Lobbying for a Seat to Compete and Close the Wealth Gap

Having grown up in integrated environments successfully, I valued the American meritocracy, fully embracing the inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, believing I could achieve whatever I dared with enough skill and perseverance. Race, gender nor poverty proved discouraging. Entrepreneurship did however, not due to the realization that most start-ups fail, nor the perpetual responsibilities and all
that entrepreneurship and profitability entail, but because of discrimination.

When those in the position to contract automatically perceive minority-owned and/or woman-owned as less competent and offering lower quality, the ability to compete becomes nearly impossible, exacerbating start-up challenges. Access to capital did not prove the issue, as I traded equity derivatives to “boot strap” the company; access to opportunity did. Without the chance to even demonstrate excellence, how can a company survive, much less thrive and scale?

As the wealth gap continues to widen, it is important to remember that those without inherited wealth have built it most often via entrepreneurship. Successful business can create generational wealth, sustainable wealth that goes far beyond an increase in the minimum wage or even access to good salaries and careers. Bias should not twist an American dream into a nightmare.

Having succeeded in the competitive world of live, network television, before entrepreneurship, despite authoritative insistence that was an implausible goal for anyone, much less a poor, female of color, I had experienced life up close and personal, from the board room to the operating room, the White House to the ghetto, sometimes within the same day. With top compensation having erased the pangs of poverty, I felt free to leap to the next level and well equipped to offer strategic communications. Who knew it was the power of the network flags (on the microphone(s)) that had granted access and that without them I was not welcome at the table?