WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.100 --> 00:00:01.501
Talk to us about Blackness.

2
00:00:01.501 --> 00:00:02.836
What does that look like?

3
00:00:04.671 --> 00:00:06.873
Black people have always been innovators.

4
00:00:06.873 --> 00:00:08.475
It's in our nature to innovate.

5
00:00:08.475 --> 00:00:10.810
It always has been out of necessity.

6
00:00:10.810 --> 00:00:14.647
Survival and innovation is the same thing. Someone just said,
let's make it a fancy term.

7
00:00:14.647 --> 00:00:16.850
We've had to cut our own path.
But it's hard.

8
00:00:17.484 --> 00:00:18.685
So it needs support.

9
00:00:18.685 --> 00:00:23.323
The microaggressions, the overt and covert
racism, all of that can leave a chip

10
00:00:23.323 --> 00:00:26.493
on your shoulder, and it can change
the way that you show up in this world.

11
00:00:26.726 --> 00:00:29.429
When nobody else believes
in a Black leader, usually their business dies.

12
00:00:29.429 --> 00:00:33.033
There are conversations
that you can't have with funders.

13
00:00:33.033 --> 00:00:35.168
And so for the first time,

14
00:00:35.168 --> 00:00:37.670
it was an opportunity
to have an honest conversation.

15
00:00:37.670 --> 00:00:43.410
But it came at us watching the murder of
so many innocent Black men.

16
00:00:50.050 --> 00:00:52.952
To have people actually tell you
that I want to give you money

17
00:00:52.952 --> 00:00:56.623
because I feel guilty is like, yo man,
that's not philanthropy.

18
00:00:56.623 --> 00:00:57.724
It's not about guilt.

19
00:00:57.724 --> 00:01:01.628
It's about recognizing
that we need to even things out.

20
00:01:01.628 --> 00:01:05.165
We are sitting in a moment
in which Black people, we're the flavor.

21
00:01:05.165 --> 00:01:07.133
But look, we always been the flavor.

22
00:01:07.133 --> 00:01:08.401
We know we've always been the flavor.

23
00:01:08.401 --> 00:01:11.738
It's just that everybody else is discovering
that we're the flavor of this moment.

24
00:01:11.738 --> 00:01:14.874
As someone that's been doing this work,
you know that

25
00:01:14.874 --> 00:01:17.477
Black lives mattered before George Floyd
died.

26
00:01:17.877 --> 00:01:19.679
Black innovation is happening everywhere.

27
00:01:19.679 --> 00:01:20.814
It's always happened everywhere.

28
00:01:20.814 --> 00:01:22.782
The question is is
do we have access to capital?

29
00:01:22.782 --> 00:01:25.885
Do we have access to social capital,
do we have access to the supports

30
00:01:25.885 --> 00:01:29.856
in the larger community of belief
that we're worthy of investing?

31
00:01:29.856 --> 00:01:33.193
What does a Black community
look like with power

32
00:01:33.193 --> 00:01:36.329
and autonomy over its own destiny?