The White Wall

How Big Finance Bankrupts Black America

By: Emily Flitter

Narrated by: Emily Flitter

Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

A deeply reported, “important, and infuriating” (The Guardian) look at the systemic racism inside the American financial services industry, from acclaimed New York Times finance reporter Emily Flitter.

In 2018, Emily Flitter received a tip that Morgan Stanley had fired a Black employee without cause. Flitter had been searching for a way to investigate the deep-rooted racism in the American financial industry, and that one tip lit the sparkplug for a three-year journey through the shocking yet normalized corruption in our financial institutions.

Examining local insurance agencies and corporate titans like JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock, and Wells Fargo and reveals the practices that have kept the racial wealth gap practically as wide as it was during the Jim Crow era. Flitter exposes hiring and layoff policies designed to keep Black employees from advancing to high levels; racial profiling of customers in internal emails between bank tellers; major insurers refusing to pay Black policyholders’ claims; and the systematic denial of funding to Black entrepreneurs. She also gives a voice to victims, from single mothers to professional athletes to employees themselves: people who were scammed, lied to, and defrauded by the systems they trusted with their money, and silenced when they attempted to speak out and seek reform.

Flitter connects the dots between data, history, legal scholarship, and powerful personal stories to provide a “must-read wake-up call” (Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, president of KNOWN Holdings) about what it means to bank while Black. As America continues to confront systemic racism and pave a path forward, The White Wall is an essential examination of one of its most caustic contributors.

©2022 Emily Flitter (P)2022 Simon & Schuster Audio

I share some of these experiences

Great and will listen to it again. Sharing with friends. I have also experienced discrimination in the work place.

Great insight

The author is a true journalist which is a dying breed and she dug deep into a polarizing topic

Every White Person

Every white person should listen to this book and not get defensive but stay curious. Curious as to why the banking system has been allowed to dodge any accountability in countless atrocities played out in our country. From the financing of the slave trade to the housing market crash. They pit people against people to distract from the system that is doing all the damage. We will do better when we stop sugar coating history to protect corporate interests and seek to validate marginalized communities concerns they have been voicing since the start of our country and take steps to bring real reparations to those same communities.

Perfectly Written

This book is eye opening and the topic is perfect. There are great and all to common exspirance in this book that many people of color are asked to get over. This book perfectly breaks down for readers, especially if white, why people of color are cautious when banking. I hope all people read this book and make meaningful efforts small or large to change the narrative and actions, see something say something. A copy of this book should be repeatedly sent to all bank CEO as a protest to their continuing lack of taking responsibility for their microagression towards people of color

Outstanding read on a vital subject

Extremely thorough and a fair look at the catastrophic decisions that the finance industry makes that have affected (and continue to affect) Black Americans.

Very informative

The more I learn the more questions I have, but one thing is certain. Capitalism needs some guardrails!

Excellent research

This story of how big finance bankrupt America was an eye-opening well articulated story from start to finish. Excellent job and story.

A refreshing truth about the financial industry

This is a thoughtful and thorough examination of how the financial industry discriminates against Black people; employees and borrowers.

So many examples!

The value of this book is all the numerous examples and stories of so many people existing in the finance and banking industry who are facing the truth of a prejudice system. We already knew about the racism in the field but getting such insight as various personal experiences made it more real.

Whoa

This book is so enlightening. I appreciated the personal stories and all of the historical information. It gives you a lot to think about.