You don’t have to spend a significant amount of time with me to observe that I’m first and foremost a contemplative person. Outwardly, I may share initial excitement over an idea or the dream of a future pregnant with possibility. One that involves some fantastical idea about the nature of the world as it should be. However, by nature, I don’t tend to give myself over to wild fits of fancy and obsession with the next idea.
Why not?
Because as a Black man of recent immigrant roots in this country, I have seen first hand the implications of what it means to be both Black and intelligent; when simply breathing is a perceived threat to the existence of someone else or their property.
My presence on this land isn’t by accident. My mother and father were both deliberate in why they chose to move to America. They came here for opportunity and the promise of an economically prosperous life in which they could experience a life that would be marginally better than Jamaica. They wanted to thrust off the yolk of the familiar and risk it all here. On this soil.
Jamaica’s landscape is stunning. Its people are rich with culture and personality. Home to 3 million citizens it boasts a bountiful and often outsized impact on the world. I’ve experienced the pride of hearing folks reference the most obscure reggae or soca artists while traveling through Europe or Asia.
My mother and father did not leave because it was inferior. Their goals were just different than what they believed they could attain in a recently decolonized Jamaica.
Simply put, but for a few plane tickets and a chance meeting between my parents, I could have been born and raised around people that looked like me. Had a deeper shared connection to my lineage than I have here.
What does this mean?
It means that to the proposition of what needs to be executed tactically around diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, I am not the answer.
I can’t provide the answers because I’m too busy trying to avoid being the problem.
To succeed In business, you have to play chess every day.
To succeed as a Black person in business, you have to play 3D chess while balancing on a high wire knowing that if you fail, no one else like you can come behind you.
You may then ask, who has the answer?
White men.
They started all this. From the triangle trade of a mercantile society to the shores of far-flung countries on the continents of Africa, Asia, and the Americas, their greed and single-minded ambition set in motion a series of events that has me the citizen of the wealthiest nation in the world making a healthy salary but afraid to be fully myself.
Simply put: I am not the answer.