Bloomberg Equality: Achieving Black Equity

pushing for equality grew louder. Banks, money managers, and their clients throughout Corporate America looked to start playing a greater role in closing deep disparities related to race, promising to hire more Black Americans, Hey, more equal wages and expand opportunities. Now two years later, how have they done Over the next hour, We'll try to answer that question in this

Bloomberg Equality special Achieving Black Equity m Shali Bassk. Progress toward the goal of racial equity has been choppy at best. Most data disclosed from large firms across Corporate America and the Federal Reserve are from until that year. Federal Reserve data show the disparity between black and white Americans only

deepened in terms of household net worth. For John Rogers, the founder of Aerial Investments who's on the board of major fortune companies, the challenge ahead is important to soak in. While things have started to change in corporate America, the progress is now widely seen is terribly slow. The data is crystal clear things are getting worse. When it comes to the black wealth gap. SAR from the Federal Reserve St. Louis has data the shows between twenties sixteen, college DK

black saw the wealth declined ten percent. In college dcated white saw the wealth of increase over nine percent. This idea that things are getting better, I just think it's so important to pound home that it really is not getting better. I think that these companies are more committed, but we've got to remind them that they've got to do more than just the token, small efforts. They've got to have more of a systematic understanding of how to

create true diversity and true wealth minority communities. We get a few little bright spot we need to do much more. John Rogers points out that from most large firms, their staff don't look like the communities they serve. Charles Phillips, the co chair of the Black Economic Alliance explains part of the problem. Building wealth is something the black community has been struggling with for decades, and average household now is about ten percent of the white household, so that's

obviously kind of the definition of the problem. A lot of that comes down to home ownership, the fact that mortgages weren't as available and comes with as high redlining, lots of issues. So the home ownership issue is around for black people about seventy one percent for the nation, and so closing that gap is at leads one path to increasing black wealth, but there are other issues as well.

Phillips was former president at Oracle who left and ran Software Giant in for He's been working with firms across Corporate America to hire or promote one million Black Americans in the next ten years. Last year, the initiative called one ten helps elevate twenty five thousand people, while that group has placed thousands more this year and Corporate America has wrapped up promises on hiring more less than one fifth of fortune five hundred companies have joined the effort.

The issues are matching the location, the job, skill, the type of job that the company needs, with the type of people being trained, and that's there's always a disconnect. Someone needs to tend people in sales and Detroit. What were just trained with someone in I t in Atlanta. Getting that matching done correctly in one challenge and two would need more people participating. And I think the thirty issue is people are used to hiring the way they hire.

A lot of people who in charge of h R They have their ten colleges they recruit from and specific ways that they are used to their systems working, and sometimes it's hard to get them to change as well. So I would say people are more open to it than they were more open to hiring for skill the versus degrees, which is important, but it's a slow, slow burned to you like to get there for them. Charles

Phillips now runs a company called Reform. He's one of many black entrepreneurs who struck out on their own while also staying in touch with big business. He currently serves on the boards of American Express and Viacom. Zanilia Harris has also started her own firm after years at large companies like Merrill Lynch and Nasdak. Now she helps women across the country build wealth. She says closing the racial income gap for black women would be transformative and bring

real generational change. The women that I work with, they want to create wealth for themselves so that they are able to live the life that they want, They're able to support their family, they are able to leave something to that next generation. And I'm also hearing how they are still fighting to be seen and heard in organizations that they work in. So this is not just a black woman thing. The barriers to creating wealth over generations

is something that can't be overstated. John Rogers says it's kept Black Americans back for decades, spanning back to sixteen nineteen and the inception of American slavery. Lack of wealth that's been created going back in the sixteen nineteen project talked about the challenges we faced and faced creating wealth in this country through historic domination and segregation and the like.

It's hard to build businesses if we don't have capital, you know, we don't have multigenerational wealth to help with start businesses. So that's a big problem because minority owned businesses higher minority people and create wealth, minority communities and create philanthropy, and minority communities and political empowerment in minority communities. So that's kind of a big deal, that lack of multigenerational wealth. I think it's something you can't be understated,

but it has been understated for a long time. Issues like this started cropping up more and more after the murder of George floyd In and more conversations about race started taking place in corporate America. A handful of US companies gave staff the option to observe Juneteenth, and the following year it was named to federal holiday. More than a hundred fifty years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, This year is the first time the market is closed

in observance now. Zanalia Harris says there's still more to do for corporate America to embrace the changes truly needed as racial tensions continue to swell across much of the country. Even though it being recognized as a holiday, I don't think that involves the underlying issues with where we are in America when it comes to race equality. I heard a lot of promises, and I was skeptical about whether

or not those promises will be fulfilled. And then I think about my daughter and the future and what I am releasing her too, and I'm sad because I never thought that we would be here with race relations. I have a lot of feelings about all of this, and I'm trying to remain positive and hopeful. But as I read the news, I become less and less hopeful that things will change. And there's new data now to support

that concern. A paper circulated by the National Bureau of Economic Research this month says the gap between black and white wealth is on track to widen even further. Coming up, how Wall Street is looking to close steep gaps in funding for black owned businesses and entrepreneurs. That's straight ahead on this Bloomberger Quality Special Achieving Black Equity. I'm Shinali Basik, and this is Bloomberg. This is a Bloomberg Equality Special

Achieving Black Equity. I'm Shinali Basik. Despite fits and starts on corporate efforts to close the racial wealth gap, the difference in prosperity between black families and white families in America is stark. According to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, a typical black family had about twelve cents on the dollar when compared with their white counterparts. That gives a white family more than eight times the wealth of a black family, and that gap has been

unchanged for decades. Equal hiring practices, equal pay, and access to capital for housing are all hurdles and building wealth. But another is access to capital to start a business. According to a study by Accenture, only twenty nine percent of loans sought by black small businesses are approved by large banks, and that years twice as high for white small business owners. Ryan Williams is an entrepreneur. He graduated from Harvard, worked at Golden Sacks and private equity giant Blackstone.

Williams started his real estate investment company in and hit many roadblocks along the way. He had loans turned down by several banks when starting his firm. That hasn't changed that much. So, you know, it's still really difficult here, you know, a minority generally, because there's still a pattern recognition issue. There's still sort of a cookie cutter mall for what you know, a successful manager, special investor looks

like most of our our large institutional investors universe. And so I think that you know, in the margins, there's more opportunities and there are more black entrepreneurs getting funded black managers getting funded, women lead and owned managers getting funded. But it's still very incremental, and I think that's because people still are fundamentally focused on the kind of blueprint success looking very homogeneous, like frankly white male as the archetype.

And I don't think that's changed. Is it frustrating? Yeah? Oh yeah. Look, I'm I am incredibly privileged in seeing those you know, founders and CEOs of Realist to investor management platform, especially black founders and CEOs. I know, I'm you know, at the one percent of the one person in terms of capital I've been able to raise, and I take a lot of pride in the returns we've been able to deliver to the investors that have entrusted their capital with me. But I get turned down probably

nine five percent at the time. Ultimately, Ryan Williams was able to start his firm with the help of a black owned bank. While the number of black owned lenders has declined drastically over the past few decades, they play a huge role in black communities. This year's City Group created a new team in order to work more closely

with minority owned banks and broker dealers. Harold Butler was tapped at City Group to lead that effort after years of working with the U. S. Treasury depart and while at the bank, it was a role in which he also helps City work with black owned banks. Fundamentally, it's all about access to the capital itself. So being able to help banks, for example, create business, to grow their business and to have the capital to lend is key.

But what's different about say a Mechanic and Farmers Bank in Durham, North Carolina, in a city, other than the fact that they're a small, community based financial institution and cities a large global bank. The difference really is in the power of the neighborhood. That CEO knows his neighborhood right, he knows those budding entrepreneurs, and he's willing as a practical matter to take the risk in those firms of those budding entrepreneurs and black founders what have you, and

helped them to see the possibilities of their dreams. While black owned banks are important, there's still a huge scarcity of funds flowing from the biggest firms to black entrepreneurs. Cadre, led by Ryan Williams, stock a partnership with black Rock in order to invest in affordable housing. Black Rock is the largest money manager in the world. William said he would like to see more big firms step up to

the plate in this way. I think that there have to be more of these kinds of partnerships between, you know, within the institutional investing ecosystem, where people take the same level of creativity and imagination they take to business problems and apply it to the underrepresentation problem that we're seeing,

and that community is encouraging and positive. Is unfortunate that Black Rocks probably the exception, not the norm, when you look at all the companies that put out statements and you know, said we're going to be spending time on UH an effort and resources on actually trying to help reduce the wealth gap. And similar to Black Rock, Wall Street is putting top analysts to work on the numbers and how to put more money to work in black communities.

Goldman Sachs last year created a program to get ten billion dollars worth of capital to firms run by black women. Megan Hogan heads up Diverse the equity and inclusion efforts at the firm. One of the fastest ways to accelerate change and effectively address the racial wealth gap in the United States is to listen to and invest in black women.

The research at a high level, you know, found that reducing the earnings gap for black women has the potential to create up to one point seven million US jobs and increase the annual US GDP by anywhere between three hundred and four hundred and fifty billion, So huge impact there. We're about a year into this. Since launching in March, we've made about one billion dollars of investments to our

seven key pillars. It's part of our long term strategy and I would highlight, you know, two recent investments that we made are the MAMI and the Care Academy. MAMI is expected to impact about twelve thousand Black women across the country um and Care Academy is expected to impact about fifty thousand Black women. So again, we're very focused

on quantifying our impact um in our commitment. While Black Americans have found it hard to raise capital and rise in corporate America, black women have found it particularly hard, and the numbers show it. Black founders represented a mere one percent of venture capital funding in according to Accenture, and Crunch based data show that percentage has barely moved. Goldman Sachs calculates that black female founders account for less

than one third of that ratio. They claim point three percent of all venture capital funding, and that funding is key for growth when you're talking about a demographic that's often marginalized by corporate America. Zanilia Harris is the founder of Harris and Harris Wealth Management. I think when Black women decide to go out on their own um it's because of the fact that they feel that there's not

opportunity for growth. I had always wanted to be on my own because I felt like owning a business would be another way to grow wealth in my family, and I also wanted to leave a legacy for the children

that I would have that they could build upon. But the more and more I read about the history of African American growing wealth in America, I learned that while there have always been people African Americans who wanted to leave a legacy, whether that's building a business, to move up in or get opportunities in corporate Americas, because at one point we didn't even have the opportunity, and we were relegated to only being able to build in our

own communities and to service only our own communities, and that's why leaders like Goldman's Megan Hogan are looking to specific programs to fund startups by black women, and other firms are doing the same. One million black women, you know, very important to me personally, you know, it was. It was a highly emotional day when we announced it to the firm and had a firm white town hall to talk about the potential impact of the program. UM. I was raised by a sen a mom who worked too

full time jobs to get me through school and through college. UM. And I'm not a huge fan of the black woman as martyr kind of a troupe, which is black women are martyrs. Black women hold us up. I think we need to be flipping things on things on its head, which is that we're supporting black women in these roles. We're making sure that they have the best maternal healthcare, they have better child m care programs, you know, for for working moms. UM, they're getting the best of the

education system and workforce advancement. And through our Black Women Onyx research, we just found society failing across a number of issues coming up. How hiring practices at the largest firms can start to move the needle on income and opportunity. That's up next on this Bloomberg Equality Special Achieving Black Equity. Shinani Bassek, This is Bloomberg. This is a Bloomberger Quality

Special Achieving Black Equity. M. Shinnali Bask. The difference in prosperity between black and white families in America remains stark. For Black Americans to build wealth, incomes also need to rise. That means corporate America needs to play a part and hiring more equitably while also promoting black managers. One area

where there's some progress is data on hiring practices. Now about of the most prominent companies across the country That means firms with at least a hundred workers are making employment data public. In the immediate aftermath of George Floyd's murder two years ago, the percentage of black managers rose marginally by a median of zero point four percentage point, while the share of black employees overall also rose slightly.

The disclosures help keep Corporate America accountable. For example, it showed that at Walmart, the largest US employer manage been, promotions for Black Americans actually slipped in the twelve months through January, Yet more workers moved out of hourly jobs into management roles, which means the largest challenges are still

as employees move up the corporate ladder. Over At Apple, the largest company by market value, black representation had declined between eight and the company says it's committed to doing more, but the numbers will tell us if that promise comes true. There appears to be friction at every level. Charles Phillips, who works with leaders across corporate America to help recruit black workers, says only seventy two of Fortune five hundred firms have signed on to work with his organization one ten.

It should be more, and we're still recruiting mode. So I have to call feels all the time that to recruit, to selldom on this. So the intry reaction is, well, I don't think we have the type of jobs that you know where we could really hide these folks because we need advanced degrees. In some cases that's no longer two that you should be had for it was not

degrees and rethinking those jobs. So we have to convince some at least go back and look at the types of jobs to do they really need a college degree. And then secondly, the same issue of you know, we'll have process and in place, h our people in place, and they have been filling the docks pretty well, and so I just leave it to them. The good news is because of the shortage of talent right now, they're

starting to reconsider that because they need people. So the best thing that happened is what we have right now where it's the tight job market where people there's not enough employees, and so that forces CEO is to consider new pools of talent that they really didn't really, you know, to pay much attention to before. Charles Phillips says one key way that corporations can boost their ranks is through hiring from historically black colleges and universities. A range of

banks and investment managers have started doing that. Goldman Sachs, for example, is dedicating twenty five million dollars over five years to HBCUs Well. Senior leaders are spending time training students. Goldman's Megan Hogan says it's shift from a longstanding tradition of hiring from the ivy leagues. When you think about a traditional recruitment model, it is using the alumni base of your current employees to find talent. So you know,

for example, you know I went to Yale University. Personally, I know the school well. If I was asked to help with hiring, I would want to go back to my almal mater potentially. UM, that's not a bad thing,

you know, I think you know has great students. But if you're looking at your current employee base and only having them go back to the schools in which they went, you're just fulfilling a self fulfilling prophecy, which is that you're only going to find potentially the same talent if those schools and institutions are not diverse in and of themselves.

And so what I've seen from my colleagues, you know, I used used to head diversity recruiting for four years before my role is Chief Diversity Officer, And what we really focused on was not just thinking about alumni schools, but doubling down on hbc US and partnering, starting in with the Congressional Black Caucus. UM to also have some very candid discussions about how we showed up credibly to these h b c u s. Again, it's not enough to write the check and show up on campus once

a year. What's the sustainable engagement. That's going to make sure that students, faculty, administration, university presidents really know that these companies are interested in long term impact and sustainability with their students, with their alumni, with the institutions and the curriculum. That is what's truly needed. And so I think I've seen a dramatic difference in terms of that focus over the last two years that wasn't necessarily there before.

So Megan Hogan says, diversity tends to be get more diversity. John Rodgers of Aerial Investments is on the board of companies including Nike and McDonald's. He's seeing some change on corporate boards, and he says adding black and diverse directors help set the course for companies not to only hire diver as managers, but also diverse suppliers. And I see that as we talked to companies and we invest in I see that on some of the boards. Um, so it's it is uh, it is so disappointing that we

haven't gotten further along. And I think that's why we have to try to find ways that if all progressive companies ask all their suppliers to have minority executives and the leadership roles on the relationships they have. Those companies will start to show up with diverse lawyers, diverse accounts, diverse financial services executives, diverse technology because their biggest customers demanded,

those folks will go out and find diverse people. And I just think can't over emphasize how that question just needs to be addressed systematically. And it's fascinated me that four years ago we did it and we got away from it. And to address the landscape systematically, John Rogers says, we need a wholesale change. I don't think right, we have to break up the system and think about it

in an entirely different way. And it's just unfortunate that people just got so comfortable doing things the way that's always been done, even though it hasn't been working. And so you look in Chicago again, look at the hundred largest companies to Chicago, and there's so few minority CEOs and the chop when they jump. I think we have to out of a hundred. And you look at again the major investment banks, the private major private equicky firms,

major venture capital firms. Very few women in leadership roles. And the most important thing here that's the part of the economy that I said earlier, where the wealth in job to being created. The big banks will have diversity, The big insurance companies had diversity. They during the Civil rights movement. People pushed them to do the right things. But these industries now where all the growth, that's where we're most locked out of Silicon Valley again, lots and

lots of growth, very little diversity. So I tell my friends the civil rights movement, you've got to adjust to where the economy is going, not to where the economy was four two years ago. Coming up the role that government plays in expanding opportunities. That's straight ahead on this Bloomberg Equality Special Advancing Black Equity. Um Shinali Bask And this is Bloomberg. You're listening to a Bloomberger Quality special

Achieving Black Equity. I'm Shinali Bask. We've been talking about how progress towards racial equity has been choppy at best, but there's a key reason that changes are still coming, and that's because clients and customers of big banks and corporations are asking for it. City groups Harold Butler and Megan Hogan at Goldman Sachs a part of The Bank's efforts are being pushed forward by large corporate clients and

even many government clients as well. They want to be a part of the story on inclusion and being able to support communities right, and they recognize and appreciate that, you know, the way we do it best is through banks right and broker dealers right. And so if you just think about it, we could say what we want all day long about fin techs and other entities that maybe right on the rise or have risen to do

financial services for people. Banks, Sonali are trusted. We We may catch a lot of darts, sure, right, but but we're trusted, right. We're trusted entities that you know, people recognize and they know we're regulated. Do we always get it right? No? But are we doing the right thing? Sure? And so um our clients say, well, it's let's look to city to help us solve some of these challenges

that we have around inclusion, because everybody has them. And when it comes to the work Goldman Sachs is doing, Megan Hogan says, there's a lot of interest from people

looking to get involved. I would say I'm very encouraged and optimistic about the number of people whether it's clients, students, professionals, senior leaders, heads of state you know that are reaching out, you know, to me and my colleagues on ray in their hand, to volunteer, to be an ally to advance racial equity, to be thoughtful about actionable steps that they can take, you know, to make sure that there's diversity, equity and inclusion at their firms, their schools, their societies.

You know as well. The demand has never been greater. Um I can tell you even you know, fifteen years ago when I started, you know, in some of this work, it was me more pushing into the conversation where you know, I had to make myself known what I wanted to accomplish in the d I world, especially when it came to the pro bonal cases that I worked on. And now it's the complete opposite. At the end of the day,

money flows from the top. Many of the biggest clients have big banks and money managers are central government cities, states, and pension systems. So what role does the US government play. The government can and has been looking to boost equality through spending programs and by allocating resources to black money managers and black owned businesses, but the scale is still limited.

Charles Phillips's work with government leaders, including most recently the New York City mayor and governor of New York State. He notes that as the largest money managers in the world still lack diversity, the problem is quite circular. Expanding investment could help boost black communities overall. Well. The Settle government has some very large pension fund and right now that's largely managed by a black lot vanguard and people

like that. They could act and distribute some of that into black asset managers is one thing they could do. Um these small business administration is another area that you know they've done a good job over the years, but they could accelerate that. I think it was reduced under the prior administration. They're trying to build it back up now. But there's a lot that could do around helping small

businesses in general. I think they've done a great job with the CD of five and that is kind of the community banks and lawer income neighborhoods that do the real ending. And they've put another tunnel ten pigion behind those, I think in the last sale, and they're looking to do more. So there are a number of things underway, but they're not as a visible and pus they get a little bit typnical. When Barack Obama became the first black president in two thousand and nine, John Rodgers was

on the inaugural committee. He says the government is struggling to diversify its resources despite years of efforts. I think government does a decent job when they have the opportunities to buy directly. You know, they have some legal issues they have to deal with, and you know court cases against affirmative action that sometimes you can make it difficult in certain states and certain cities and the federal government. So I think within the constraints of the legal system,

government does a pretty good job. When they could do better. Is pushing all the people to do business or get resources from government to do the right things. If you think about that, all the universities and museums and hospitals, they got a lot of money from Washington to get through the pandemic. No one's asking those museums, university and hospitals about the diversity of their spit and who they're using to manage their endowment or to do their advertising

or to do their technology. They're getting a free ride. Same all the big contractors, you know, the big airlines Delta an American, or the the big defense contractors like General Dynamics and the like. No one's pushing them about all how they spend their money three in sixty five days the year. And that's where the government can use it impact, the influence to force these institutions to be transparent with how they spend their dollars and hold them

accountable on how they spend those dollars. So government can have much more impact if they reach into these institutions that are gathering government resources all the time. John Rogers says black leaders in the government have historically helped push some of these efforts along, but black leaders make up

just a small portion of the government. Under the tenure of local black politicians, careers were soaring for black banker is like Ray McGuire, who rose to become vice chairman at City Group before stepping down in recent years, and Bill Lewis, whose career ascended to the highest ranks of investment bank Lazard. He recently left to join private investing giant Apollo Global Management. Lewis recently led a charge among corporate leaders to protect voting rights in Georgia and when

it comes to leaders in the government. John Rogers says black mayors in particular have spurred companies to invest in black leaders. It's interesting to me, you know, it's when I came home from college roughly forty years ago, Harold Washington got elected mayor of Chicago. You had progressive mayors throughout the country. Uh. Maynor Jackson Atlanta was my personal hero.

All those institutions, all the all those mayors, when they were running their cities, they insisted all the financial services businesses that did business with their city had to have diverse talent on the relationship with the city. And all of a sudden, if you look at the generation of leaders today, the Jim Rentals, the Route Capital, and the and the Ray McGuire's at City Bank, and the you go Bill Lewis, who've been a Lazard for a long time.

And you know, yet all these guys got their careers going roughly forty years ago when these progressive mayors forced the investment banks to have diverse teams on the relationship with their cities. And I could go through at least a dozen of the leaders. Sometimes there's still a big company. Sometimes they started their own firms but they got started because important mayors demanded the financial institutions look like America,

and we got away from that. There are so many priorities of political leaders lead with, and that's one that they haven't been as a consistent with as it needs to be city groups. Harold Butler also says that the government, both through federal and state laws, has had a history of prohibiting the advancement of black society. Some of that was through Jim Crow and another big part of that

was through redlining. When the US created the Housing Act in the nineteen thirties, black neighborhoods were deemed more risky to invest in, and banks there for step back from lending to them in a big way. That created the need for more black owned banks to step up and funnel capital into communities. And what made matters worse is that black neighborhoods also faced death, loss and damage through violence.

Harold Butler cited the Tulsa Race Massacre of where a district known as Black Wall Street was burned down, hundreds died,

and many thousands were driven out of their homes. And so when you think about, you know, how black communities went from a designing the ratification of the Mancipation Proclamation in eighteen sixty and what did not occur after that, right, and events like Jim Crow that became a byproduct of the anger that society that white America had against people of color, right, because of the fact that labor wasn't

free anymore. Right. And so if you just start there, right, and you look at what occurred when when a black community dared to kind of buck the proverbial trend and create wealth and build a sense of community where they weren't allowed to participate elsewhere, which is Tulsa, right, what happened? They burned it down, right, And you know since since since right, and Blacks being able being shut out of the economy and being shut out of just being able

to survive and prosper and generate wealth. This is this is where we are today. And this is why the the plight, if you will, why why black banks are so incredibly important, right, because they were really created and came into existence to be the conduit in the vehicle to create wealth. Because if you have systematically a system that's geared towards you know, whether it be laws, the Housing Act and things like that, the redlining effect that

I know you're very familiar. You all have done great content on redlining and communities, and I know a lot of people are familiar with that. But when you put all that into a bucket, right, it's the combination of exploitation and deliberate deliberately not including people of color. So banks have played a key role and continue to play key role and being able to help entrepreneurs, help people

get home loans and things like that. But even still, they themselves have been locked out of the capital markets for a long time. When you think about the impacts of redlining today, it's still true that black applicants have lower rates of approval from mortgages at all major lenders. A Bloomberg analysis found the disparity is greatest at Wells Fargo,

where a half of black applicants are rejected. That was even the case during the mortgage refinancing boom in when white homeowners saved an estimated three point eight billion dollars. And in response to our reporting on Wells Fargo's treatment of black applicants, the bank set it treats all potential borrowers the same. It also said it's committed to closing the minority home ownership gap. The US Department of Justice is still trying to combat redlining, which is now an

illegal practice. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been eyeing banking deserts across the country, areas in which people are unable to get loans. Zanilia Harris explains the ripple effect that comes from being shut out of the housing market.

So when I look at all of the laws and things that have been passed in America and how when they get passed, they were supposed to be an opportunity for all, but end up you seeing Carver, Well, yeah, it's it's it's for you, It's for It's supposed to be for all, but not not for you. And so when I look at, you know, this fight for black banks to succeed, because you know, there aren't that many

black banks that are left um in America. So when I look at at at the struggles that they had to form and then to um be a resource to their communities and then strive to then be cut off. So therefore, you know, African Americans couldn't get um um access to capital in order to purchase property. And you know, property is the foundation of a lot of things. So if you have property, then you can leverage the property to what you have to if you wanted to build up,

if you wanted to start a business. Because whenever you go for a business loan, they're gonna ask you for um you need um an asset for them to um collateral rise in order for you to get that loan. So if you are not able to purchase the property

then and and it still exists. I mean like, if you're going for a loan, a business loan, they ask you what your assets are because they need to attach they need to have some way to secure that if you default on the loan, that they're going to get their money back, right, So, if you don't have any assets, you're not gonna get a loan. So and for most people, their largest asset is their home. The US government is also taking some actions to get more capital to black communities.

For example, Harold Butler's has the Treasury Department is starting to advance its work with some of the black own banks that he works with. I'll just start by saying, give the U. S. Treasury um, you know, some kudos here because in the first first time and over two thirty three plus years, whatever the amount of years is and Treasures existence. They've never worked with a small black

financial institution. Right, So today there are two banks Industrial Bank in Washington, d C. Unity Bank of Texas that are engaged in Treasury portfolio business now as a subcontractor.

That's okay. Treasure still had to approve it, right, But it's an important first step because even for the government, right, it's that it has to be about inclusion and and it's and I'm not suggesting it's easy for the government because if you look at the scale and volume of the way they do business with people like you and I, the citizens, and they do business with the governments, and they do business intro government, you know, it's their inherent risk. Right.

It evoves capital to be able to have people on the ready to do things and make investments in what the government would like you to do. And so it's not easy. Critics say progress at the government level is still moving in the wrong direction. But still John Rogers says, changes emerging in corporate America can continue to move the needle. You know, we have these progressive political leaders now in Washington.

Maxine Waters chairs the House Financial Services Committee, and Joyce Batty, chairman of the Congression Black Caucus, really great leaders like uh here in town comers from Robin Kelly. If we lose the House, it's gonna be much more difficult to bring the kind of change that we hope for because I know this Congress is committed to getting uh supporting minority business and resources to help minority businesses be successful.

So I worry that's gonna be a it could go the wrong direction next year depending on the election, So working hard hopefully that hope that doesn't happen. UM. The positive side though, is that again our civic Committee, we hope that that can be a role model for how other cities can work with their local UM business organizations to do the right thing. And I know there's lots of talks going around the country, the Business round Table

and others talking more about working minority on companies. So there is a buzz out there that's hopeful. So we had a few green shoots, and I think finally we have to we have to point out the success stories here in Chicago. Companies like Excellon and McDonald's have long histories. University of University Chicago has a great history of working

minority businesses and creating minority. Well, we need to celebrate those success stories and hold them up with role models where other anchor institutions can do similar things in their hometowns. As John Rogers said, there are green shoots, but just as many companies have made progress on some equality goals, others are showing that there are setbacks too, and there's

no promise of progress moving faster either. It's why keeping companies and the government accountable is so important for entrepreneur and private equity. Alum Ryan Williams, it's about the follow through and the change will simply take time, like this

wasn't just you know, lives service. I think the unfortunate reality is that the numbers UH in terms of you know, capital being committed to diverse managers, UM, in terms of representation from hiring perspective, UM, they don't actually show the kind of change that we would we would um you know, have believed was in the making a couple of years ago.

And that's frustrating. And the inequality and representation has been centuries into making, and you know, it's been craziness to think that within a year or two years, UM, there'd be parity or there'd be a level playing field. So I think you have to take that, UM, that into account the long term nature of the issues that we've seen UM when assessing you know, the timeline for its solution.

What I will say is that despite the fact that there hasn't been the kind of follow through in a lot of fronts that you might have hoped, there have been some really promising and impactful steps forward that are left. And so my hope is that again, as we reflect on these last couple of year years, UM, we recognize that there's been far too many of us who have made statements and and put out you know, commitments, but I haven't followed through with attempts or action to substantiate

those those UM commitments. UM. And again, it's better in many glints, to to try and to you know, take the time to figure out how to bring to life what you said, even if it's not initially or immediately impactful UM. And it is to you know, take the conventional path in or the lift lift path and uh and wait, you know, to be pressured or pushed to action.

So hopefully these discussions can catalyze just one person UM to reassess, you know, the difference between what they said and what they're doing and drive change in meaningful ways. And we'll leave it there with those thoughts from Ryan Williams. Thanks for listening to this Bloomberg Equality special focusing on achieving black equity. You can get more news and stories like this online at Bloomberg dot com slash equality All. So check out season four of The Paycheck, our podcast

focused on equality. Find that on Apple, Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts um Shinali Bask and this is Bloomberg h