ADRIENNE COLE JOHNSON: The health of Black men, both physical and mental, is an often overlooked pressing societal issue.

Today, we'll be delving deeply into the unique challenges that Black men encounter in the world, and we'll uncover valuable insights and solutions for promoting their overall well-being.

I am Adrienne Cole Johnson, and this is "Racism: Challenging Perceptions".

Joining me are Daryl Fraser and Dr. Phillip Duncan.

Daryl is an African-centered community healer and licensed mental health practitioner with training in clinical social work practice.

He has over 20 years of experience working in the Richmond metro area as a social worker, community advocate, professor, and mentor.

Thank you for being here.

And Dr. Duncan is an associate professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University Pauley Heart Center.

His primary focus is improving cardiovascular health for the individual and the community.

Dr. Duncan is committed to the health and education of all communities, but particularly to those at the highest risk for adverse health outcomes.

Welcome Daryl and Dr. Duncan.

PHILLIP DUNCAN: Thank you.

DARYL FRASER: Thank you.

JOHNSON: Yes.

FRASER: Glad to be here.

JOHNSON: So glad to have you all here.

We always think really organically about the topics that we focus on with RCP.

And we were just really thinking about some of the challenges that our Black men have, physical health and mental health.

And so we thought it would be a nice combination.

So just really appreciative to have both of you all here.

So before we jump into the content and solve the world, we'd love for you all to just share more about your backgrounds, how you got to the place that you are professionally.

And Daryl, we'll start with you.

FRASER: You know, I have often told the students when I was teaching that social work wasn't a profession that I chose.

It was a profession that chose me.

Fun fact about me, I actually started out as a pre-med student.

(laughs) JOHNSON: Okay, look at that.

FRASER: I just remembered that.

We were talking in the back.

I didn't even share that with you, but I told myself I wanted to be a chiropractor.

I went from that to getting my undergraduate in psychology and fell in love.

I had a job at the same time that I was going to school working with kids.

And what I loved about it was how I was able to apply what I was learning in real time.

From there, I started working.

Once I graduated, I got a job in mental health, working with kids.

Told myself that's the population I was gonna work with, right?

And here we go again.

When you tell yourself something, the Creator has a plan for you.

JOHNSON: When you say this is it, it's something new.

FRASER: The Creator had a plan for me.

So, you know, when you work with kids, you gotta work with the adults.

They come with family, they come with parents.

JOHNSON: That's right.

FRASER: So, did a lot of family work.

Right around the time that I started, I decided to go back and get my master's in social work.

Didn't know what a social worker was, but learned a lot about social work and what it could offer.

So, went back to grad school in about 2002, 2003.

And right when I joined, I became also a member of the National Association of Black Social Workers.

And joining that organization sort of helped me understand who I was as a Black man, as a Black person.

And it just paired really well with my social work education.

The social work was the training that I got.

The initial training that I got to be able to do what I do, which is right now I'm a therapist.

JOHNSON: I love that.

DUNCAN: Wow.

So, my route was also sort of different in that I did not have medicine on my radar screen.

And actually, initially thought I was gonna end up being a high school science teacher.

That was where I was.

I went to Bronx High School of Science in New York and they sort of prided themselves on everybody going to college.

I worked as a tutor initially in New York City public school system while I was a high school student.

But my guidance counselor, Miss Yetta Cohen, she had other ideas about my trajectory.

So, there's a program called the Bio Careers Program that they had actually started.

It was funded by the Yeshiva University in New York.

The medical director though was a Dr. Alphonso Jordan, African-American cardiologist who ultimately became one of my colleagues who did this program that exposed me to medicine.

By the time I was coming into my junior year of high school, I was working in the histology lab at Montefiore Hospital.

I was opening up the lab in the morning and they were actually paying me for this.

So, my guidance counselor came to me and said, "So, what do you wanna do?

What college you wanna go to?"

And she said, "You know what?

You seem to like medicine.

You seem to be taken to this thing.

Have you thought about being a doctor?"

And I said, "No, it takes too long."

And her words to me were, "I'm gonna make it not take so long for you."

And so, that sort of led me down the path.

She looked for programs that got me into med school earlier.

And so, I got into one, Troy Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Albany Medical College in upstate New York.

And then, other mentors led me towards cardiology 'cause when I went into medicine first, I thought I was gonna be a pediatrician.

Then, I thought I was gonna be OB/GYN.

Then, I worked for two of the coolest cardiologists in D.C., working their office and they got me in the cardiology and the rest was history.

JOHNSON: Wow.

DUNCAN: Yeah.

JOHNSON: Thank you all for answering the call.

Right, and the journey.

One of the reasons why we brought the topic up is I'm hearing you as a cardiologist and thinking about really some of the issues that Black men face around just heart disease, just things and matters of the heart.

What can you share with us just from a medical cardiologist perspective that you've learned as you have really been connecting with, again, Black men, people that you see yourself in and some of the issues that are faced?

DUNCAN: So, probably the biggest issue for black men is, I think, an issue of not availing themselves to the resources that are there to promote good health.

And I mean, not just not making it to doctor's appointments or making doctor's appointments, not checking their blood pressure, not seeing to it that lab gets done, but also dealing with so, so many other issues that health is sort of placed on a back burner.

Still living about, back in the day, I did da, da, da, da, da.

I was an athlete.

And all too often, I see that go until then something happens.

So, it's that heart attack, that stroke, that heart failure that brings them into the system.

If they come to a medical professional, they want to feel as though you're actually listening to them and their complaints.

It comes down to trust.

And unfortunately for Black men, their interaction with the healthcare system, often they're not trusted communication, trusted interactions.

So, that becomes an impediment.

So, someone might make a doctor visit for a problem, feel like they weren't really listened to and then they're not back, they don't come back.

>>And Daryl, I'm thinking about you too, 'cause even as we think about mental health, right?

How does that cultural stigma around mental health within the Black community, how does that affect the Black man's willingness to even seek or get help?

FRASER: Socialization, right?

We can't ignore the fact that, men in our society in general, right?

Socially, we don't allow ourselves to express ourselves.

We tell ourselves, we're not supposed to have feelings, you're being too emotional.

That's a feminine trait, right?

So, throughout, as Black men, when we think about what racism says to us, sometimes we go into what we call hyper masculinity.

And we tell ourselves, we can't do this, we can't do that.

You know, we can't feel, right?

And when you ignore your emotions and you're not expressing yourself, it's sort of like the pot on, the cover on top of the pot, right, boiling water.

And that's stress.

So I like what you were saying about like, just Black men wanting to be heard, right?

Because if they wanna be heard, that means they have to be talking, right?

And when you talk, you're taking a little bit of the steam out, right?

So, the way that we have been culturally sort of trained is that we fragment the mind, body and spirit.

And I think for Black folks, we've always been mind, body and spirit being one, right?

So you can't treat the body without treating the mind, having a conversation, relationship, right?

So I think part of the way I see it is important to give Black men the space to, yes, to speak, to be heard and also to say, "Hey, you got these things called emotions.

Let's really start to talk about them."

JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah.

FRASER: Yeah.

JOHNSON: Wow, I mean, you all, it's all holistic.

And I hear you both from different ends, right?

Kind of talking about, 'cause you all both talked about trusted spaces, being comfortable with the feelings and the emotions that you have, right?

But I wanna go to first, say someone's watching the show.

They don't understand what it means to be a Black man in society, right?

No frame of reference.

Well, how would you describe some of the daily challenges that Black men face that may significantly impact their mental or physical health?

>>One of the things, and we talked about this too, was as a Black man in society, especially at doing certain things, we do not have the luxury of mediocrity.

So we have not just the feeling that if we're not a superstar, then we're somehow lacking.

We also have the added responsibility of, we're doing this for a community outside of ourselves.

And often doing it without the adequate support or even acknowledgement of what that means.

JOHNSON: Yeah.

FRASER: And I like to really call it the myth, right?

Because we internalize these ideas that we have to be 10 times better, and that comes with pressure.

And then you also think about, I would say for myself, a lot of my younger career, I was running away from the stereotype, right?

Running away from the stereotype, and W.E.B.

Du Bois talked about that dual consciousness that we have to carry, right?

So when I go to work, I have to talk in my professional voice, my white voice, right?

And then when I come home, I speak in my regular dialect, right?

And oftentimes we're simultaneously doing these things throughout our day, to a point where we don't even notice it.

And that carries weight.

That carries weight.

And then the other piece of it that we talked about in the back, the cultural aspect of, our culture is not about individual, individualism.

We're about, how do we pass on the torch?

We think about the community.

I remember when I was young, when I got in trouble, I was worried because when I go home, not just I'm gonna be on punishment or whatever, but mom's gonna tell grandma, grandpa, everybody's business, right?

And then even when you know you succeed and you get your degree, mom and them is on the phone talking about, he's about to graduate.

So you feel like you're carrying your community and your family on your shoulders.

The pressure to succeed and also to not make mistakes.

Right?

And we're human, we're gonna make mistakes.

We're gonna mess up, right?

And I often, and I say this to a lot of my clients too, I often talk to them about not just the physical, but the emotional labor, right?

Even as our society as a whole, we don't even value mental health, right?

In the same ways that we value physical health.

And I think the emotional labor that comes with the work, right?

It's a physical and emotional labor.

JOHNSON: I wanna stay on that for a while and just thinking about stress and anxiety, two really common things.

How does that manifest when you think about your clients, people that you see, how does that manifest?

What does it look like?

FRASER: It looks like not giving yourself grace.

It looks like beating yourself up.

Oftentimes, it looks like not giving yourself the luxury of going to the doctor, right?

Not giving yourself the luxury of going to see a therapist.

It's saying I'm gonna tough through it.

Nothing's wrong with me, right?

That's what that looks like.

And it's tough to watch, right?

Because especially being a therapist, it's like sometimes, and I often tell my clients that, I'm your mirror, right?

But at the same time, they're also a mirror for myself because there's times I have to say to myself, Daryl, you're working too many hours, right?

Daryl, did you go to the doctor, right?

So the medicine, not the medicine in the way that you practice, but the tools that I give my clients, am I applying those to myself, right?

And it can be so subtle, right?

That you're not even recognizing that you're doing it.

DUNCAN: One thing is that there aren't enough of you around, Daryl, and we really need more of you because there's so many people are hurting and it plays into the physical health because that is part of the reason why they don't come to see the physician.

That's why blood pressures are high.

We know that there's a direct effect on our hearts that come from stress, from chronic stress.

As we continue to pour out those stress hormones, the adrenaline-like hormones and cortisol-like hormones, we know that that plays a role on our blood vessels, on our heart itself, on our brains.

And so by the time I see them, I have this thing I put together that I talk to my residents and fellows about.

I call it Five's B and D. It's seven issues.

I say, when we see someone in the hospital, I want you to think about this before we discharge them because these things are gonna impact their outcome.

And it's food, income, village, education, shelter, behavioral health, and then drugs, including alcohol and nicotine.

And I say, we have to think about those.

And we're terrible in our instruction on food and nutrition and the role that plays in our health.

We're terrible about being aware of income limitations and what it means, what livable income is, not just if someone has a job or they don't, but do they have enough to pay for health insurance?

We're not often cognizant of a village around a patient, that support system that provides sometimes those mentors that can also provide positive support for compliance with the medical regimen.

Sometimes it's a negative village where they need to be extracted.

Education, we're often not considering the fact that if we know medicine and the patient doesn't, it's not that they're medically illiterate.

It's that we have to learn how to communicate to them.

We have to assess their educational level.

Shelter goes without saying.

If somebody doesn't have appropriate shelter, that's a problem.

But behavioral health, everything from significant diagnoses like bipolar disorder, which can really affect patient's compliance afterwards, personality disorders, but also stress, anxiety, the things that folks are going through all the time.

And then drug use, whether it's prescription, non-prescription, like I say, legal, illegal, that can play a role into how patients do.

So I look at it and say, we can't separate the mental, spiritual from the physical.

JOHNSON: Yes, and I love that holistic answer that you gave with the seven areas that you consider.

As you're talking about that, how do you think stress from daily just experiences with racism and discrimination, how does that impact cardiovascular health in Black men?

DUNCAN: When we look at health outcomes, when we look at things like all cause mortality, the great equalizer for disparities is poverty.

So when we look at, for example, some of the areas with the lowest median outcome in the United States, and we look at disparity in health outcomes between Blacks but black male having the worst outcomes of all racial ethnic groups in the country.

And you compare that those to higher socioeconomic status, what you realize is that health outcomes are the same.

They're equally poor because everybody's dealing with the same stressors in that situation.

You move up the socioeconomic scale and what you then find out is that, no, there's more disparity there because now you have folks who are dealing with those things.

Implicit biases on the job, imposter syndrome, constantly code switching, which we need to do.

That's where you start to see things happen.

And that's why we see so many of our relatively young African-Americans who are in the media, in business, that's why they're doing fine and then they have a heart attack.

They had access to healthcare, but they had all these stressors that no one else was even aware of that affect their cardiovascular health.

FRASER: The other piece about it is, I think our healthcare system is super confusing.

Most people, if they have insurance, they don't know what it covers, right?

Or your insurance, you might have insurance, but you might have a high deductible, right?

So cost is a thing.

So there's a number of different fronts from just the ability to access, right?

But also just getting down to the stigmas that come with it.

And to me, it's tragic when you have disparities already showing that Black men need these services, right?

So I'm really sensitive about who I take on and how I even engage them into services because I recognize that if I botch it up, they may not go back, right?

So that's important to me.

JOHNSON: Have you all seen any just successful intervention, successful programs, successful efforts, as we're talking about just Black men and wellbeing?

Any things that you all have experienced that seem to help what we're talking about get to it faster, whether in research, advocacy, or even just in your field?

DUNCAN: So there's several.

Locally, most recently, and it's been over nine years now, there's been a group here called Black Men in Medicine.

So a former employee at VCU started this, finding Black men who were interested in careers in medicine and just creating a space where they could get together and talk about their journey.

All of them didn't end, these were mostly undergrads, all of them didn't end up in medicine or medical school, but at least there was a space where they could talk about, talk about the challenges.

Some even decided that, you know what, I wanna go another direction, but we need to create more of those, for different interests.

Like you were saying, whatever it is, we need to create more of those spaces where people feel safe and comfortable because there is that cultural congruency.

JOHNSON: Thank you all so much.

This has been such a rich dialogue and conversation.

I think I could just sit and glean so much from you all as well, but outside of you being here, just thank you for your contributions in medicine, in mental health.

You know, I know sometimes you can't do it all, but knowing that what you do do is making a huge difference, not only to the people you're seeing, but to the community at large.

So thank you both so much.

DUNCAN: Thank you.

FRASER: Thank you for having us.

DUNCAN: Thank you for giving us voice.

JOHNSON: Absolutely, absolutely.

(upbeat music) JOHNSON: Today we'll explore the journey toward wealth, freedom, and wellness in Black communities.

We're joined by advocates who are dedicated to dismantling barriers and creating space for economic investment.

From financial literacy to investing in entrepreneurship, our guests are leading the way toward economic liberation.

I'm Adrienne Cole Johnson and you're watching "Racism: Challenging Perceptions".

Joining me today are Cedric Welch-Muhammad and Chandra Hurst.

Cedric is a portfolio manager operating out of New York City.

Cedric is also the former general manager of the Wu-Tang Clan and CEO of HipHoppreneur, a leadership development firm advising entertainers.

Chandra is a community impact leader, advocate, strategist, and vice president senior business consultant for Chase in Richmond, Virginia.

Chandra has over 31 years experience in financial services and cultivates relationships with diverse business owners to help them grow their organizations through access to comprehensive and customized education, one-on-one coaching, access to community resources, and banking solutions tailored toward their specific financial needs.

Welcome Cedric and Chandra.

I would love for you to just share how you personally got here on your journey with so much experience, such a large body of work.

Tell folks who are watching how you got here.

CEDRIC MUHAMMAD: Well, I have to credit my parents.

My mother, I come from a Panama Canal family, so born in Panama, raised in Jamaica, and education was a high, high value.

She understood that education was portable wealth.

And my father, 28-year veteran in the United States Army, so I grew up as an army brat traveling the world, and I ended up here with you.

JOHNSON: Wow, I love that, portable wealth.

I have to write that down.

When you think about education and how that can, even as we're talking about wealth building, create opportunities too.

What about you and your journey?

CHANDRA HURST: Yeah, so mine was a little different, but education, like Cedric, was top of mind for my family, so I actually thought I was gonna be the next Quincy.

My undergrad degree from Fisk University was in chemistry.

When I graduated from college, my first job was at Sovereign Bank, which is now Bank of America in Student Loans.

So I always had that acumen for finance, and then left the DC, Maryland area and came to Richmond to work on my master's in forensics.

Again, I thought I was gonna be the next Quincy.

That was gonna get me close to my goal to be a medical examiner.

And again, worked in banks as part-time and had my daughter and said, "Well, let me just do this.

"Let me give this an opportunity."

So was able to start with the management training program and just matriculated into business banking and community relations.

So that's kind of the story to get here.

JOHNSON: Yeah, I love that.

I love that you both talked about your families and just people that you had noticed along the way.

And Cedric, I'm thinking about you 'cause I know a few of the very experiences that you've had, but can you think about a success story of Black individuals or families that have kind of successfully navigated wealth building?

MUHAMMED: I have to mention Wu-Tang Clan.

JOHNSON: Okay, I would love to talk about Wu-Tang Clan.

MUHAMMED I don't usually do this, but they are a family.

They're my family, and I learned something from each of the nine members and the executives.

Power is a divine move.

Everyone's a childhood friend, kind of thinks or studies the same thing or grew up in the same neighborhoods.

So I learned the power of wealth building through kinship systems, through Wu-Tang Clan.

They're the success story probably of my life that shaped me even on Wall Street now.

JOHNSON: Wow, wow.

I could go down that path.

When you talk about kinship, right, and family, do you think they realized the model that they were providing in that way?

Or is it something that you think maybe you just kind of organically picked up on?

MUHAMMED: I'm gonna say maybe only RZA and maybe Power who was the executive who brought so much of the lifestyle and the entrepreneurial hustle from the neighborhood.

But no, I don't think, we were so young.

I think we were unconscious about the kind of impact that we would have now.

But there was a lot of time spent in studying other communities, success stories, et cetera.

So it propelled us, but I don't think we had that much intentionality.

JOHNSON: Okay, okay.

So HipHoppreneur, talk about that because I feel like it's a bit of an extension of what you just shared.

MUHAMMED: Well, "HipHoppreneur because artists mature" is our slogan, because I saw from the inside that immaturity is bred into the culture by the industry.

And without maturity, you don't have an intergenerational wealth.

You don't have a reach back to pull forward.

So I said, what can we do that would be different?

And most artists don't have anyone who focuses on the non-entertainment portion of their career, focusing on connecting them with the community, a school, a stewarding institution, some type of entrepreneurial emphasis where they're actually mentoring small business owners.

And so in the very state of Virginia, our first client was Pusha T from the Clipse.

I call him the governor of Virginia in our conversations.

A lot of what he's doing is exemplary.

JOHNSON: I love that.

Thanks for sharing.

Chandra, talk to us about your experience at Chase.

Chase, what your role is and the work that you're leading over there.

HURST: So my role as a senior business consultant just as an extension of my brand and what I'd like to do.

That's what I was so attracted to at Chase.

My past experience as a loan officer, particularly for BIPOC individuals, the biggest barrier to access to capital and scaling their business was credit and technical assistance.

So when I realized that Chase had this missing link, right?

The business consultant role.

I am actually mentoring small businesses and working with them for four months.

And it's gonna be, sometimes it's gonna be longer than that, but work with them for four months, one-on-one coaching, right?

We choose what their focus consultation areas are gonna be.

If it's gonna be access to capital, business development, operational management, cashflow management, or just introducing them to a team of trusted advisors.

In addition to meeting with clients one-on-one, I'm actually conducting workshops with organizations.

I've gone out to a lot of the nonprofits in the area and do coaching and websites, not necessarily a website, but webinars and workshops.

And what I like about that is they have a tangible workbook that they take with them after that workshop.

JOHNSON: I love that.

I love that you both have talked about the importance of relationships.

HURST: Oh, for sure.

JOHNSON: And wealth building and that kind of connectivity, because sometimes you don't, especially when you're thinking about organizations, businesses, institutions, you just don't hear a lot about the soft term of relationships.

And then I think how important the one-on-one coaching is, 'cause a lot of these things are things we didn't learn in grade school.

HURST: Absolutely.

JOHNSON: Maybe not even in college.

Sometimes you just learn by getting a credit card that you maxed out and you're like, "Oh, what do I need to do differently?"

You all also both talked about entrepreneurship.

And so I just wanna kinda hang there for a little while.

How do you all view entrepreneurship as a tool for Black families, Black communities to create wealth for themselves?

MUHAMMED: Well, there's five sources of capital.

There's family and friends, savings that come from that.

There's natural resources, land and talent, financial markets, commercial banks, investment banks.

And when those are closed off, we turn to two others, which is either government or crime.

But the small business, those 3 million Black-owned small businesses are the economic university of our community.

And you learn everything from that because that's where talent and capital have to be matched in an accountable way.

So they're the legacy institution from my perspective.

And to pass down wealth, you can do it through land, but what better thing than a family business to pass on?

And I think that that's proven to stand the test of time.

JOHNSON: Let's talk about how mentorship, peer-to-peer support, getting in a different kind of environment than maybe you were in.

How does that affect your wealth, your financial fitness, your growth?

HURST: Yeah, I think for me, mentorship was critical.

I didn't get it early on in my career.

And I also, I always tell my daughter who's 29, young professional, even before that, find someone that you aspire to be and ask them to be your mentor.

They mentors hold you accountable.

They actually give you resources that you need.

And not only a mentor, an advocate.

And there are two different things between a mentor and advocates 'cause an advocate is gonna talk about you when you're not in the room.

And I've had that experience.

And sometimes mentors are not someone in your direct line of business.

They could be someone outside of that.

But I can tell you my career growth came from a mentor and more importantly, an advocate.

So when I wasn't in the room and he was in the C-suites, he would drop my name, right?

And say, oh yeah, Chandra's doing X, Y, and Z.

She's the one that you wanna choose for this opportunity that's coming forward.

So, but you gotta, it takes time and it's a grind.

You gotta do well in your current role, but also as my mentor said, you gotta dress for the position you want.

You gotta always look for that person that's gonna give you the tools, the resources, and the exposure.

JOHNSON: I love it.

But Cedric, I wanna ask you about just challenges, right?

I think sometimes you use a word like wealth and it feels like it's only attainable to a certain small amount of folks.

But what are some of the common challenges faced in wealth accumulation?

What are some of the challenges that you think people are dealing with?

MUHAMMED: I think the greatest challenge is always lack of knowledge.

How to write a business plan, the things that Chandra's helping with, how to know where to go to get estate planning, to get a will written.

So, knowledge and know-how, and where to access it.

Programs like this, we're honored to be on because this is actually part of the solution.

JOHNSON: A bit of it, I think, just starts the conversation.

HURST: Oh yeah.

MUHAMMED: That's right.

JOHNSON: I was recently in a, there's this book, "Believe-in-You Money" by Jessica Norwood.

And the tag is, what if the economy believed in Black people, right?

And one of the questions we talked about in the circle was, when did you start having conversations about money?

And it was hard to remember, right?

HURST: And that's typical in our community, right?

Now I saw it because my dad was so fiscally responsible.

He was a huge saver.

I saw the practical application of it, but I didn't see the behind the scenes.

Not until I got into the banking industry did I realize the resources that we don't have.

In our communities, you don't talk about finances.

So when mom dies or you have a grandmother that passes away, no one knows what they have, right?

They don't know if a safe deposit box exists at the bank.

I saw it all the time and they don't pass the education down.

So it's one of those things where you have to change the narrative.

Well, we've established community centers in our under-resourced communities where they have community centers where individuals from the community can come in, have financial literacy classes, talk about credit, home ownership.

All of those things are critical.

Home ownership, not being a renter, right?

My daughter's 29 and I'm like 30.

She's like, "I'm ready to move."

I said, "Well, you're not going to an apartment.

"You need to buy a house."

So being able to give them those insights on how to manage your finances is critical.

And credit restoration, we're doing those workshops in the community.

So that is where it starts.

We have to change the narrative that you don't get into grown folks' business as they used to say.

You need to have them in there.

They need to understand it.

But I think my parents and my dad specifically and his ability to save and just be very fiscally responsible is critical.

JOHNSON: And Chandra, you mentioned, you took us down a path I wanted to go, so thank you.

Because we often think about our individual responsibility, but then you think about the systems that we are trying to thrive in, right?

And so what are these systems or institutions gonna do?

What are they doing differently?

So I think you gave us some really great examples, but I'm curious, and Cedric, you might wanna jump in here.

What are other things that systems can do, whether they're banking institutions, like just thinking about community investments and how are we like investing in just community infrastructures, doing something different for people to feel supported, right?

And to feel like they are, it's not just on them, right?

When you're kind of born into a system that may have some changes that they can do as well.

MUHAMMED: I actually think that word system's important because so much of wealth creation is informal.

And just by saving, I think something happens to you spiritually and mentally and emotionally.

And I have a colleague, a friend of mine, he's from the Jewish community, and he talked to me about the optionality and the opportunities in their community that come from knowing you have something saved.

So you meet somebody, you have a conversation, you're not rushed, you're not hurried, something may come up, next thing you know, it's an investment opportunity.

So there's dumb luck, and then there's the luck that comes from being in the right place at the right time where good things happen.

And I think that that's kind of a system that's almost unseen and invisible.

HURST: I think we all have a responsibility in it, right?

From governments, from philanthropic, from banks, everybody has a part to play in this wealth creation, in the gap that exists.

And just recognizing it for what it is.

I think it's the lack of exposure that you talked about earlier.

The importance of credit.

One of my best friends said, "These M&Ms on college camps, they have the booths where they're getting you to buy, get a credit card."

She said, "Daggonit, those M&Ms cost me $2,000."

Nobody told her about a credit card, right?

You know what I'm saying?

So we have a responsibility from a credit perspective to educate the community.

Credit is leverage.

So it all starts with that fiscal responsibility, having good credit, being a saver.

All of those things play into that wealth creation.

JOHNSON: I wonder, you've mentioned credit a few times and I'm thinking about some barriers that are often in place.

What are other things that you hear as you're talking to people, just different barriers that are in place of folks accumulating more wealth?

HURST: Like I mentioned, the financial acumen and technical assistance, not having good record keeping, right?

So many small businesses, under-resourced businesses, particularly in our Black, Hispanic, and Latino communities didn't have the proper documentation to even apply for a PPP loan, right?

So things that I'm doing, resources that are out there in the community help them to get their books in order, right?

To know their numbers.

That is critical.

And I've seen it as a barrier for individuals.

And that's why the place that I'm in, the role that I play is critical for clients, to have that deep discussion and give them resources.

When I talk about a team of advisors around them, that's their attorneys, that's their CPAs, that you just can coach them through the process that they're working on.

So I think those are the two barriers, the credit and the technical assistance are the biggest barriers that I've seen so far.

JOHNSON: Would you say similar for some of the clients and folks you work with through HipHoppreneur?

MUHAMMED: I think so.

I think wealth, the horizon of wealth that I focus on is about 80 years.

Because I think four generations, three to four generations of a family looking backward gives you a picture of what the problems were, accessing credit and capital and land ownership.

And then moving forward, that's a good window to see how compounded returns are produced, how $1 becomes 10 in 20 years and 40 becomes 100 and 80 becomes a thousand or a million, that depending upon the rate.

So I think that we all have the same problem.

I think artists maybe suffer more because the impression that people have of a rapper or athlete is they're rich because they have more disposable income.

But actually, unless you know the debt that they're in, whether they're budgeting, how they're spending their money, you really can't tell whether this is actually gonna be a burden on the family when they're gone.

JOHNSON: We talked a little bit about education earlier.

And I think you talked about portable education and your parents realized that.

How does education impact wealth creation in the Black community?

And then what changes would you suggest to improve this trajectory?

HURST: So you can find ways to incorporate that in the current system, the educational system, to really have that mindset as they matriculate and get to more decisions that are gonna impact them down the road.

So I think it's critical to start very early on to make it a common practice.

And what we've seen is that once you give it to the children, they go home and talk to their parents about it.

And they're transferring that information from school to their parents who may not have that acumen, but they're teaching the parents, right?

So I think it's critical to start very early on to that discussion.

MUHAMMED: I think while education is portable wealth, sometimes it's a debt burden that we can't carry.

And so increasingly, I think we're having great conversations about going into debt to pay for various degrees.

And we're looking at skills and tools and knowledge, things you can get through mentorships and professional networks that you would never get necessarily in a formal academic setting as being just as valuable, if not more valuable.

And I love the building trade certifications.

I think you can get a lot done by high school that can set you up for wealth accumulation.

HURST: That's right.

JOHNSON: I'll wrap with this question to both of you.

To someone who may be watching the show, who is, whether they're making $15 an hour, $50,000 or 500,000, right?

What do you say to someone who just wants to start?

They wanna start doing something different with their money.

Maybe it feels a little, again, overwhelming to them.

What do you say to someone who wants to start to do something different and make their money work for them?

MUHAMMED: I would say first, understand that knowledge of yourself is important.

Respect and love for yourself because you are wealth.

You are economics.

And even the word capital, it refers to the head and knowledge.

And wealth is wellness.

So that's the basic principle.

And then $1, it can start with $1.

And you can save one cent from that dollar.

Just do it over time.

And then get those compounded returns from investing it.

And it's impossible, I think, to not be wealthy intergenerationally if you keep that going.

HURST: Yeah, yeah.

We're as strong as the community we serve, right?

So part of that is a responsibility to do what we're doing.

The $30 billion commitment to racial equity, right?

To work towards closing that wealth gap.

How do you do that?

Education, home ownership, right?

Supply diversity, making sure that they have a seat at the table.

Expanding financial support to minority deposit institutions and CDFIs, Community Development Financial Institutions.

Deploying the funds to organizations that's getting that cash on the street.

Just making sure that we are supporting philanthropically.

And again, it's all about education and exposure.

If you can expose someone to something that they didn't have a clue as to get there, they're gonna say, "Hmm, I can do that too."

But giving them the steps and the tools and exposures to get there, I think that is the differentiator.

JOHNSON: Education, exposure, and experiences for sure.

Thank you all so much for your time.

You all are literally a wealth of information.

I know I've learned a lot from the conversation and just really appreciate you all sharing so much of your knowledge and wisdom with us today.

MUHAMMED: Keep up the great work, please.

HURST: Thank you for the opportunity.

I appreciate it.

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