A Cross Burning Message:
The Digital Version of Burning Black Wall Street is Suing Black Women Start-Ups
So apparently the right conversative wants their cut of the $720M going to Black women start-ups. On the surface one would think that this is just plain ole greed rearing its ugly head. Why else would a group of mostly conservate white men from Texas be suing venture-capitalist, Fearless Fund for practicing unlawful racial discrimination? Not sure when a private group of businesspeople deciding to pool their money together and loan it to who they want to is unlaw, but okay. At first blush one could argue that is a great deal of money going to one sub-set of the population. However, what would you say when you realize that the $720M isn’t even close to 1% of ALL the venture capital funding that has been funneled to mostly white male start-ups? Crunchbase data (2022) found that of the $241 billion venture capital funding distributed, Black female business owners got measly crumbs. So, looking at the big picture, now one could argue, let them keep their few million, what’s the problem? Why pick on the minority of the minority in the venture capital ocean, of which White men seem to be the sharks and Black women are looking like Dory from Nemo?
To be clear, this is not greed, this is the new generation of white hoods running through the digital streets burning crossing on the lawns of Black businesses!
Black women start-ups are a rarity. According to Forbes, only 3% of black women-owned companies survive beyond five years. The hoops to jump are many. Constantly in a position of having to prove that they can lead, that their teams are strong enough, that they are capable enough is mentally and emotionally taxing. All starts up have the burden of convincing investors that their idea is worthy of investment and business owners from underrepresented racial, ethnic, and cultural populations have a burden of breaking through bias to even be heard; now icing that nightmare of a cake with gender and you have a rough hill to climb!
The difference is that White men are invested into based on their potential vs. all other groups must perform first before a significant investment is waged. The rational is simple this: comfort. People will give their money to those that they are comfortable with doing so. White men possess the largest piece of the wealth pie and therefore have the most disposable income in which to invest. They will invest in those that they have confidence in that will yield the highest return. That makes good business sense. The even playing field is the numbers, the market research, the viable of the idea. However, subjectivity enters in after the numbers are run and the new question that must be answered is: do I LIKE you enough, aka am I comfortable enough with you to risk my money?
People are most comfortable gambling on their “mini-mes”- those that look like them, those that share a similar lived experience, have the same background, such as attended the same school, the same church, played at the same golf course, you get the picture… So, the more layers of identity such as race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation that separate the business owner from the investor, the more difficult it is to pass into the “likeability zone” to get the cash.
Enter, Fearless Fund- a VC group launched in 2019 by some fearless Black women to get this…help other Black women. “Researchers estimate that if Whites and Blacks had had equal opportunities for wealth accumulation over the last century and a half, the wealth gap today would be 3 to 1, rather than twice that.” (NBER, 2022) After 240 years of slavery, Jim Crow, and inequalities in education, housing, and employment, Black people have been shut out of access to large pockets of investment capital. This isn’t a hard concept…if Black women start-ups are being shut out from access to investment funds, then why not raise the funds for them? It is exactly what we do as a people. When White America didn’t want to be educated alongside Black Americans, we started Historically Black Colleges and Universities, when White America didn’t want Black Americans living alongside them, we created all Black towns in the Western Indian Territories, of which thirteen still stand today; and when White America refused to trade with us, we built Black Wall Street in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, OK.
Let’s talk a bit about Tulsa, shall we? In June 1921 in Tulsa, OK, a series of fires was set by White rioters extinguishing not just the lives of the Black citizens that couldn’t escape but barbershops, beauty salons, post office, banks, a library, a schoolhouse, and their homes; but most importantly set ablaze all their hopes and dreams of living a peaceful life free from the Jim Crow south. The riot was started in response to a suspected Black boy making an unwanted advance on a White woman. Once he was run out of town, why torch the place to ruins? Simple: To send a message. If Black people build it, White people will take it. It is an act of being a bully.
It is the ultimate act of supremacy of any majority group over a minority.
Prohibiting a private firm from coming together to right the unjust bias investment practices of today is not at all about greed. It is everything about sending a message that you do not belong here, we do not want you here, you will not succeed here, so stop trying and when you do try, we will be here at every turn to stop you.
Suing Fearless Fund is the modern equivalent to the Jim Crow cross-burning by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
The KKK popularized burning crosses in the States in the early 1900’s, in which cross-burnings are used in attempts to intimidate and terrorize Klan victims. Psychological, mental, and emotion trauma is immediately inflicted in the hearts of minds of every Black person across our “great” states whether you experienced it personally or not, right alongside the noose hanging from a tree.
It’s a little hard to burn a cross on the front lawn these days but it is easy to file a lawsuit going after a VC fund created to invest in Black women-owned businesses. You better believe if conservative activist, Edward Blum- the man behind the suit against Fearless Fund and active supporter of the SCOTUS reversal of Affirmative Action had a physical house to go to burn the ideas of those Black women receiving funding, he’d be ringing the door with a cross burning behind him- this lawsuit is a contemporary equivalent.
What better way to stop the Digital Black Wall Street of 2050 than to snuff out the ideas of those businesses in 2023?
By: Angel G. Henry, Author of Dents in the Ceiling: Tools Women and Allies Need to Breakthrough
Angel G. Henry creates ceiling breakers. She is an award-winning and #1 Amazon bestselling author and creator of the Agile Mindset Framework™; it is her knowledge of why women and minorities are missing from the C-Suite that provides awareness for corporate leaders to make change. Angel has 20-years of tech muscle, a sought-after trainer, speaker, adjunct instructor, and inclusive workplace advisor.
Works Cited:
NBER. Exploring 160 Years of the Black-White Wealth Gap. №8. August 2022. https://www.nber.org/digest/202208/exploring-160-years-black-white-wealth-gap
Palumbo, J. Why African-American Women Entrepreneurs Have Found Success Through Buying Existing Companies. Forbes. Jan. 20, 2023 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferpalumbo/2023/01/20/why-african-american-women-entrepreneurs-have-found-success-through-buying-existing-companies/?sh=50e8e8771218
Works Referenced:
https://www.tulsahistory.org/exhibit/1921-tulsa-race-massacre/
https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/burning-cross
https://www.reuters.com/markets/companies/GIS.N
