The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.-MALCOLM X, 1962
THE GREAT JAMES BALDWIN DIDN'T TAKE many debate L's. Matter of fact, I know of only one: a dialogue between him and the legendary womanist Audre Lorde. In their exchange, Baldwin contends that Lorde believes in the American dream the same way Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and he do. Lorde's rejoinder exposes Baldwin's apparent blind spot for the intersectional oppression of Black women (in this case, a queer Black woman).
"Deep, deep, deep down I know that dream was never mine," explains Lorde. "I was Black. I was female. And I was out-out-by any construct wherever the power lay.... Nobody was dreaming about me. Nobody was even studying me except as something to wipe out."
Lorde's pronouncement was heavy on my mind when I learned of the legal attack on the Fearless Fund, an Atlanta-based venture-capital fund established to invest in businesses created and led by women of color. Arian Simone and Ayana Parsons, Black women who earned M.B.A.'s from Florida A&M University, launched the fund in 2018 after having accomplished careers as executives and entrepreneurs. That same year, U.S. companies raised a total of $130 billion in VC funding, yet only 2.2 percent of that went to female-founded companies and less than 1 percent funded businesses founded by women of color. The Fearless Fund's mission "is to bridge the gap in venture capital funding for women of color founders building scalable, growth aggressive companies."
This story is from the Winter 2024 edition of Esquire US.
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This story is from the Winter 2024 edition of Esquire US.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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