Simple Things/ Lang Kenneth Haynes
POW
POW
The title of this column is POW, which stands for Picture of Wealth, not Prisoner of War. The title is deceptive. It leads the reader to think
about war, prisoners, foreign countries, cells with bamboo bars and prisons with wretched food, desperation, poor health care, lousy nutrition
and rotten teeth falling out. But that is not what this column is about. POW or the Picture of Wealth is something we either have or do not have
since what we see and perceive as possible is largely a matter of habit, experience and expectation.
About 15 years ago, a prominent Black businessman I had met cordially invited me to attend an event in Racine at a convention center-type
building complex called Racine on the Lake. The event was a Black business convention of some sort. Businesspeople from all over the
Midwest attended, if I remember correctly. I had been to several business fairs and minority business events including dinners, fund-raisers,
information sharing sessions, business card exchanges and assorted kinds of opportunities to network and socialize. I suppose that many of
these types of activities were going on at Racine on the Lake, but what made it different — in my eyes, anyway — was the shear number of Black
people who were about business. The main hall was literally filled with Black people who were all about conducting business and promoting
their respective companies and services. There were Black women and Black men all dressed up and looking very comfortable in business
attire like freshly laundered shirts and blouses, ties, sparkling belts, shoes that shone so bright they could double as mirrors, expensive-looking
suits — many of which appeared to be tailor-made, and a wide array of electronic communication devices before these high-tech gadgets became
popular and pay phones were not hard to find.
I was overwhelmed with the images. Overwhelmed by the picture of wealth that swirled before me. It took my breath away. I don’t mean that
in a figurative way. The wind was literally sucked out of me like a left uppercut delivered to my stomach by Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter. I walked
outside and sat on a bench under a tree in order to catch my breath and reorient myself to my surroundings.
I’ve been in a lot of places in many different situations and have had the privilege of experiencing a variety of people in circumstances that
often countered the images commonly portrayed. I’ve seen the wind knocked out of many stereotypes. But I had never seen so many Black
people assembled in one location who were about the business of conducting business. Folks were cultivating prospects during face-to-face
conversations while talking with a stock broker on the phone, at the same time, dishing out instructions on which stocks to sell and which ones
to buy. I overheard conversations that had to do with balanced stock portfolios, the advantages and disadvantages of liquid assets, the myths
and realities surrounding owning a home as opposed to renting, interest rates, stocks and bonds, assorted investments, tax shelters and just
about as many rags-to-riches stories as there were people in the room. It was like being home on the range. And just like the song that was
popular a few decades ago, seldom was heard a discouraging word.
About 30 years ago, a very insightful friend of mine made a comment about the power of the indicia of success. The concept wasn’t really
new but as is the case with many things, it can be enlightening to hear something presented from a different angle, from a different perspective,
at a different time when one might be more receptive to whatever is being said. So what does indicia of success mean? It means driving cars
that we can’t afford to give the appearance of being able to afford the car. It means wearing clothes that we can’t afford to buy to make it appear
as though we are able to buy and wear such clothing without eating peanut butter sandwiches for dinner for the next nine months to save a little
cash. It means kids wearing athletic shoes that cost way more than they can afford to buy because other kids are wearing them. The shoe
dilemma is not a new one. Although they cost $100 and up now, when I was a kid in the ‘50s and ‘60s we used to call athletic shoes sneakers
and the choices were much more limited. You could have high-top or low-cut and the colors were confined to white, black and maybe blue. Keds
sneakers were the top of the line until the arrival of Chuck Taylor Converse All-Star sneakers that used to cost about $7/pair as opposed to about
$4/pair for Keds, and less for the brand X sneakers that we used to call skippies. Skippies. The undesirable shoes. Wearing skippies was pretty
much the same as stapling a large poster to your chest that read, “My family is poor and these pathetic, no-name sneakers are the best we can
do.” The same bizarre and incorrect thinking was going on way back then. For example, I remember when my best friend and I would go to the
park across the highway from where we lived with the intention of robbing some helpless person in order to get money to buy Chuck Taylor All
Star sneakers. Fortunately for us and our imaginary victims we never robbed anyone. There was something in play called conscience that was
much stronger than the desire or perceived need to wear fancy sneakers. Okay. Fear had a little to do with it. Fear of getting caught. Fear of a
New York City police officer posing as a helpless-looking old lady and delivering a few well-placed karate chops when we tried to snatch her
purse. Fear of not being believed when we tried to explain the new, expensive sneakers to our mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers.
The blend of conscience and fear stifled our dreams of wearing athletic shoes that we could not afford, so we put these dreams on a shelf —
beside all the others — to be taken down and dusted off another day.
But Racine on the Lake represented a different kind of wealth altogether. It went beyond appearances to possibilities. It wasn’t about very
slim chances of becoming a major professional athlete and earning millions of dollars a year in endorsements alone. It wasn’t about hitting the
number or winning at off-track betting — a kind of illegal gambling that was often engaged in by poor folks the same way the legal lottery is today.
The wealth that was displayed at Racine on the Lake that day was not tied exclusively to chance. It was not tied to the luck of being discovered
by the agent of a sports team or a movie director. The intense magic that electrified the air was fueled by something different, something doable,
something attainable. The faces of the participants were not faces that were known or seen on television, on cereal boxes or in the pages of
magazines or newspapers. These were people who were exhibiting the power of creating pictures of wealth. These were people who somehow
knew that the pictures of wealth that they had been exposed to in school, in the neighborhood, on billboards, on the sides of buses, and
sometimes even at home did not portray them as the beneficiaries of wealth. And for this reason they seemed to know that it was incumbent upon
them to create their own pictures of wealth. These are the images that must been seen and experienced on a regular basis by those who consider
just barely getting by to be the best they will ever do in this lifetime.
Before Racine on the Lake, my pictures of wealth were very scattered. I have a very early recollection of a friend of my grandfather named
Mr. Lewis. Mr. Lewis owned a home in Long Island which in itself was miraculous for a Black person because I knew only three Black families
who owned homes while I was growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Mr. Lewis employed a woman by the name of Mrs. Bellamy and she took care of
some of the things that Mr. Lewis either was not inclined to do or did not have time to do. Things like buying gifts for folks for holidays. As I think
back on it, I guess Mrs. Bellamy was kind of a personal assistant. In addition to owning a home and having an assistant, Mr. Lewis owned at
least one apartment building in Harlem, New York. The idea of people paying rent to a Black man was hard to fathom at the time because the
prevalent picture was one of Black folks paying rent to a landlord who didn’t look anything like Mr. Lewis. Mr. Lewis represented an isolated
picture of wealth, but a picture of wealth nonetheless. The more common picture of wealth was one that was painted by my parents and other
parents who descended on New York City from all over the world, with a variety of skin colors, accents and customs. But there was one common
goal — that was the betterment of their lives and, by extension, setting the stage for more fulfilling lives for their children. I learned very well from
my parents the importance of hard work, dedication and persistence, but I still haven’t figured out how to transmute any of these particular
characteristics into wealth.
Most Black folks are familiar with the term maintainin’ which means to survive or to get by. Most Black folks I know are also familiar with
the term gettin’ over, but there are far fewer of us who have done that. Gettin’ over means doing better than merely surviving. Gettin’ over means
not having the payday loan office as a regular stop on your way home from work. It means having no fear of the repo man. It means answering
your phone without fearing a bill collector on the other end of the line. The picture of wealth is the picture of gettin’ over. And for that picture to be
created and embraced by a growing number of people, it has to be large and available and there must be paths defined that link maintainin’ and
gettin’ over. Allies will be required such as those who formed the Underground Railroad. We need to spend time with people who already have
what we aspire to have. Financial freedom is yet another kind of freedom and merely appearing to be financially free is not enough. We must
dispel the myth that there is not enough wealth to go around and that it is the job of the have-nots to continue to be have-nots by deferring to those
who have. There is nothing noble about this form of humility. There must be a way other than continuing to believe the financial myths that we
have come to accept as truth. There is another way. The economic turmoil that we are collectively experiencing now on different levels and in
different ways is a necessary prerequisite to creating a picture of wealth that is more all-encompassing. I am simultaneously terrified and
intrigued by the journey. Many of us have carried the yoke of poverty for so long that we walk with bent back and crooked gait even when our
shoulders are free of the yoke. One beauty is that there is no room for vacillating. The boat has already left the dock. I want to ride on the top deck
and have the sun of opportunity bathe my body and mind. I do not want to linger in the damp shadows of the hull. I have done that before.
about war, prisoners, foreign countries, cells with bamboo bars and prisons with wretched food, desperation, poor health care, lousy nutrition
and rotten teeth falling out. But that is not what this column is about. POW or the Picture of Wealth is something we either have or do not have
since what we see and perceive as possible is largely a matter of habit, experience and expectation.
About 15 years ago, a prominent Black businessman I had met cordially invited me to attend an event in Racine at a convention center-type
building complex called Racine on the Lake. The event was a Black business convention of some sort. Businesspeople from all over the
Midwest attended, if I remember correctly. I had been to several business fairs and minority business events including dinners, fund-raisers,
information sharing sessions, business card exchanges and assorted kinds of opportunities to network and socialize. I suppose that many of
these types of activities were going on at Racine on the Lake, but what made it different — in my eyes, anyway — was the shear number of Black
people who were about business. The main hall was literally filled with Black people who were all about conducting business and promoting
their respective companies and services. There were Black women and Black men all dressed up and looking very comfortable in business
attire like freshly laundered shirts and blouses, ties, sparkling belts, shoes that shone so bright they could double as mirrors, expensive-looking
suits — many of which appeared to be tailor-made, and a wide array of electronic communication devices before these high-tech gadgets became
popular and pay phones were not hard to find.
I was overwhelmed with the images. Overwhelmed by the picture of wealth that swirled before me. It took my breath away. I don’t mean that
in a figurative way. The wind was literally sucked out of me like a left uppercut delivered to my stomach by Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter. I walked
outside and sat on a bench under a tree in order to catch my breath and reorient myself to my surroundings.
I’ve been in a lot of places in many different situations and have had the privilege of experiencing a variety of people in circumstances that
often countered the images commonly portrayed. I’ve seen the wind knocked out of many stereotypes. But I had never seen so many Black
people assembled in one location who were about the business of conducting business. Folks were cultivating prospects during face-to-face
conversations while talking with a stock broker on the phone, at the same time, dishing out instructions on which stocks to sell and which ones
to buy. I overheard conversations that had to do with balanced stock portfolios, the advantages and disadvantages of liquid assets, the myths
and realities surrounding owning a home as opposed to renting, interest rates, stocks and bonds, assorted investments, tax shelters and just
about as many rags-to-riches stories as there were people in the room. It was like being home on the range. And just like the song that was
popular a few decades ago, seldom was heard a discouraging word.
About 30 years ago, a very insightful friend of mine made a comment about the power of the indicia of success. The concept wasn’t really
new but as is the case with many things, it can be enlightening to hear something presented from a different angle, from a different perspective,
at a different time when one might be more receptive to whatever is being said. So what does indicia of success mean? It means driving cars
that we can’t afford to give the appearance of being able to afford the car. It means wearing clothes that we can’t afford to buy to make it appear
as though we are able to buy and wear such clothing without eating peanut butter sandwiches for dinner for the next nine months to save a little
cash. It means kids wearing athletic shoes that cost way more than they can afford to buy because other kids are wearing them. The shoe
dilemma is not a new one. Although they cost $100 and up now, when I was a kid in the ‘50s and ‘60s we used to call athletic shoes sneakers
and the choices were much more limited. You could have high-top or low-cut and the colors were confined to white, black and maybe blue. Keds
sneakers were the top of the line until the arrival of Chuck Taylor Converse All-Star sneakers that used to cost about $7/pair as opposed to about
$4/pair for Keds, and less for the brand X sneakers that we used to call skippies. Skippies. The undesirable shoes. Wearing skippies was pretty
much the same as stapling a large poster to your chest that read, “My family is poor and these pathetic, no-name sneakers are the best we can
do.” The same bizarre and incorrect thinking was going on way back then. For example, I remember when my best friend and I would go to the
park across the highway from where we lived with the intention of robbing some helpless person in order to get money to buy Chuck Taylor All
Star sneakers. Fortunately for us and our imaginary victims we never robbed anyone. There was something in play called conscience that was
much stronger than the desire or perceived need to wear fancy sneakers. Okay. Fear had a little to do with it. Fear of getting caught. Fear of a
New York City police officer posing as a helpless-looking old lady and delivering a few well-placed karate chops when we tried to snatch her
purse. Fear of not being believed when we tried to explain the new, expensive sneakers to our mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers.
The blend of conscience and fear stifled our dreams of wearing athletic shoes that we could not afford, so we put these dreams on a shelf —
beside all the others — to be taken down and dusted off another day.
But Racine on the Lake represented a different kind of wealth altogether. It went beyond appearances to possibilities. It wasn’t about very
slim chances of becoming a major professional athlete and earning millions of dollars a year in endorsements alone. It wasn’t about hitting the
number or winning at off-track betting — a kind of illegal gambling that was often engaged in by poor folks the same way the legal lottery is today.
The wealth that was displayed at Racine on the Lake that day was not tied exclusively to chance. It was not tied to the luck of being discovered
by the agent of a sports team or a movie director. The intense magic that electrified the air was fueled by something different, something doable,
something attainable. The faces of the participants were not faces that were known or seen on television, on cereal boxes or in the pages of
magazines or newspapers. These were people who were exhibiting the power of creating pictures of wealth. These were people who somehow
knew that the pictures of wealth that they had been exposed to in school, in the neighborhood, on billboards, on the sides of buses, and
sometimes even at home did not portray them as the beneficiaries of wealth. And for this reason they seemed to know that it was incumbent upon
them to create their own pictures of wealth. These are the images that must been seen and experienced on a regular basis by those who consider
just barely getting by to be the best they will ever do in this lifetime.
Before Racine on the Lake, my pictures of wealth were very scattered. I have a very early recollection of a friend of my grandfather named
Mr. Lewis. Mr. Lewis owned a home in Long Island which in itself was miraculous for a Black person because I knew only three Black families
who owned homes while I was growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Mr. Lewis employed a woman by the name of Mrs. Bellamy and she took care of
some of the things that Mr. Lewis either was not inclined to do or did not have time to do. Things like buying gifts for folks for holidays. As I think
back on it, I guess Mrs. Bellamy was kind of a personal assistant. In addition to owning a home and having an assistant, Mr. Lewis owned at
least one apartment building in Harlem, New York. The idea of people paying rent to a Black man was hard to fathom at the time because the
prevalent picture was one of Black folks paying rent to a landlord who didn’t look anything like Mr. Lewis. Mr. Lewis represented an isolated
picture of wealth, but a picture of wealth nonetheless. The more common picture of wealth was one that was painted by my parents and other
parents who descended on New York City from all over the world, with a variety of skin colors, accents and customs. But there was one common
goal — that was the betterment of their lives and, by extension, setting the stage for more fulfilling lives for their children. I learned very well from
my parents the importance of hard work, dedication and persistence, but I still haven’t figured out how to transmute any of these particular
characteristics into wealth.
Most Black folks are familiar with the term maintainin’ which means to survive or to get by. Most Black folks I know are also familiar with
the term gettin’ over, but there are far fewer of us who have done that. Gettin’ over means doing better than merely surviving. Gettin’ over means
not having the payday loan office as a regular stop on your way home from work. It means having no fear of the repo man. It means answering
your phone without fearing a bill collector on the other end of the line. The picture of wealth is the picture of gettin’ over. And for that picture to be
created and embraced by a growing number of people, it has to be large and available and there must be paths defined that link maintainin’ and
gettin’ over. Allies will be required such as those who formed the Underground Railroad. We need to spend time with people who already have
what we aspire to have. Financial freedom is yet another kind of freedom and merely appearing to be financially free is not enough. We must
dispel the myth that there is not enough wealth to go around and that it is the job of the have-nots to continue to be have-nots by deferring to those
who have. There is nothing noble about this form of humility. There must be a way other than continuing to believe the financial myths that we
have come to accept as truth. There is another way. The economic turmoil that we are collectively experiencing now on different levels and in
different ways is a necessary prerequisite to creating a picture of wealth that is more all-encompassing. I am simultaneously terrified and
intrigued by the journey. Many of us have carried the yoke of poverty for so long that we walk with bent back and crooked gait even when our
shoulders are free of the yoke. One beauty is that there is no room for vacillating. The boat has already left the dock. I want to ride on the top deck
and have the sun of opportunity bathe my body and mind. I do not want to linger in the damp shadows of the hull. I have done that before.
