Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios.
Speaker 2: I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher,
Speaker 2: where our mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding.
Speaker 1: I am your host, ramses Ja.
Speaker 3: He is Ramsy's Jaw. I am q Ward. You are
Speaker 3: tuned into Civic Cipher.
Speaker 2: And we appreciate that fact. We want you to stick
Speaker 2: around today because we are going to be asking some
Speaker 2: really important questions, questions that continue to come up as
Speaker 2: we navigate our path full of extremes in this country.
Speaker 2: We're going to be asking.
Speaker 1: Does hard work really lead to success?
Speaker 2: I know that a lot of people simplify that to
Speaker 2: that sentence, and of course obviously it's more complicated than that,
Speaker 2: but we're going to take a look at exactly what
Speaker 2: that means. And we're going to borrow from a lecture
Speaker 2: from the great doctor Roy Casagranda, who we're a big
Speaker 2: fan of on this show, and we're going to use
Speaker 2: that to kind of explain some of it, but also
Speaker 2: kind of break out a few points that we that
Speaker 2: we feel deserve a little bit more perspective. We're also
Speaker 2: going to be discussing how Ronald Reagan's racism tanked the
Speaker 2: education system in the United States, and that is something
Speaker 2: that we really need.
Speaker 1: To take a look at, because we're.
Speaker 2: Seeing a lot of things happen now, a lot of
Speaker 2: attacks on the US Department of Education and on education
Speaker 2: in general. And you know, it's hard to say to
Speaker 2: people that aren't familiar with it that racism is at
Speaker 2: the root of it. But I believe that, you know,
Speaker 2: we can make a compelling case. We're not the first
Speaker 2: ones to make this case, and so this will be
Speaker 2: a very easy lift for us. But you know, information
Speaker 2: like this doesn't always make its way to people, and
Speaker 2: so we're happy to share that on today's episode. But
Speaker 2: before we get to all that business, we are going
Speaker 2: to discuss some ebony.
Speaker 1: Excellent, shall we Yeah, I think we shall.
Speaker 2: Today's Abny Excellence, we're going to be discussing black business growth.
Speaker 1: This is from.
Speaker 2: Brookings dot Edu. And I recognize that this is from
Speaker 2: a few years ago, but I think it still holds
Speaker 2: up and it's worth celebrating. So in twenty twenty, black
Speaker 2: people represented fourteen point two percent of all Americans, but
Speaker 2: only two point four percent of all employer firm owners.
Speaker 2: Latino or Hispanic people represented eighteen point seven percent of
Speaker 2: the population and six point five percent of employer firm owners,
Speaker 2: while Asian Americans represented six percent of the population and
Speaker 2: ten point six percent.
Speaker 1: Of employer firm owners.
Speaker 2: From twenty nineteen to twenty twenty, black owned businesses grew
Speaker 2: by six three hundred and fifty one firms, or four
Speaker 2: point seven two percent, behind Latino or Hispanic and Asian
Speaker 2: American firms, but above white owned businesses, which shrunk by
Speaker 2: point nine percent. Black business's growth was trending upward before
Speaker 2: the COVID nineteen pandemic. From twenty seventeen to twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: the number of black owned businesses across the country increased
Speaker 2: by thirteen point six four percent, larger than all businesses
Speaker 2: in general, which increased by point five three percent over
Speaker 2: the same period. Black owned firms brought in an estimated
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty one point one billion in gross
Speaker 2: revenue in twenty twenty, and eleven percent increase since twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: More so than other racial groups.
Speaker 2: Black owned businesses had pronounced increases in revenue, employees, and payroll.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty, black business owners employees one point three
Speaker 2: two one million people and created forty eight thousand, five
Speaker 2: hundred and forty nine new jobs, adding additional one point
Speaker 2: seven billion and aggregate payout to the US economy.
Speaker 1: If black business ownership continues.
Speaker 2: To grow at its current rate, it will take two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty six years to reach parity with the
Speaker 2: share of black people in America, a timeline that leaves
Speaker 2: racial wealth gaps entrenched. Reaching parity in fifteen years will
Speaker 2: take seventy four point four percent growth rate for twenty
Speaker 2: five years. And so, you know, got work to do,
Speaker 2: but that's growth, that's progress. And you know, we salute
Speaker 2: all the black business owners out there and all the
Speaker 2: people who support So that's.
Speaker 1: Our Ebony excellence right now. However, I want.
Speaker 2: To get to what it is that we really wanted
Speaker 2: to make today's episode about. So there have been these
Speaker 2: conversations and I'm sure that you're familiar with it. You know, Listen,
Speaker 2: everybody has the same twenty four hours in a day.
Speaker 2: Everybody has the same opportunities in this country to make
Speaker 2: a go of it. If you're not thriving, then it's
Speaker 2: on you. There's no such thing as a white privilege.
Speaker 2: You know, everybody's got it tough, right, And these these
Speaker 2: things that we hear constantly, and the idea behind it
Speaker 2: is to put the responsibility for your life squarely in
Speaker 2: your lap. Which if it was just that, right and
Speaker 2: all other things were equal, everybody's on board with that,
Speaker 2: you know, nobody's pushing back. Nobody wants handouts for the
Speaker 2: sake of handle. Well, I'm sure there are people who
Speaker 2: do want that, but you know, for the most part,
Speaker 2: most reasonable people understand the nature of economics. You provide something,
Speaker 2: you are compensated for what it is that you provide,
Speaker 2: and you use that to compensate.
Speaker 1: Other people for what they provide.
Speaker 2: Right, that's the general gist of it, right, But in
Speaker 2: this country, there's a history of marginalized people, black people
Speaker 2: in particular, suggesting that, hey, this system is rigged, and
Speaker 2: it's rigged against us in particular, and try as we
Speaker 2: might to work as hard as we can, we will
Speaker 2: never reach the level that you set as the standard,
Speaker 2: and therefore we will always be lagging behind. Right now,
Speaker 2: if you know, you and IQ, we talk about systemic
Speaker 2: issues on this show. Week to week, we break all
Speaker 2: that sort of stuff down. We get people insight into
Speaker 2: how we've ended up where we are. But for individuals
Speaker 2: who may not have to do journalistically credible research day
Speaker 2: to day, week to week to put on a program.
Speaker 2: You know, this information may not make its way to
Speaker 2: them and they might sincerely feel like, hey, bro, you
Speaker 2: got the same twenty four hours in the day that
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: Get off your shoulders, get out there and get to
Speaker 1: the money, right.
Speaker 2: And so what we're going to do today is kind
Speaker 2: of break down why that is only a half truth
Speaker 2: and for why it's very different for different people with
Speaker 2: you know, different walks of life in this country. What
Speaker 2: we're going to do first is we're going to share
Speaker 2: a bit from doctor Roy Casa Grande and.
Speaker 1: Let him tell it.
Speaker 2: Best, because you know, he is a university professor or
Speaker 2: he knows what he's talking about, and then we will
Speaker 2: provide our insight into some of the things that he
Speaker 2: doesn't go into too much detailing.
Speaker 1: So we'll start that now.
Speaker 4: In nineteen sixty eight, Nixon believed he had been elected
Speaker 4: to undo the sixties. That was his mandate. He wanted
Speaker 4: it nineteen seventy three to be nineteen fifty three. Honestly,
Speaker 4: I think if it could have been eighteen fifty three,
Speaker 4: he would have preferred that. But at least nineteen fifty three,
Speaker 4: the year he became vice president for Eisenhower. So two
Speaker 4: years after we land on the Moon nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 4: Nixon slashes NASA's budget. They're punished for their success. So
Speaker 4: Nixon is looking at this and he's going, we just
Speaker 4: did the sixties, and it's because of people like you,
Speaker 4: innovators who hold summits to have ideas talked about. Right,
Speaker 4: that's what this is. In case he hadn't figured it
Speaker 4: out already. There's a chance to share and maybe make
Speaker 4: people uncomfortable on occasion, but to get ideas out there.
Speaker 4: And Nixon goes The sixties, which by the way, was
Speaker 4: fifteen years long, started in fifty four and in sixty nine.
Speaker 4: The sixties was total upheaval. It was a revolution in
Speaker 4: the true sense of the word, an actual revolution. We
Speaker 4: changed everything. We changed the way people dressed, We changed
Speaker 4: the way men wore their hair, We changed the music
Speaker 4: we listened to. We changed the political structure. We made
Speaker 4: space for women, women to have more political rights, women
Speaker 4: to have more economic rights. We made space for black people,
Speaker 4: we made space for brown people. We didn't make everybody
Speaker 4: equal by any means. That would be naive and silly
Speaker 4: and foolish to think, but at least it got better.
Speaker 4: We changed our relationship to drugs, to marriage, to text,
Speaker 4: to everything. And Nixon and his folk hated every moment
Speaker 4: of it. It was torture for them. They wanted the
Speaker 4: old order returned, and so he says no. He says
Speaker 4: no to NASA. Nixon interfering with NASA maybe not the
Speaker 4: worst thing to ever happen in the world, but it
Speaker 4: has a serious consequence. The Saturn five rocket that we
Speaker 4: launched to the Moon was never intended for the Moon.
Speaker 4: Veranovon Brown didn't care about the Moon. We cared about Mars.
Speaker 4: The whole goal was that the Moon was going to
Speaker 4: be the first step to Mars. That's where we were going.
Speaker 4: And so that same year NASA got stuck asking the
Speaker 4: President permission to also go to Mars, and he said,
Speaker 4: absolutely not. We're not wasting American tax payer dollars that
Speaker 4: could be used to cut taxes for the rich and
Speaker 4: fight the war in Vietnam. Nixon tried to identify what
Speaker 4: was the causes, what were the causes of that revolution
Speaker 4: that we call the nineteen sixties, and he and his
Speaker 4: friends concluded there were two things that caused this one
Speaker 4: was the incredible US economy from nineteen forty eight to
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy three. For twenty five years, the US economy
Speaker 4: was so amazing that you could conceivably get a job.
Speaker 1: I mean a regular job.
Speaker 4: I don't mean an amazing job, just a job, and
Speaker 4: the pay would be so high and the benefits so
Speaker 4: amazing that you could not only afford to buy a
Speaker 4: house and feed your family, you might be able to
Speaker 4: send your kids to school, to college, and you might
Speaker 4: be able to retire really well. Picketty says in his
Speaker 4: book Capital in Twenty first Century that that was the
Speaker 4: only time, in fact, in human history where a person
Speaker 4: could work and make wealth, because if you look at
Speaker 4: the middle class today in the United States, they don't
Speaker 4: make wealth. They barely get by. The difference between the
Speaker 4: middle class and the lower class is that the middle
Speaker 4: class has stable housing and the lower class doesn't have
Speaker 4: stable housing. The wealth distance between the lower class and
Speaker 4: the middle class is negligible, it's meaningless. They're barely getting by.
Speaker 4: But for twenty five years people were prospering. And what
Speaker 4: they realize, it's Maslov's hierarchy of needs. If people aren't
Speaker 4: fretting about food, If they're not worried about shelter, if
Speaker 4: they're not in constant fear that the economic situation they're
Speaker 4: in will collapse, they have mind space to start to
Speaker 4: ask bigger and better questions like wait a minute, what
Speaker 4: about civil liberties? What about civil rights? What about human rights?
Speaker 4: And the next thing. You know, by nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 4: six years into this explosive economy, we're in the middle
Speaker 4: of a revolution.
Speaker 1: Okay, So.
Speaker 2: There's a bit of a history lesson for everyone there,
Speaker 2: and I hope that that serves to kind of frame
Speaker 2: the conversation that we're having and want to continue to have. Now,
Speaker 2: I got a few points that I want to share,
Speaker 2: and then Q. Obviously I want you to jump in
Speaker 2: and share your points as well, but I will just
Speaker 2: kind of burn.
Speaker 1: Through these pretty quickly because it is a lot to cover.
Speaker 2: So for folks that feel like it's hard work alone,
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's people that would agree that it's more
Speaker 2: than just hard work.
Speaker 1: But for folks that feel like, hey man, it's simple,
Speaker 1: it's hard work. That's it. Just work, hard work, work, work, work, work,
Speaker 1: and you'll get it. I got something for you. Consider
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: Of a group of people whose whole mission in life
Speaker 2: was just to work hard. That's all they did. They
Speaker 2: worked hard, and then they died. They were called slaves,
Speaker 2: and hard work didn't change their station life. For those
Speaker 2: people that say, well, it's hard work plus opportunities, right, well, sure,
Speaker 2: you know, I'd go along with that, But to be fair,
Speaker 2: opportunities don't make their way to everybody. And so now
Speaker 2: we're talking about systemic issues again because opportunities never made their.
Speaker 1: Way to slaves. They worked hard, and you know you
Speaker 1: have to see that one to me as.
Speaker 2: Well, hard work plus opportunities plus intelligence. I would imagine
Speaker 2: that it would be tough for somebody to suggest to
Speaker 2: me that zero slaves were intelligent. It'd be foolish to
Speaker 2: assume that these are human beings the same as any
Speaker 2: other human beings in the world, all homo sapien sapiens,
Speaker 2: all with you know, more or less the same cognitive abilities.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: For people that say, you know, these are people who
Speaker 2: worked hard, have opportunities, or intelligent and have good.
Speaker 1: Ideas well, slaves have an idea stolen.
Speaker 2: And the reason I keep coming back to slavery is
Speaker 2: because slavery is a form of systemic oppression and slavery,
Speaker 2: of course has evolved. Black people are still very much
Speaker 2: second class citizens in this country. And so I think
Speaker 2: that just that line of thinking kind of helps create
Speaker 2: the framework that folks need to understand that the basis
Speaker 2: for achieving success in this country, and the lack of
Speaker 2: success that you find in marginalized communities is at least
Speaker 2: due in part to systemic factors. Now, there are people
Speaker 2: who say, Okay, well, you know, we live in a
Speaker 2: post you know, racist society, slavery is over, blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: you know whatever. But have we considered how employment opportunities
Speaker 2: and advancement opportunities in employment have made their way to
Speaker 2: black and brown people in this country? Have we considered
Speaker 2: how educational opportunities have made their way to black and
Speaker 2: brown people in this country? And still how the education
Speaker 2: system in this country shapes outcomes. You know, for one
Speaker 2: group of people who are in a higher income part
Speaker 2: of town, you know, they have schools that are well
Speaker 2: funded and well staffed, and they have you know, books
Speaker 2: and you know, top tier curriculum. For other places, you know,
Speaker 2: where the funding is a little lower, they have effectively
Speaker 2: a school to prison pipeline. Where you know, behaviors are
Speaker 2: not diagnosed, they're criminalized, you know, and there's no medication,
Speaker 2: and there's you know, all this sort of stuff, right,
Speaker 2: And I think that that follows the wealth line. But
Speaker 2: the wealth line follows the color line, the racial line
Speaker 2: in this country. So again systemic factors. We're not talking
Speaker 2: about how that wealth that it was accumulated and still
Speaker 2: gets accumulated, is passed from generation to generation. Inheritance. Now
Speaker 2: there are people who pushed back and say, hey, I
Speaker 2: didn't get an inheritance. I wish I'd gotten inheritance. Sure,
Speaker 2: but these things are shaping the data that we're seeing,
Speaker 2: even if it doesn't affect you personally. Okay, we can
Speaker 2: talk about banking opportunities, and this is a long list.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not going to go into everything, but
Speaker 2: I'm wanting to paint a picture before I let you go,
Speaker 2: que of how systemic factors could influence the data that
Speaker 2: we're seeing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So for people that say, hey, just get out there
Speaker 2: and get it, get to it and work hard and
Speaker 2: you can accomplish anything, that American dream was true in
Speaker 2: the early seventies, according to doctor Casagrande here and I
Speaker 2: know why people feel that way, But it's not true now,
Speaker 2: and it hasn't been true for fifty plus years, and
Speaker 2: the huge drops in data have really manifested themselves in
Speaker 2: the past fifty years. And we're going to make a
Speaker 2: case that Ronald Reagan had a lot to do with it,
Speaker 2: and so did Nixon.
Speaker 1: In the latter part of the show.
Speaker 2: We haven't talked about, you know, cartural disadvantages and the
Speaker 2: criminal justice system and how that criminalizes blackness and punishes
Speaker 2: blackness more than it does whiteness. We haven't talked about
Speaker 2: healthcare disadvantage. We haven't talked about a lot of things.
Speaker 2: But these are all systemic issues, right. People will talk about,
Speaker 2: you know, culture, and I think that that is a
Speaker 2: that is a straw man argument.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Again, I've said in the past, I'll say it again,
Speaker 2: poverty shapes culture. Culture does not shape poverty. It could
Speaker 2: sustain it, sure, but it doesn't shape it. Right, So
Speaker 2: you need to be impoverished and then the culture will
Speaker 2: pour out of that. Right, So again we're back to
Speaker 2: systemic issues, same twenty four hours in a day argument.
Speaker 2: That's not necessarily true for everybody. You know, if I
Speaker 2: wake up in the morning, and I have to take
Speaker 2: care of a sick parent or whatever. I don't have
Speaker 2: the same twenty four hours as you. If you have
Speaker 2: a car and I don't have a car, I don't
Speaker 2: have the same twenty four hours as you. I'm walking
Speaker 2: to a bus stop and then walking when I get
Speaker 2: to my destination. Right, you have more of your day
Speaker 2: than I do. For people that are ultra wealthy, they
Speaker 2: have drivers, they have more of their day than you
Speaker 2: may have, right because they don't even have to do
Speaker 2: the driving. They can sit and work in the back
Speaker 2: of their car and hustle all day. Sure, I'll see that,
Speaker 2: and then I think that this myth that everybody can
Speaker 2: make it in this country and achieve wealth and whatever.
Speaker 2: On its face, it's silly because if you look at
Speaker 2: any corporate hierarchy, the stratification of a corporate you know,
Speaker 2: framework you'll see that a lot of people on the
Speaker 2: bottom make a little bit of money, and really it's
Speaker 2: one person at the top that makes a lot of money.
Speaker 2: So this idea on his faith is not supported by
Speaker 2: basic mathematics. So I wanted to go into a little
Speaker 2: bit more about him saying the difference between the middle
Speaker 2: class and poor is stable housing. But I don't want
Speaker 2: to talk up the whole time. So you know, let's
Speaker 2: let's tag you in here, Q and get your thoughts
Speaker 2: and then you know, we'll run through the rest of it.
Speaker 1: America loves the bootstrap story.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you know what I mean. Work hard and
Speaker 3: you too can be name your favorite CEO, and that
Speaker 3: illusion is part of why there's such a lack of
Speaker 3: progress and making the exceptions the rule also play into
Speaker 3: that narrative, right, like, how can you and Rams just
Speaker 3: sit here and have this conversation without acknowledging the Barack
Speaker 3: Obamas and the Oprah Winfreys and the Lebron james Is
Speaker 3: and the jay Zs of the world who have shown
Speaker 3: you that you too can work hard and reach these
Speaker 3: astronomical heights. And to the other end, exceptions like poor
Speaker 3: white people in this country who, even though white privilege exists,
Speaker 3: does not have a tangible effect on their day to
Speaker 3: day outcomes, so they can, with clear logic, dismiss it
Speaker 3: as even a possibility, ignoring that we don't all start
Speaker 3: at the start line, ignoring that we don't all have
Speaker 3: a zero base that we move forward from toward whatever
Speaker 3: our goal is. So these myths are hard to destroy
Speaker 3: because they have actual examples to point to that are
Speaker 3: clearly the exception that data doesn't support. However, for most
Speaker 3: people's reality, their front door, their day to day is
Speaker 3: all that they It is the only context that they have,
Speaker 3: and that cognitive dissonance and that intentional kind of obtuse
Speaker 3: thinking allows them to dismiss everything outside of what does
Speaker 3: the day look like for me? If I am a
Speaker 3: poor white person in this country who can blame, you know,
Speaker 3: immigrants and people of color for my position in life,
Speaker 3: and then turn on the television and see an announcement
Speaker 3: that Jay z is now a billionaire, then Rams is
Speaker 3: trying to explain to me that there's a such thing
Speaker 3: as white privilege seems nonsensical. And being able to manipulate
Speaker 3: the group of people who see the world through that
Speaker 3: lens is how we spend the next seventy years making
Speaker 3: no progress at all. That exception, even this moment in history,
Speaker 3: was an exception to the rule, and we can point, hey,
Speaker 3: those people worked really hard and they amassed wealth for
Speaker 3: their families, and you too can be once again, Mark Zuckerberg,
Speaker 3: Jeff Bezos, or whoever you know, the idea of wealth
Speaker 3: is in your head when you have that internal conversation.
Speaker 3: Let's use the exceptions to shape the rule and pretend
Speaker 3: that all the other information and data that exists that
Speaker 3: proved moves the actual rule is false and your imagination.
Speaker 3: And because people have unfortunately become very very easy to manipulate.
Speaker 3: If you can tap into the right emotion and the
Speaker 3: emotion of the day, you know, white supremacists hate, it
Speaker 3: goes a really really long way towards that end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I like you know that example that
Speaker 2: you use, because the truth is that I bet it
Speaker 2: would be hard for most people to name three black
Speaker 2: success stories, three black millionaires that weren't celebrities, you know,
Speaker 2: people in their community, people in their you know whatever. Now,
Speaker 2: if you live in a place like Atlanta, if you
Speaker 2: live in a place like Detroit, you know, that might
Speaker 2: be a little easier. But for most people in this country,
Speaker 2: they wouldn't be able to do it. They could all
Speaker 2: everybody can name a Lebron James or Baraco that sort
Speaker 2: of thing. But my point here is that you know
Speaker 2: that there are white businessmen and business women I'm sure
Speaker 2: who are in your community. They own a handful of
Speaker 2: restaurants or they own a handful of you know whatever.
Speaker 2: They work in textiles, or they work with raw materials,
Speaker 2: lumber metals, you know whatever. They have a small operation
Speaker 2: where they you know, pick a thing and they've been
Speaker 2: able to achieve some success and buy the Mercedes and
Speaker 2: get the vacation home, and you know what, they have
Speaker 2: a staff of you know, thirty people, one hundred people
Speaker 2: whatever working for them.
Speaker 1: And that is plentiful.
Speaker 2: But the examples of black people reaching that level of
Speaker 2: success with no celebrity, no super skill set.
Speaker 1: That know.
Speaker 2: You know, I was born and I'm six foot eight
Speaker 2: and I can you know, play basketball, run football really quickly.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That's I think that we are such a celebrity obsessed
Speaker 2: culture that when we see black people holding court in
Speaker 2: the entertainment space with non black people, it's very easy
Speaker 2: for white people to say, well, black people got it
Speaker 2: just as easy. It's just as fair for everyone, because
Speaker 2: you know, there's a Magic Johnson and there's a Larry Bird,
Speaker 2: you know, or you know, maybe a newer example you
Speaker 2: know of that same kind of concept.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to.
Speaker 2: Like the actual data and and where a lot of
Speaker 2: people actually do create wealth, and.
Speaker 1: You know, in businesses.
Speaker 2: And and and and making investments and so forth. The
Speaker 2: data doesn't support that, and therefore the numbers don't support that. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's not a lot of people who are celebrities relative
Speaker 2: to the three hundred and seventy eighty million how many
Speaker 2: people in this country. There's a handful of people that
Speaker 2: are famous, a handful, a fraction.
Speaker 3: But Chris Rock made a really really well spoken point
Speaker 3: about where he lives. Yeah, Yeah, Chris Rock is a
Speaker 3: top five person in his field in the history of
Speaker 3: the planet.
Speaker 1: And I think Ahboo, like Mary J.
Speaker 3: Blige and Jay Z were his neighbors, right, the three
Speaker 3: of the most successful people in the history of entertainment.
Speaker 3: And you kind of buried the lead there. His neighbor
Speaker 3: is a dentist. Sorry, I excited because he knew the
Speaker 3: story and just took them so before I could get there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: his neighbor is a dentist, a white man who more
Speaker 3: than likely is the third person in his family treat
Speaker 3: to have that career or some similar starting point where
Speaker 3: the family was already wealthy when he was born. You
Speaker 3: have to start from zero. And that's just kind of
Speaker 3: the story of black people in this world. In order
Speaker 3: to get there, we have to be the best to
Speaker 3: ever do it. In order for them to get there,
Speaker 3: they just have to be alive and white.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And for a lot of people that point to
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, I feel like it's important to remind folks
Speaker 2: Donald Trump started his business with a million dollars from
Speaker 2: his dad and then ultimately inherited his father's business. It
Speaker 2: was a multimillion dollar real estate empire. And you know,
Speaker 2: when people look at him as the American success story,
Speaker 2: they see themselves closer to Donald Trump than they do
Speaker 2: to black folks. And it's crazy because it's reflected in
Speaker 2: a lot of the voting patterns. And so, you know,
Speaker 2: to answer the question, you know, does hard work really
Speaker 2: lead to success? You know, I say that hard work
Speaker 2: is about you know, it's one piece of it. A
Speaker 2: lot of people work hard and they never achieved the
Speaker 2: type of success that we associated with this country.
Speaker 1: So food for that