AKA: How his black-owned bank campaign inspired this white guy

I’m pretty much a fanboy for Killer Mike.

That doesn’t mean I always agree with him or dig what he says, but in general the guy does a better job of telling the truth to the public than just about anyone in the public eye. What he has been focusing on for the past few days got me off my ass and made me realize that what I’ve been doing in fintech (short for financial-technology) hasn’t been enough, not nearly enough.

Mike’s campaign boils down to a drive to get as many people to use Atlanta’s black-owned, Citizen’s Trust Bank. He’s apparently been doing this since February, but the past few days have been when it really has blown up on my radar. The specific thing was his 107.9 video interview, something that I encourage everyone to watch as soon as they can.

Banks? Really?

Pretty much everyone who works in the area I work in loathes banks, to them, they are the biggest enemy to freedom and everything great in the world. (this statement is sarcasm, it was misunderstood and it’s important for me to clarify).

The area I’m in is Cryptocurrency, it and Blockchain tech were created with the goal of an economic system that could not be controlled by governments and laws. That last sentence is what drew me to this idea in the first place. I love the idea of creating an alt-economy that makes the crooked, racist and rigged system we have now completely obsolete. I also still believe that this will eventually happen and even believe that someday I can talk to Mike and explain to him how this can work and why it will end up creating a much better world for all of us. But now isn’t that time.

What Killer Mike made me realize is that focusing on ideas that may not materialize for years is doing nothing to help right now.

I sat here trying to evangelize my vision of an ideal world & the potential of big ideas, while doing nothing to help those in my community.

I Opened An Account At A Black-Owned Bank

I hate dealing with banks, I think they are institutions need to go obsolete by technology that I’m a small part of…..this hasn’t changed. What has changed is that I realize that right now they are necessary and ignoring their need is the definition of ignorance.

Today I made a change, on Mike’s suggestion I opened a new account at Citizen’s Trust Bank in Atlanta. The reason I’m preaching so much about this is because I’m not seeing many white people talking about this, much less white people that work in finance.

Posted on Instagram for the first time in ages to post a part of a terrible process that I loathe….but somehow it still feels important.

Doing what I did today wasn’t brave or worth praising, all I did was finally put my US dollars in an institution that is owned by people who look like my neighbors.

Most people living around me in Grant Park (an Atlanta neighborhood) are black, so why the hell are almost all the businesses I support owned by white people? I’m blessed to not still live in a city as segregated as Metro-Detroit was, but my actions have never been those of a good neighbor.

It Gets Worse

As much as I complain about banks, all of my finance-industry friends seem to view them as a necessary evil. I wonder how many are aware that roughly 28% of Americans are unbanked or underbanked? Of course this hits one community the hardest….about 21% of African-American families do not have a bank account. Many people who read this are probably confused on how the unbanked do things like get their paychecks cashed, right? That’s where the world of payday lenders and check cashers comes into play, a world of signs waving at traffic and ridiculous fees, fees to gouge those that make the very least.

In the 1960s and before, you could go to the post office to get basic financial services. Now those options are limited and the hours of availability do not correspond with off-time, making utilization impossible. This problem is one of the major issues that brought me to cryptocurrency a few years ago. I still believe that technology will be what helps to alleviate, as long as the technology is owned by the people. What I’m learning now is that this will not be happening soon enough.

The people who have never been in a bank are the ones left behind in all of this, just as they have been left behind their entire lives. Even in amazing campaigns like this where individuals are using their strongest voice possible, the poorest will still be left-behind, as their financial voices are unable to make a sound.

How Can I Help?

My first offer to help is to just ask how I can help, because I have ideas of how “I SHOULD” help, but that’s arrogant and not the attitude I need to have. I am going to mention how “I” think I could be a help, but that doesn’t mean it’s right or that it would do any damn good. So I ask this for suggestions, I can’t guarantee that they will work, but I’m willing to listen.

Here’s How I Think I Should Help

I do have an idea of what I am good at, what I know and who I know. I recognize that my actions haven’t been of the most help to those around me, so I’m unsure of how to begin using these tools properly. I do know I want Mike to read this and hope that he feels something I’m saying and contacts me privately, if nothing else just to tell me how he thinks I can help.

Earlier today I talked to one of my best friends in the finance world that is the definition of a “connector” in the truest sense. One of the questions I asked was if I could introduce him to Killer Mike, I said this out of arrogance and had absolutely no clue if Mike would even listen to me enough to hear that I have someone who wants to talk to him. Mike is the very first artist that seems to sincerely get the role of economics in this world, not just as an artist, but his knowledge rivals anyone I’ve met in the finance world! That means he doesn’t need any help there. There is a slow creep in finance of the old, white, power structure dying off and the youngish people replacing them need to know what Killer Mike is saying.

I want to not feel like the only white, finance guy that understands and feels everything Mike has been talking about. I want to have more young black men as colleagues. I want to introduce Mike to the few young black men that I’ve met along the way in this line of work that are succeeding in a game so rigged against them it seems impossible.

Only In Atlanta

Moving to Atlanta about three years ago was the best decision of my life. Maybe it’s that I came from Detroit, but this place feels special and every person living here should have the same ability to feel that way. Someone like Killer Mike couldn’t exist anywhere else. There’s nowhere else in America where Killer Mike could do the amazing things he’s done with Citizen’s Trust recently.

I want to help continue what’s happening, learn new ideas and new people.

I guess I need to start being a bigger part of my community, I hope I can do that and I hope that whatever is happening now keeps growing.

I don’t really want to plug anything today….if you want to know more about me just google…I’m easy to find.