In a video posted in May after appearing on journalist Roland Martin’s radio show, public speaker and entrepreneur John Hope Bryant said everything isn’t about racism — it is about economics and education.
The video posted two weeks ago has now gained traction on the web.
Bryant said racism isn’t stopping people from getting a degree. The financial activist tells viewers about a caller he had to deal with while on the Roland Martin radio show. Bryant said the caller was so focused on slavery that he didn’t listen to the solutions being discussed.
He urged Black people to stop being angry and to stay focused on solving Black issues.
To him, modern slavery is urban communities with poor credit scores and unemployment. If Black people can’t manage and operate within the system of capitalism, they won’t make it, he said.
Urban communities have the worst of everything — homicides, unemployment. Bryant said Black people aren’t the only ones being taken advantage of because white people are the poorest group in the country.
“Ferguson is no jobs … Baltimore rioting is no jobs,” he said.
Bryant went on to say, “Our pain is so deep that it gets us away from solutions … We have to stop being so angry all the time.”
Bryant ended his nearly 9-minute video by stating that racism isn’t going anywhere and that Black people have to change themselves.
