Wealth, Options And Bling Bling

Wealth in America is really about having options, choice and the resources needed to confidently pursue the best quality of life possible to us.  It’s the currency that can underwrite much of what we aspire to as a people and view as life enhancing.  But because we live in a society that contradicts what our spirit tells us is important, wealth and the pursuit thereof is the one area where we’re not only the most destitute, it’s also the one area where we’re most conflicted. 

Our history of never having wealth, coupled with belief systems adverse to pursuing material or monetary wealth, has short-circuited our grasp of the function of wealth as a liberating force, particularly in America.  Whether we or our belief systems like it or not there is no real freedom in America without the material and monetary wherewithal to ensure for one’s self and family the life enhancing experiences of health, education, opportunity, productive work and personal fulfillment.

Devoid of wealth for more than 157 years now African Americans have been acting alternately out of dependence and resentment, creating in the process very damaging impressions of us in the minds of all other Americans and indeed the world.  People don’t seem to find firm enough footing to connect sympathetically to our history or our struggle, except when incidents like the murder of George Floyd occur.   Otherwise, they see us as whiny, cry babies perpetually in search of a hand-out.  This type of perception helps them cope with being beneficiaries or onlookers of our systematic exclusion from participating equally in American wealth in all its forms.  

Unfortunately, we fortify those perceptions and more when we engage in all sorts of criminal and outlandish behaviors, giving the media the material it needs to foment fear and derision of black people and giving the criminal justice system unbridled justification to incarcerate us in disproportionate numbers and for mad years.  The result is that we are now largely viewed as a predatory people circling the wagons of all law abiding citizens fortunate enough to have a slice of the American Dream, seeking to rape, rob or murder them.   In many ways this makes racial profiling easy, as well as other inventive forms of targeting and discrimination.   Basically it’s simple statistics and probability assessment.  The people most likely to steal, sell drugs and act out criminally are people lacking, among other things, wealth and options.  While some of us escape these self destructive behaviors and outcomes, the statistics still point to us more often than not.

As a child I remember wondering why I never saw black people skiing, surfing, mountain climbing, race car driving, sky-diving or going up in hot air balloons. When I posed this question among family or friends the general consensus was that black people weren’t stupid enough to place their lives in jeopardy like that – only crazy white people.   It wasn’t until I got a little older that I realized these white people weren’t crazy –  just affluent enough to afford exhilarating hobbies and experiences.  I also understood further that black people’s supposed fear of participating in these types of activities really stemmed from a sense of having never truly lived, so that pursuing potentially dangerous hobbies or interests wouldn’t necessarily be on the top of the list   even if we had the money.  This also speaks to some of the sociological and cultural explanations used to downplay economic disparities between black and white.  There are those who would have us believe that African Americans just don’t aspire to do these things or to position themselves so; that we are noticeably absent due to our own choosing.  Kind of like when Ronald Reagan suggested that homeless people choose to be homeless.

If we buy into this thinking then we’d have to conclude that African Americans also aren’t interested in vacationing abroad, owning land and properties, providing for our children’s college education, having retirement savings, owning mammoth corporate entities or simply controlling the wealth in our own communities, seeing that we are noticeably absent from these areas too.  The real truth is that we’ve been deliberately and systematically separated from wealth for so long that the security, the sense of ownership and the range of life enhancing activities it offers others don’t even register as viable options for us.  We’re like Neanderthals in an economic dark age, still stuck on how to simply acquire basic food, clothing and shelter.  We literally watch the world of wealth and bling bling go by like spectators on the sidelines, oftentimes living vicariously through the lives of wealth’s most celebrated representatives.

Yes, as a people, wealth is the thing to pursue.  If anybody tells us different they either already have wealth or they’re scheming up a way to get a piece of what little we may have.  Ever notice how when African Americans (most notably entertainers and athletes) become wealthy they’re immediately thrown into the American mainstream, showered with incentives and endorsements and touted as the quintessential rags to riches American success story?  All kinds of handlers, managers, publicists and family surround them and advise them on how to manage their wealth and promote their image/brand, reminding them constantly how much of a credit they are to their race.  How many of these agents and handlers encourage their “star” to structure a part of their portfolio towards the building of everlasting African American wealth?  The answer is none, yet it is precisely our highly successful and highly visible life models in every arena that we need to lead the effort to extract from the American economy our birthright of wealth – even as they bask in popularity, fame and bling bling.

The bling bling phenomena is a phenomena in name only, as it’s simply a recurring manifestation of our overall freedom/wealth impulse expressed in material opulence and one of many terms coined by African Americans to describe it.  We are a very spiritual, animated and celebratory people; lavish and colorful in our costumes, loud and boisterous in our speech.  Our creativity and innovative ability is without peer  and we love being the center of attention.  Every financially successful flamboyant African American, in the context of their era, exemplified the bling bling flavor.  You pick the era and I’ll show you black bling bling.  In everything we do we either “do it to the max,” “do it ’till we’re satisfied” or “do it to death.”  Love it or hate it – that’s us.  Sometimes we get on our own nerves, but we really don’t mean no harm; we’re just not as self-conscious or uptight as others when it comes to outward expression.

This had led some to label us “sense driven,” “uncouth” and “primitive” in our behavior, yet many more have rightly recognized our soul, our moral and intellectual contributions to the world and the breath of life we’ve breathed into humanity on more than one occasion.  So, we are not unsure of who we be or of the kind of material that constitute our essence.  For the topic at hand, however, we just need a better handle on our notions of wealth in the main and our historical participation in the American system in particular.

Nowadays, with the layers of gold, diamonds and platinum on our teeth, ears, necks, wrists, fingers, waists, ankles and toes, bling bling, as opposed to the solid management of capital, has come to symbolize African American wealth. As a result, terms like buffoon and clownish, along with slanted media depictions, are used to mock and demean certain individuals and, by extension, all of us.  The sad irony is that if all African Americans could afford to drape themselves from head to toe in bling bling, we would see one or two things: 1) no one would be that extravagant because it wouldn’t impress anyone or 2) it would be so commonplace that no one would even notice or care.  But because most other outlets of wealth expression or powerful participation in wealth management was denied us, we’ve only expressed any measure of economic prosperity individually, outwardly and in material trappings of wealth.  And so it remains that without major corporate ownership in financial services, manufacturing, real estate and insurance, bling bling is the equivalent of a slave showing off his new pair of burlap pants and a top hat.