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

Written by Steven Rogers

Narrated by Terrence Kidd

This informative epistle investigates the causes of racial wealth disparity in the United States and provides solutions for addressing it.

In straightforward language, 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 that 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 listen to the book will: understand the root causes of racial disparities in America; discover how you can personally contribute to reducing the inequality between Black and White people in the United States today; and get concrete recommendations on how to redirect your spending to Black-owned institutions to help decrease the racial wealth gap.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ascent Audio
• Release date: Sep 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663714824

Reviews for A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues

[bell7_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Along with many other white people, I've been reading literature by and about Black people and racism in the U.S. In the many books that were published in 2021 in the wake of George Floyd's murder and the Black Lives Matter protest, this one takes a unique tack in focusing on "what you can do right now to help the Black community" as the subtitle says: specifically, monetarily.Rogers lays out his credentials as a race man and someone who used to teach for the Harvard Business School and gives readers a brief history lesson in what created the wealth gap between Black and white Americans. He then addresses how to affect that gap advocating that white people intentionally buy from Black-owned businesses, put money in Black-owned banks, donate to historically Black colleges and universities, and support reparations. He even includes a template letter to send to your representatives, and discussion questions at the end for individuals or book groups to ponder. The style is conversational, but his academic background shows in the extensive notes for each chapter, giving readers plenty of articles to read on each subject. A good starting point for anyone asking "what can I do?" in the face of a challenging problem.