.jpg)
Be Aggressive:
Why You Need to Take Financial Literacy to the Next Level
By Tracey Ferdinand
While feeding my denial about fall – and the cold weather it brings – at an ice cream parlor last week, a black woman and a young girl around eight years old walked in. Her attention lay fixed on the girl as she explained how much money was needed to pay for their ice cream. As I sat there watching the little girl work out the math, a wave of joy spread over me. It was beautiful to watch a black woman teaching her daughter about something crucial to their quality of life, money.
Yet there was something else hovering over that day’s lesson. Though she was painfully patient with her student there was a tinge of aggressiveness in her voice. In today’s economic climate that aggressive attitude surrounding learning about money is not surprising. Though the experts deny it, many citizens are bracing themselves for a recession. Then there are others who are not only bracing themselves for a recession. They are also trying to understand why the “experts” like Al Greenspan could not predict the once in a hundred years occurrences we are witnessing in America’s economy.
There are many personal and deeply painful tragedies occurring as a direct result of these experts’ failure to understand the consequences of mortgage companies approving so many subprime loans. Americans are learning a hard lesson from the wave of foreclosures, layoffs and entire retirement funds being wiped. We can not depend on the experts. Instead we need to be aggressive in developing a higher level of financial literacy.
If Black women were more aggressive in understanding exactly what we were signing off on when buying houses—many of us for the first time—we would not be reading all these heartbreaking stories in newspapers. Black women are the ones mostly affected and I find this unacceptable. The New York Times wrote an article titled Baltimore Finds Subprime Crisis Snags Women. It states that “black women are as much as five times more likely to receive subprime mortgages than white men.” One woman admits not understanding the difference between a fixed rate mortgage and an adjustable rate mortgage.
Of course there are many women who were smart enough to choose a fixed rate because they understood a thing or two about economics. So if you’re in that category try adopting the each one teach one attitude. Don’t be stingy with your knowledge if you’ve got it. If you don’t, be bold and link up with someone who majored in business, law, economics or a combination of those disciplines. Ask them to point you in the right direction of what you should be reading or to deconstruct complex ideas. Lord knows it is hard to find the time to sit down and read every book, legislation, newspaper article etc. written on sectors directly linked to the economy. So it helps to know where the golden nuggets of information can be found. Instead of wasting time sorting through everything you come across.
If you really want to aggressively get to the next level of financial literacy start a financial literacy club with these people. If you’ve got the knowledge suggest leading a club for others who you think will benefit. Now I’m not suggesting finding an expert to lean on so they can make financial decisions for you. You’re looking for knowledge that you can teach your daughter so she can teach her daughter. Swap ideas and insight like you swap recipes and pass them down from generation to generation. Make index funds and mortgage backed securities household terms that are as common as brown sugar and baking soda. We need to find time in our schedules now and study these things because we can’t depend on the “experts” any longer.
NATURAL HAIR AT THE WORK PLACE
Posted: July 12, 2010
CUT YOUR LOSSES
Posted: June 09, 2010
WHEN TO CALL IT QUITS
Posted: May 21, 2010
SHATTERING THE GLASS CEILING
Posted: Apr. 22, 2010
WISH THERE WERE MORE OF YOU?
Posted: Apr. 5, 2010
NAME ISSUES
Posted: Mar. 25, 2010