African Americans are often held back by our lack of access to econmic freedom and financial literacy. This can cause us to make decisions that might be otherwise deemed unethical, but we go along with them nonetheless because we are afraid of losing our freedom.

In this video, Dr. Watkins explains what it means to be a “Financial Zombie,” and what it means to live a life that is without fulfillment, all because you are spending  your time hunting down your next paycheck.

Black wealth is far lower than that of whites, mainly because, for many centuries, whites have extracted wealth from the African American community. Blacks were forced to work for nothing during slavery, during which time whites built massive amounts of wealth.

Even after slavery came to an end, African Americans were harmed by predatory lending practices, and also forced into other forms of slavery, such as the prison industrial complex, share cropping and blatant forms of terrorism.

One prized example was that of Black Wall Street, in the Greenwood section of Tulsa, Oklahoma. During this time, African Americans had achieved a great deal of prosperity and economic freedom, only to see it all disappear when the whites in the community became angry and destroyed their businesses. Additionally, the town was firebombed by the federal government.

To date, many of us have become financial zombies out of sheer necessity. There is a need to get the paycheck by any means necessary and it is costing us our collective soul.

So, the question is, have you allowed yourself to become a Financial Zombie? Dr. Watkins explains what this means in this video.

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James