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“African American women control over $400 billion in buying power, which is over 60% of the total African American buying power of $649 billion.”

– The Selig Center for Economic Growth

We are livid that we have to acquiesce to get a paycheck.

We are furious that we have had to give up who we are to make it in this world.

We are sick of brilliant Black women, whose womb birth—literally—the greatest country in the Free World, are still stuck in a plantation payment plan:  earning it, proving it, making it—creating someone else’s wealth.

We are irate that whites don’t have to put shackles on us any longer. The golden handcuffs of corporate America or the Ivory Tower of education serve the same function.

We are seething and feed up that we are so wounded we put ourselves in emotional bondage and self-sacrifice.

We are sick of begging and being disposable.

We are sick of having to apologize for other’s incompetence or insecurity.

We are sooooooooooooo done with being thrown under the bus.

We are done with Black women having to submit, cower, or even fight to have a place in this world.

We are furious that Black women entrepreneurs have to go to White mentors—who don’t give a crap about us—to learn but get ostracized, pigeonholed, or are positioned as a pet or as threat.

*Online marketing is supposed to be universal and colorless—well it looks awfully White to me.

(I’m just sayin’…)

Hear me out.

I am not saying White business mentors are not great at what they do.

I am not saying White business mentors are racist.

I am not even saying White business mentors are mean, bad, or malicious.

No.

They are just White.

They don’t have a clue about what it means to be a Black Woman entrepreneur and the historical wounds that still haunt us.

And if one more person says, “we are all the same” or “race doesn’t matter”, we are going to pimp slap them across the room.

They don’t say that about gender.

They don’t say that about class.

They don’t say that about sexuality.

(The Ellen DeGeneres Show is killin’ it.)

Race—even in this Obama era—matters.

We matter.

As a group, if you took Black women out of the equation of world history, there would be no world.

(Holla if you hear me.)

We have intrinsic worth and inherit value beyond the brawn of our bodies and the fertility of our wombs.

We are more than somebody’s mother, more than somebody’s wife.

We are more than somebody’s workhorse, scapegoat, or punching bag.

We are the catalyst to world change.

We changed the world through slavery.

We changed the world through women’s rights—“I too am a woman!”

We changed the world through civil rights.

Without us, there was no movement—

Without us there is no movement.

The economy would collapse.

There would be no black church.

There would be no Obama-care.

There would be no BET.

(Sylvia Robinson made hip-hop commercial—not Kurtis Blow.)

We matter.

We have to heal our hearts so that we can heal the world.

We are the catalyst for a world that works for everyone.  That means no one is left out or behind.

*YOU are the one we have been waiting for. *

Welcome home…to yourself.

Here me when I say to you, my sister:

You matter…here.

You are needed…here.

You are wanted…here. Now.

You are respected…here.

You are loved beyond measure…here.

You are admired…here.

You are heard…here. Now.

You are seen…here.

You are valued…here.

You are embraced…here.

You are the one we’ve been waiting for.

Here.

Now.

*We are bigger than our bruises. *

Hear me.

I know. I know.

They said it couldn’t be done.

It would never happen.

The ‘We Matter’ Manifesto  was originally published on blackamericaweb.com

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