When I refer to success, I’m referring to politically and institutionally where we gain the consistent power to make long-lasting change. I know plenty of sisters are hustling locally and we don’t get the shine like some White young lady with all the privilege that easily and handily breeds success.

Let’s talk about location. Success for people of color seems to concentrated in large cities. It’s is another issue and barrier. If you’re not able or willing to relocate from the rural places to live in the more expensive, overcrowded city to “get a career of the ground,” then your chains are also slimmer. Black success is unequal even in Black communities. Why should Black intellects in Buck Nelly suffer because we don’t live in a place traditionally known for success booms.

My comment about education is true. We go into debt, and we can barely pay it off — if ever. We are taught to go school and then go get a job. Never to take a risk and start a business or to pool our resources and create a family business for the next generation. Pooling wealth. Work guarantees success. Not an education. I can remember countless small mom and pop business run by Black people that barely had educations and they were staples for decades. These people put their kids through college, took care of their communities and were empowered because they didn’t have to rely on Whiteness to bless them with work.

I look at places like FL where people create businesses and they flourish. No education! For instance, the Cuban cop I know has 5 vape shops. Makes $10k a week (net) sell poison. He’s getting ready to quit his job as a cop to sell legalized marijuana. By the way he works narcotics 😂.

Anywho — he doesn’t have a degree, but he encourages his kids to get one. He worked his way up the food chain, but decided to invest his money into something else that’s his. We spend our lives getting educated (debt) and working for someone else (Whiteness) who gets to determine our worth and our earning potential. We’re educated, and still poor. You have highlighted a few women, but let’s be real, the majority of us are everyday working people not aspiring to do what these women are doing. What about those people? Success is subjective. The need for a college education — well, that’s subjective too. We (average folks) are training with no guarantee of getting employment. We used to get trained skills and trades to work and be able to make stuff and fix stuff. Now we are armed with all this “expensive knowledge” and can barely buy bread.