Being black in the US vs the UK: There's a big difference

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Author Alvin Hall is a huge award-winning financial advisor and broadcaster in the UK, despite being born and raised in poverty in Florida. He feels, though, that he wasn’t able to break through in American media because America, he feels, still has a lot of inbuilt racial prejudice. He posits that since he doesn’t fit into the narrowly defined idea of what a financial advisor should look like in the U.S., he fell through the cracks and didn’t get a fair chance. In the UK, on the other hand, “they’ll give you the opportunity— even if it’s the opportunity to fail, but it’s an opportunity that you can turn into success.”

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ALVIN HALL

Alvin Hall is an internationally renowned financial educator, television and radio broadcaster, bestselling author, and regular contributor to magazines, newspapers, and websites.

For five years on the BBC, he hosted the highly rated and award-winning series, “Your Money or Your Life,” on which he offered both practical financial and psychological advice to people about how to take control of and fix their financial problems. His radio program, Jay-Z: From Brooklyn to the Boardroom, won the Wincott Foundation Press and Broadcasting Award for the best radio program for 2006. Hall has also hosted programs on current events and contemporary art for BBC Radio 4 including After Katrina and most recently, Alvin Hall’s Generations of Money. An eight-part television series for BBC World News called Alvin’s Guide to Good Business was broadcast internationally in 2010. In the US, he is a regular contributor on personal finance and the economy on NPR’s Tell Me More with Michel Martin.

Among Hall’s bestselling books are: You and Your Money: It’s More than Just the Numbers, Your Money or Your Life (winner of the WHSmith 2003 People’s Choice Award), What Not to Spend, Getting Started in Mutual Funds 2nd Edition, and Getting Started in Stocks 3rd Edition. His children’s book, Show Me the Money, has been published in over 20 foreign-language editions. In the US, the book has been named a Best Children’s Book of the Year (2009) by the Bank St. Book Committee, which is run by the Bank Street College of Education. It was also named a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People (2009) by a joint project of the National Book Council for Social Studies and the Children’s Book Council.

Hall lives in New York City where he designs and teaches classes about the investment markets for financial services companies, banks, regulatory authorities, as well as information and technology vendors. His acclaimed classroom programs and speaking engagements have provided thousands of people with a solid grounding in such topics as the workings of financial markets, investment products, effective investment strategies, reducing debt, planning for retirement and personal financial management. Alvin Hall is a member of the NYSE Euronext Financial Literacy Advisory Committee to help develop programs to improve knowledge about all aspects of personal finance among the general public. He is also on the Acquisitions Committee of the Studio Museum in Harlem.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Alvin Hall: Two facts. One, I define myself as a black man first, because that’s what you’re going to see when you look at me. Being gay is something I define myself second, third, I can’t decide really. But it’s not everything I am. It’s a part of a complexity that I am. And that’s not backing away from the fact that I’m gay. It’s just that there are other aspects of my personality which are much more important to me and how I negotiate the world.

My career in the UK and other parts of the world really came about because someone there saw my talent at being able to talk about money, personal finance, cultural issues, and my curiosity, and opened the door for me. I don’t think that I would have had the same opportunity in the United States.

Why not? Partly because when people look at me they don’t see my skill sets and they’re always filtered through their own prejudice.

In the UK and other parts of the world – not all but many – people will give you credit. They’ll give you the opportunity— even if it’s the opportunity to fail, but it’s an opportunity that you can turn into success.

I don’t think that what happened with my career in the United Kingdom would have happened for me in America. I don’t think that the affection that the people in th…

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