A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues: What You Can Do Right Now to Help the Black Community

by Steven S. Rogers

Learn how to address racial wealth disparity in the United States today From the life, professional experiences, and research of former Harvard Business School professor Steven Rogers, comes his boldly stated, A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues . This informative epistle investigates the causes of racial wealth disparity in the United States and provides solutions for addressing it. Through extensive data and historical research, anecdotes, teaching, and case studies, it presents practical ways White people can work with and help the Black community. It teaches readers that eliminating the $153,000 wealth gap between Black and White people is the solution to over 75% of our problems and offers solutions to help improve Black-White racial relations in the United States. In straightforward language, filled with facts, stories, advice, and sometimes even humor, A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues encourages every White person to share his/her wealth with the Black community―plain and simple. This book recommends that you spend a portion of your annual household budget with Black-owned companies. If more money is spent at Black-owned businesses, those companies can grow and create more jobs for Black people. Rogers also proposes White people make large savings deposits into Black-owned banks. These are the financial institutions that are the backbone of the Black community that provide loans to the Black community for businesses, education, automobiles, and home mortgages. And finally, he resolutely encourages White people to support government reparations to Black Americans who are descendants of Black men and women, who were enslaved from 1619 to 1865. Those who read the book This groundbreaking book provides financial recommendations that you can put into practice today, using his helpful instructions in most of the chapters, to address the systemic inequality between White and Black Americans. Read A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues and be part of the path forward.

Genres: Nonfiction, Social Justice, Race, Politics, Social Issues, History

240 pages, Hardcover

Published May 25, 2021

Reviews

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a much needed and practical book to help people identify real, actionable ways to help the black community.

It’s simple, really, the way the author explains it: use your money. Donate to historically black colleges, use black-owned banks, support black-owned businesses, and push our elected leaders to do something about reparations.

We all have the power to help enact change, and it’s a great and simple way to do it. The author gets a bit long-winded at times—he was quite proud to mention his changes to Harvard, and rightfully so—but the dearth of his research and personal experiences are beneficial to the overall book. I learned some thing about history I didn’t know, most notably about black Wall Street in Tulsa. That flaw is just one of many he’s able to point out through the pages of this book.

Anyway, when you get right down to it it’s easy. Use your money.

[R.C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thought-provoking book, with some clear, concrete suggestions for how White people can be drivers of financial social justice. The author makes no bones about it: there has been a tremendous amount of money that has been withheld, stolen, and artificially sequestered away from Black people, stripping them of the ability to earn, buy, and transfer assets (and thus stability and opportunity) from one generation to another. The way to fix this, the author states, is to simply help close that wealth gap in whatever personally-scaled ways you can, by significantly and sustainably supporting the Black financial, business, and educational communities. The author's holistic focus on finances (not just "support Black business" in that "buy a cupcake!" way, but also "support Black students" and "support Black banks" and "support Black reparations") felt like a very personally doable and common-sense approach. It's also a message that I think some of the more shallow social justice advice doesn't really cover - the author encourages people to consistently put their money behind their convictions so those convictions can be turned into actual change.

[Jessica Defreese · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good and concrete ideas on how to address the racial wealth disparity in the United States. My rating is related to the quality of the writing, or maybe more realistically the quality of the editing. Stories jump around without clear transition or connection and there was quite a bit of repetition.

For explanation and understanding of the history of race relations and the ongoing white supremacist system in this country, I would turn to other talented authors first - Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ijeoma Oluo, Ibram X. Kendi, Isabel Wilkerson, and so many others.

That said, this is a quick read and the last several chapters with the actual suggestions on what to do are worthwhile (donate to HBCUs, invest in Black-owned banks, shop at Black-owned businesses, and contact your Senators/Representatives to support formal reparations).

[Mike Steinharter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Rogers in turns tells stories, provides empirical evidence and leaves me - a white person - shaking my head at the history and currency of these issues. I have read a variety of #blm books in recent time, but this one is particularly well-written and his arguments are cogent and convincing. It should make us all shout that we want to do something. Rogers spoon feeds us ideas on what we can do to help.
Read this book. It is important. I bought copies for each of my adult children.

[Bri · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy this book and I understand the message the writer was trying to get across. This book does give good research and background for a few topics and I did learn a few things I didn't know before reading about them in this. I did have a bit of a problem with some of the jumping around in certain stories and not clear transition, few misspelled words here and there but nothing too bad. For the audience this book is made for it is a nice start to get a conversation going on some of the issues mentioned. I would recommend if you are someone with a open mind to give it a read.

[Zach Lock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book goes as follows:
1. Here's a bunch of horrible things that were done to Blacks in American history.
2. Therefore we should give all black people $160,000 of taxpayer money.

I learned some rather horrific things about how African Americans were treated that I was not taught in high school. However, the authors argument for paying all African Americans $160,000 dollars simply does not follow. Especially considering most of the people who would have to pay the $160,000 aren’t responsible or benefiting from any past exploitations of African Americans.

[Marta E C R · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm very glad to have read this book about how white people can actually make a difference and begin to right the wrongs perpetrated by this country on black people, and plan to change my own behavior as a result. There are 4 concrete suggestions in this book: 1. donate to HBCUs, 2. invest in black banks, 3. support black-owned businesses, and 4. contact legislators to support reparations. The writing is not always stellar, but the content is.

[Valerie Blanton]

Some excellent history for those who still do not understand why black people still don't have equal opportunity to be financially successful, accompanied by practical tips to make a positive difference. The book is diminished by name dropping.

[Steve Hagerty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read on specific actions white allies can take to help reduce the economic gap that exists between white Americans and Black Americans. On average, the net worth of white American households exceeds that of Black American households by a factor of six.

[Donna Bijas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book on reparations. Highly recommend.

[Chloe Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Straightforward, educational, sincere, and actionable.

[Steven Holmberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Unfortunately the title might imply it’s a philosophical book but it’s not. It’s a concise history of the reasons behind Black inequality and the specific ways to overcome it.