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For the past decade or so I've attended a majority black church in a low income area. Put there are plenty of black family who also attend from across town like I do and they make wise decisions like marrying before making babies, reduce their wasteful spending trying to impress strangers, etc. The poor people are the ones who do the opposite.

So usually my financial small group has a mixture of both. Every now and then somebody will say that it's not fair that he/she didn't have a father in his life. I ask if it's going to be a source of bitterness or a source of motivation to make sure his kids have it better. There's almost always a black couple who speak up and say that the fatherless motivated them to make sure their kids didn't have the same problem. And from there we usually focus on budgeting, saving and investing.

Unlike Ramsey I don't spend the first month or so on nothing but budgeting and baby step goals, making everybody bored. I usually mix it up between investing and budgeting. ("Okay. Now that we've shown how much investments can grow if you stick to it, let's make a budget so we can have money to advance towards our goals and make wise goals to get where we want.")

Usually race doesn't come up in a bitterness way. Usually it comes up with some humor about budgeting ("y'all don't know how much black girl hair do's cost"). The few times race does come up in a manner of it-ain't-my-fault-I'm-broke-cuz-of-white-people, I learned a long time ago not to try to win it with facts at first. I use the word "bitterness" as a Christian buzz word to poo poo on their racist belief.

After we've all gotten to know each other for a while, sometimes I pull that person aside and tell him/her that my being white ain't got a thing to do with her not knowing who her daddy is. So is she going to let the media and political class keep telling her not to make wise decisions because of the flat out lie of blaming whites, or is she going to quit leaning on the crutch that's really a shackle with a voluntary lock and decide to unlock the shackle and focus on making godly decisions so her kids don't have the same fate she does? But that has a chance of working only if we've gotten to know each other well enough to get a feel for who'd benefit from the tough love grumpy uncle talk.