John Hope Bryant, author of ‘Financial Literacy For All,’ joined TheStreet to discuss the importance of financial literacy.
Transcript:
CONWAY GITTENS: So how do we use financial literacy, which is the subject and the topic of your book to level that playing field. What are we doing wrong in terms of financial literacy? What do you want to see changed?
JOHN HOPE BRYANT: This is a beautiful question because the answer is, unfortunately or fortunately, very simple. What we’re doing wrong is we’re not doing anything right. We’re not talking about money in our households. We’re spending it. I had a home economics class when I was nine years old and a white banker. I say that intentionally because my first experience with a white man was positive, came in my classroom and taught me financial literacy. He was from Bank of America. He was a volunteer. He didn’t want to be there. We didn’t want him there. But after he came in once a week for six weeks, by the third week, we’re like, he’s like, you know, kids, you’re not so bad. We’re like, well, you’re not so bad for a white dude. And we were joking, but we had a good rapport the fourth week, I was wearing a suit just like him. The only suit I had, my Sunday suit, I was modeling them. I had a little briefcase with my dreams in it. I was selling mail order to my teachers.
And finally I asked him, what do you do for a living and how did you get rich. Legally, I was dead serious, he said. I’m a banker and I finance entrepreneurs. I said, I’ve never met a banker before. I never heard the word entrepreneur before in my life, but it was legal and you’re financing it. I’m going to be one now. What am I at today? I am an entrepreneur. And what are we doing using banking principles to level the playing field for now, millions of people. Now, I did that. Everybody watching this can go volunteer in a classroom somewhere. Everybody watching this can teach us, take this book, go to your local school or church or wherever and teach financial literacy. And what I really want to do is I want our Congress and our Senate and our president to sign a financial literacy for all Bill that will embed this K through high school, but that I’ll get to in the next couple of years.
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