On a recent episode of BET’s The Grand Hustle, T.I. gave his charges another major task. They were to work with an artist to (i) create a mural in downtown Atlanta to bring awareness to the mass incarceration initiative, and (ii) and a mural to bring awareness to an education initiative. David Banner showed up and did what he do – dropped knowledge:
The true reason for mass incarceration right now is about money. It’s not about justice. It was socialized engineered to be this way. We have to get black people back to loving themselves. A lot of our people believe the same thing that other people believe about us … A lot of times our people perish because of a lack of what? Vision … so you give them the vision.
Banner’s comments were spot on, and were a de facto co-sign for Ralph Baker’s Shock Exchange: How Inner-City Kids From Brooklyn Predicted the Great Recession and the Pain Ahead. The book chronicles the travails of the New York Shock Exchange, a financial literacy program Mr. Baker started to teach teenage boys about basketball and financial literacy. Baker thought enough to invest in black boys from the inner-city and just so happened to start a revolution. After the Financial Crisis of 2008 everyone is focused on financial literacy. Secondly, Shock Exchange is now the most-influential book in the country, having been plagiarized by President Barack Obama, the Senate Finance Committee, the House Ways & Means Committee and the Bank of International Settlements.
