Andrew Yang - Black Vote & Wealth Disparity

Welcome back to the channel. I hope you're having a great day. So I thought it was very important today to do this video, the Black vote and disparity. And dealing with this election, you know, two revolutionary— I think for American politics anyway— two revolutionary ideas have come up, had come up and been a big part of this election. And that was, um, UBI, right? For us, for many of us, probably the first time some of us even heard that idea or knew anything about it being in America, even though it's been with us since the founding of the country. Many of us didn't quite understand it. Uh, and the other thing was reparations for Black American descendants of slaves. Um, and so we saw it doesn't get talked about a lot anymore, but in the beginning of the election, it was, it was very, it was a very strong topic. And, um, you know, it was causing quite a bit of candidates to stumble. And I think even Andrew Yang himself has stumbled with this quite a bit. Bernie Sanders stumbled, many other people stumbled. But the thing is, the weird thing is, is Andrew Yang is the last person who should have stumbled on this. And part of the reason why it kind of feels like Andrew stumbles on this is not in the policy, but just in the wording of What is the end result of the policy, right? For instance, one big idea has been that a lot of the African American voters should be asking their candidates, what is your agenda for the African American community? But I think the real question should be, or how we should look at it, should be whatever based on your responses, you know, what your answer is to that, what is the full effect of that and what is the full result of that, right? So if I say something like, well, I'm gonna give you $100 million, then I think as African Americans, we should look at that and go, well, and what will be the full effects of that? Like, how would that help us? And that kind of leads us down this road into this entire topic today. Talking about the Black vote and talking about the wealth disparity between African American families and the non-African American families. So this comes from The Balance. We're gonna leave a full link in the description to the article. But as it opens up, it basically goes here into detail about according to a 2018 survey found that whites severely underestimate the racial wealth gap. They think that Black wealth is about 80%, 80% that of whites. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that Black wealth is about 7% that of whites. Okay, so this comes from the Census Bureau. Now, 7%, think about that for a moment. 7%. In 2014, the median net worth of non-Hispanic white households was $130,800. The median net worth of Black households was $9,590. It was $17,530 for Hispanic households. Native American wealth has not even been measured since 2000, right? And it just talks about that. But, but let's look at these numbers here. 9— the net worth, all the assets that the Black African American family has in their possession is $9,590 compared to $130,000. Only 7% of only 7 cents on every dollar to the white American family. When African American voters talk about what— when they talk about what's in it, what's the Black agenda for us, right? Whatever response is received we should measure that out to how does it affect these numbers, right? Because these, these are the real numbers we're looking at, you know. Is what they're proposing to give African Americans going to do anything relational to that number to draw it closer together so we don't have this severe amount of wealth disparity? Because if it's not going to do that, it doesn't really matter what your candidate is saying, what's right for the Black agenda. It's just not getting there, right? So it's still wasting time. Now let's look at similar scenarios with what Andrew Yang is proposing. Andrew Yang is proposing $12,000 a year, right? Right there alone, if you give an African American family $12,000 a year and you add it to $9,590, when you do that, you're already starting to basically, uh, close the wealth gap. And the reason I'm saying that is because those numbers are going to move ever closer simply because if you only— if the average African American family has only $9,000 net worth, what does that tell you? Tells you that more than likely they aren't homeowners, right? Because they have a much higher net worth if they were. So the point I'm making is getting $12,000 a year, one of the first fundamental changes it's going to cause is going to cause African Americans a great deal more to become homeowners and have those assets, um, that can help push those numbers closer together. So it's not going to just be the $12,000 a year, it's going to also be the check of what's going to be caused from that $12,000 a year. Home ownership is going to be one of those major things, um, and, and that's going to help push-pull those numbers closer together, right? Because, um, maybe with the white families, they won't have to buy homes. They'll probably do something else with the money, probably take vacations with it, right? But when you buy homes with $12,000 a year, uh, you're basically possibly going to be, you know, making your assets grow a lot more valuable in, uh, as, as opposed to contrast to the white American family. So I'm just giving out, um, one example of, of how that could greatly affect that disparity. Now again, like when we talk about the Black agenda, groups ask for what are you going to do for us. It seems to kind of end at what are you going to do for us, and obviously that's a great place to start, But I think we do still need to scrutinize who's saying they're for some type of Black such, such, such, such without specific details, because without them, they really don't mean anything. Just because you're for something, you could be talking about giving people, uh, which is going to be equivalent to $5 a year, right? Um, and so that's not going to be of any help to the, the disparity gap. You need a real solution to this disparity gap. And so far, as far as the Black American voter is concerned, I haven't seen anything that's going to bring us closer to that than Andrew Yang's Freedom Dividend, right? I haven't, I haven't. I've heard people say things like, I think Kamala Harris, she's probably gave one of the closest to most concrete numbers I heard that would actually go directly into the Black American voter's hands. And it was something like, uh, $500 per household, right? Uh, for, for family, right? That was about half of that. And she didn't really talk a lot about it, so it kind of made me concerned about if she would even really deliver that, or that's just something she's proposing in passing. But it wasn't like how Andrew Yang's— how is his signature proposal in his platform, right? It's not like— it wasn't anything like that would come out of here. So for As far as I'm concerned, she's kind of counted out of that. Now the other person who gave concrete information was people like Marianne Williamson. I love Marianne Williamson. She wanted to give $100 billion, kind of put in a— well, really Marianne said we could do whatever we want with it, but $100 billion, um, you know, it is a good start, but it probably wouldn't be enough. Um, I think it comes out to something like $2,700 per house, you know, per household. And it's a one-time, it's a one-time payment, right? And I think she proposed even giving a little bit more, uh, after that, maybe up to $500 billion. But no matter how you dice it, it— even if she gave $500 billion, that would still be only about $10,000 per African American. That's not going to be enough to buy your home. That's not going to be enough to really do anything. You can't even buy a car with that, so— or not a new one anyway. So much as I love Marianne and I believe she's on the right track, it's still, to me, doesn't get to where Andrew Yang's policy gets to, right? And if you're an African American voter, unless you're hearing things that address that, you know, unfortunately there are African Americans who are saying they're going to vote for Biden because he served with Obama. And I guess they felt everything went okay while he was there with Obama. He got along with Obama, but none of what Biden is saying is addressing the real problems. Problems getting money into our hands and help, which is what we need. Um, also, uh, you know, Joe Biden has a, you know, we, as we know, has a very questionable history. Not saying people can't change from that because I've seen it and people do. And I'm sure Biden now is a stand-up guy, but again, it still doesn't answer to the call or the problems that African-American people are going to have. So whether you're part of the African Descendant of Slaves group, or if you're part of whatever your movement is, I would love to hear you guys' responses on this video. Uh, you know, with the policies we have out here so far and where your vote's going, whether it's going any place at all, uh, you know, I love to hear which one of these policies you think will benefit you the most. And, um, if you don't plan to vote for anybody, you You know, what proposal do you have on the table at least to present as a means to kind of address something like this wealth disparity? I'd love to hear about it. But you know, just from my perspective, from what I can see, I see this as a policy that is creating a lot of, you know, basically serving a great portion of the Black agenda, for helping Black families because I really believe that, um, that's not good, Amber Alert. But I hope they catch whoever they're looking for. Sorry about that, guys. But anyway, I really believe that, you know, it serves the African American agenda because I believe if we look at the numbers, we're the lowest group on that poll, right? as far as net worth, uh, and giving people free college, whereas maybe down the line that could raise those numbers, you know, giving people free college. We've seen that that doesn't guarantee people good jobs necessarily. Uh, it doesn't guarantee them better economic standings altogether depending on what area they work in. Um, and, and, and so I believe all these things are great starts, Again, I still don't see them quite, uh, having the impact that the Freedom Dividend is going to have. You know, if you have a family of 5, just imagine a family of 5 people, that's $60,000 a year. You're gonna buy a home, you might buy 2 homes, right? You probably have 3 homes just from the income of that family, right? Um, and so, um, Yeah, I think certainly that's a, that's going to be a better agenda for the Black as far as what I can see now, you know, but we, you gotta have some plan. You know, it's not just enough to say, give me this, give me that, or we don't vote, right? It's got to be, give me this and we want specifically this. And Andrew Yang has a specific plan. Now again, the problem is Andrew Yang doesn't word it correctly, right? When he's dealing with, cause it's a lot of pressure when you're not of the same race of people and you, you know, and you haven't been in their shoes and you don't understand or apply it or what's happening with them. So it's not always going to be easy for a candidate who's non-black to say, hey, you know, this is what it is, right? And so they're trying to understand this thing as well. But, uh, Andrew Yang has it, he has it in place. It's just he hasn't been able— he hasn't had enough time in a lot of the interviews and segments he's in, or he hasn't really just kind of sat down and thought about what he's offering us or what he's saying to us exactly, or he has, and the words that he's putting out are just kind of still flying over our head, which means that we need to have a language that breaks it down in a setting like this where we can actually see the numbers and see how it's moving against that. Now again, it's going to also light an issue that because everyone gets it, it seems like it's a slight over the African American people's plight. And that's understandable as well. And I have proposed something to that. If I were in the Andrew Yang campaign and I spoke about the Black agenda, I wouldn't change anything in the economic policy. I think this is fine. I think economically Blacks will benefit more, but then I will propose a national reparations museum monument. So that we never forget what the African American people have done for this country. A very nice museum, not a cheap museum. And I love to see something like that. I think that'd be a great proposal, you know, spend several million dollars or whatever it takes to do that. And then just get together a program or policy. It would be nice if even Andrew had somebody like, You know, I know Killer Mike, he rolls with Bernie Sanders. He's been doing that a while now. He's not gonna stop that. But I would love if Andrew had somebody similar to Killer Mike who were as articulate as Killer Mike and has such a presence in the Black community like Killer Mike and was with Andrew Yang. And I think it's just a matter of time before he gets somebody like that, but was with Andrew Yang and was able to communicate to us a little bit better, you know, how the numbers really work to our favor, how it's going to build and raise our net worth. Because everything's here, it's just not being communicated in a way where it's isolated to just African Americans, to the point there is a, a, enough, uh, satisfaction there in that idea, right? Because again, you know, I understand completely, being African American myself and where African Americans are coming from, where you go, well, yeah, that's great that you're going to help everybody, but this was a particular set of incidents that happened to us, and a particular set of incidents should always be addressed specifically to the group it happened to. And you can't always just say something like, well, we're going to help everybody and you're going to be helped as an offset of that. That's a similar issue Bernie Sanders had that I think rubbed a lot of African Americans the right way. So when you address the African American people specifically, remember, it doesn't have to be money. Right? It could be, uh, it could be in some cases people try to just do a public apology, which I, I would want more than a public apology. But I think a great museum, um, something that reminds America of not only the contributions African Americans have made but makes it so that it's national, so people can never forget that it's in your state buildings. right? Make it even a law that there are frescoes in state buildings, there are statues in state buildings, there are monuments at the national level. You know, even Donald Trump, uh, recently came out and was at some type of Black, uh, event where he went, um, Black people built the country, right? Because that was smart of Trump to do that. You know, he's coming out with that now because he knows just how poorly he's suffering with the Black American vote. But it does help when he at least recognizes Black people. And see, that's what Black Americans want to see. They don't want an overall solution for everybody. They want something specifically that targets them, even if it's helping the world, unfortunately, because I know we're all about humanity first, and I'm a humanity-first person. But I also get that the Black Americans are saying, well, okay, that's great, but we want something that specifically recognizes us. And And again, you know, we have to have a conversation that does that in a way that it addresses that, but then it also helps the rest of the world, helps humanity in particular, right? So tell me, guys, all what you think about that. Um, if you're a member of the African descendants of slaves, I really love to hear from you guys. I respect a lot of you guys' opinions. I think you're on the right track, and I really love to hear Uh, what, what candidates you think are, are even close to the solution. And, um, you know, if you don't think any candidate is, uh, what are you gonna do? Are you just not gonna vote? And if you don't vote, uh, the consequences maybe could be that Trump wins or something like that. And then, um, the, you know, Trump doesn't seem to be doing anything that's gonna give African Americans a net worth value even closer. And you know, the, the sad thing about it is no matter how people talk about how good Trump's doing with jobs and how great the country is doing, when you look at the numbers, the numbers tell the truth, right? When you look at that $9,000 in net worth, you know, that's in Black families compared to $130,000 of white families, you know, that is the reality of the situation of what's, what's happening, right? Uh, when you look at statistics like 60% of Americans can't afford a $400 emergency, those are real numbers opposed to narratives that the country's doing good, the economy's doing good, that Black Americans are doing better than ever before. Well, they might be doing better than ever before, but their net worth is still $9,000, right? So would love to hear what you guys think about that. Um, if you like content like this, please don't forget to like and subscribe. We have our own Universal Basic Income project using blockchain technology that I'm very passionate about. Doesn't cost you a dime to join, but it's of tremendous value to me and it does give you value back. You get free money. That is correct. You get free money in the form of cryptocurrency, right? Don't have to do anything. Just be, just exist and just get on the site. But that's all I want to say in this video. If you like content like this, Don't forget to like, subscribe, and until next time, take care.