Black political clout, not investor mentality, opened Wall Street doors

Evidence

I personally reject the risk aversion theory based on my own experience working on Wall Street. Years ago, in the late 1980s, I switched, briefly, from practicing law to working as an investment banker in municipal finance. Why? Because of Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s first black mayor. After years of dealing with exclusively white investment-banking clients at my law firm, I was excited to work on a deal, based in Atlanta, with my first black client. I soon learned that it wasn’t a coincidence: Under Jackson’s leadership, it was understood that to do business with the City of Atlanta meant deals had to include black professionals. Other black elected officials around the country followed his lead, and the municipal finance section of investment banking became a place where you could work with other black bankers. When I went to work with my former client on the banking side, I recall four other black bankers in my department in New York. In contrast, on the corporate finance side, I only met one black investment banker during my almost two years on Wall Street. I had access to that municipal finance space because black politicians used their clout to pry open the door for others; there is no counter on the corporate finance side as those making the hiring decisions, CEOs and corporate boards, remain largely white and male. When I think about the power and political muscle that was required to bring black professionals into those deals, I can’t really accept the idea that it’s the black investor’s mentality, as opposed to the white corporate investment space, that needs to change. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 461

Categorization

• XREF: Personal testimony supporting the structural-racism-as-mechanism thesis: black mayors’ contract leverage (a political mechanism) produced black representation in municipal finance, contrasting with the untouched corporate side — echoes the book’s core argument that race-neutral outcomes mask differential starting clout.