By James Clingman

In his book, Black Wealth Through Black Entrepreneurship, Robert Wallace says, “...it becomes painfully obvious that the basic problem facing the [B]lack community is that it lacks significant power to have a direct and sustained impact on its own destiny.”  The key word in his statement is “power.”  Notice the title of Brother Wallace’s book includes the word “wealth,” not “income,” and if you have read the book you also noticed Wallace’s instruction to us when it comes to capturing real power.

Too many of us spend most of our time bragging about the tremendous so-called “spending power” of Black folks in this country.  We quote the information from the University of Georgia’s Selig Center and revel in the fact that we have an annual income of $600 billion.  Did you know that the term “Black spending power,” as used by the statisticians, simply means “disposable income”?  Yes, Black people have $600 billion per year in disposable income, and as Sister Sharazad Ali says, “Black folks have the most disposable income because we dispose of most our income.”

So, what is the difference between income and wealth?  What is the difference between income and wealth when it comes to power?  Well, the bottom line to wealth is net worth.  Check out a person’s net worth and you can see how wealthy he or she is.  The latest statistics show that Black families have a net worth that is one-tenth of that of white families – and even less than that of Asian families.  Need I say more?

The next time you see the statistics on Black Buying Power, stop and think about the word “power” and what it means in that particular context.  Power for whom?  Yes, it’s Black Buying Power, but it’s power for those who receive some 95% of our $600 billion everyday.  It is power for others to purchase fine homes and cars.  It is power for others to build their own communities.  It is power for others to send their children to college.  It is power that is transferable – the best kind of power – to the progeny of others, thus allowing them to maintain their collective hold on the economic system of this country.

This is why I use the term “Black Buying Weakness.”  If we continue to give our power to someone else through our conspicuous consumption of their products and services, we will continue to have billions of dollars in aggregate income and only thousands of dollars in individual family wealth.   Additionally, we will continue to have the power of income rather than the power of wealth, which only allows us to our pay bills, continue to work on the proverbial plantations, purchase all of our needs and wants from the proverbial company store, and create the power of wealth for others. 

The systems of sharecropping and dependence upon the company store, as miners had to do during the 1940’s and 1950’s, are being continued today when it comes to the enormous amount of income and the relative miniscule amount of wealth that Blacks have.  We could never catch up then, and we will never catch up now, if we continue to depend upon income rather than wealth. 

The power of wealth manifests itself in ownership and control of income-producing assets and infrastructure such as banks, hotels, manufacturing facilities, real estate, distribution channels, and other wealth-builders and wealth-retainers.  The power of income manifests itself, via the transfer of that income to others, in ownership and control of assets by others from whom Black folks must purchase our very sustenance.  If we allow that system to continue, by pouring the vast majority of our income into the vast pools of wealth owned by others, we will always be on the bottom of the economic heap.  Yes, some of us will still have the latest cars, fine homes, stock portfolios, and high positions (jobs) in corporate America, but collectively we will remain an income-rich and wealth-poor group of Africans in America.

We must take stock of our economic position in this country by understanding that income is not wealth.  It’s not what you earn; it’s what you keep.  You shouldn’t work for money; money should work for you.  Credit is a good servant but a poor master.  Poor people pay interest; rich people earn interest.  Don’t have champagne tastes with a beer budget.  Stop ending each month with more month than money.  The clichés go on and on.  But you get the picture, I’m sure.

Please start redirecting more of your income toward your own people, just like other groups do.  And, the next time they count how much money we have collectively, they will add a footnote that says, “Black spending among Black owned businesses has increased significantly, the result of which is an increase in the net worth of Black families as well as an aggregate increase in Black wealth.”

The power of income or the power of wealth.  Which would you prefer for our people?