: racial wealth gap. The U. S is the richest nation
Speaker 1: in the world and has been for a long time.
Speaker 1: But while black people make up around of the population,
Speaker 1: they hold just three of all the wealth. I'm Jackie
Speaker 1: Simmons and I'm Rebecca Greenfield. Starting on March eleven, we'll
Speaker 1: be diving into how the racial wealth gap came to be.
Speaker 1: He was deeply, deeply racist. He couldn't have cared less
Speaker 1: about the fate of the former slaves, and he restored
Speaker 1: white supremacy as quickly as he could. What it looks
Speaker 1: like now. He was the next thing to God in
Speaker 1: this county. He controlled all the bank boards, and he said,
Speaker 1: nobody lends more money in this county than I do.
Speaker 1: And if you don't learn how to speak to me,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna get any any money, and you won't
Speaker 1: be farming very long. I told him I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what Jesus Christ nor God look like. I said,
Speaker 1: But he can't look like you and what might start
Speaker 1: to close up. It is a way to repair egregious
Speaker 1: injury and crimes against humanity against the black community. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is reparations. Let's not call it anything else. To
Speaker 1: make you feel better, subscribe to the Paycheck on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcast. We'll see you on
Speaker 1: March eleven. H