Don't Sleep on Black Women
I recently read the article Entrepreneurs don't have a special gene for risk - they come from families with money. The orignal author argues that the most common shared trait among entrepreneurs is access to financial capital - family money, an inheritance, or pedigree and connections that allow for access. She quotes a woman, (we can talk more about feminism and who it's really about in this country, later), who also asked not to be named (lame), saying basically there is a segment of the population that think they can pursue their dreams, and it's not true. Well I call BS on that notion! She also referenced a UC Berkeley paper publised in 2013 identifying most entrepreneurs as white, male and highly educated.
In fact, according to a 2015 State of Women-Owned Bueinsses Report the number of businesses owned by African American women grew 322% since 1997, making black women the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S. The plight of the black woman remains racism, sexism, and privelege among other things, yet we thrive. But there are some of us who will read the oroginal article and internalize those ideas and manifest those truths in our own lives - further justifing the lack of action we take to empower ourselves, families, and communities. When we read articles like this, we tend to think "well that worked for those women..."
You probably don't even know some of those women besides the mainstream. To help you visualize yourself as one of "those" women, I want to introduce you to 5 black women I've slept on but you shouldn't:
And of course, don't forget yourself...
