@Maimouna Sow
"insinuating the reason why black people are effected by the wage gap is because they are lazy" never once did I use the word "black" or any specific color for that matter. Funny how you automatically link the the words "lazy" and "wage gap" with being "black". I don't want to sound like a d***, but that is an example of victim mentality.
Now, I never said people were poor due to being lazy. I said they were poor due to bad life choices and a lack of financial education.
A constant complain I hear from minorities, is how unfair it is that white people generally don't have to work as hard as we do for the same things. Which is generally true because their parents/grandparents gave them resources that our parents didn't have or didn't know how to get. But that doesn't mean that we can't get it ourselves.
We might need to work twice as hard just to end up where they started, and I'm okay with it because but my kids will start a lot further than where me, my family or friends started. The reason I don't see the effects of redlining is because I grew up in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood (60% hispanic, 20% Pacific Islander, 10% white, 5% black and 5% Native American. 80% of the Hispanics living there were undocumented, which means they started from nothing and also had 0 welfare benefits. No health insurance, no food stamps, no unemployment benefits, nothing, didn't even speak English. Despite that, little by little the disciplined and hard working families started to improve financially. Their children graduated high school. With help from their kids, they were able to buy their own house. The families that drank and party on their front yard every weekend are still there, renting their house. Their kids weren't as successful as the kids from the other families. They got pregnant and got stuck working a minimum wage job to make ends meet. All of the families always worked, as they didn't get any welfare. Some families were smarter with their money and life choices, eventually earning their spot in the middle class family. My mom owns a barber shop in the neighborhood and has worked there for the past 16 years. That's how I know all their life stories lol.
I graduated college and have been working as an engineer. I'm involved in my community (mentorship) and attend professional conferences for minorities once a year. There I've met countless individuals with my same background and experiences.
I'll say it once again, to leave poverty behind you need to be hard working,financially smart and don't make dumb decisions. (e.g. Get pregnant/get a girl pregnant before marriage or before being financially stable. If you go to college don't pick a useless degree [most social sciences] because you'll have with a debt bigger than your income. Don't buy a new car or an old luxury car, etc). Those are some of the most common mistakes I've seen people make.
These is excluding life changing events, like death or serious health issues.
