Ed Talk

“There have been times when I thought I couldn’t last for long
But now I think I’m able to carry on
It’s been a long time coming
But I think a change is gonna come”

When Sam Cooke wrote these lyrics in 1964 to his popular song, A Change is Gonna Come, there was no Black History Month that provided an annual moment in time to reflect on a people’s journey within our American story.  We were in the midst of a surging Civil Rights Movement, a story in the making, the outcome of which was unknown.  So his lyrics spoke of both his frustration and hope that the America of the future would at long last provide equality for black people.

Few songs born of that era of uncertainty moved me more.  It seemed to be a whisper to me from my black ancestors, both a reminder of their long, painful journey and an admonition to stay strong.

Bob Dylan’s lyrics had a similar affect on me, except I embraced them as my people’s lament to a nation confronting its conscience and saying to it, “We are worthy.”

“Yes, how many years can some people exist
Before they are allowed to be free?
Yes, how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind”

So Black History Month for me is less about recounting my people’s history and more about reaffirming and celebrating our worthiness. To be seen and heard, with a seat at the table as the nation seeks answers that will shape our future as a multicultural American people.  More than anything, it beseeches me to take a fresh look at the current state of equality.  Where are we on our march to greater equity?  What are some of the answers, swirling around us, we may not see?   What journeys of courage must we take for more hopeful future chapters to our American story?

Let’s look at the heart of the matter.

When I think of what is equitable and what is not, four key words come to my mind: opportunity — privilege — worthiness — fairness.  I frame the issue this way:

Equity is a function of broadly matching talent with opportunity.  I believe that talent is equally distributed among our population.   Yet opportunity is not. Why?

• Opportunity is shared privilege.
• Privilege is shared with those we believe are worthy.
• Because we believe we share privilege with those who are worthy, we also believe that it is fair.

On the other hand:

Inequality is a lack of opportunity resulting from a lack of shared privilege, justified by the belief that some people are unworthy, routinely biased along race and gender lines, which is inherently unfair.

So equity or equality comes down to the determination of who is worthy and who is not.  More importantly, what does it mean to be worthy and for whom?  Who decides?

Our current practices for determining worthiness and sharing privilege are crippling us as a nation.  They have steadily led us down a path toward more concentration of privilege, opportunity, wealth and power in the hands of a relatively smaller group of people.  All because worthiness among the privileged is summed up as “Just like me.”

We need to talk about this.

Opportunity, privilege, worthiness and fairness are deeply American values we rarely talk about in the same breath, yet they are inextricably linked.  We cannot pull them apart and have an honest discussion about any one.  To do so would lead to a dishonest conversation about equity, the sum total of them all.

Let’s be honest.  Worthiness is in the eye of the beholder.

Generally our successes began with someone finding us worthy in their own image.

Fortunately, mine began when someone found me worthy in an image not their own.

When I was in the 12th grade, Pete Hart, a young, white graduate of Harvard College, who was a recruiter for Harvard from out of town, showed up one day at the office of my high school principal.  His being there was unusual in several ways.  He was in Dayton, Ohio, on the segregated west side of town. No Harvard recruiter had ever been to my all black high school. No one had invited him or expected him. He was alone. All were surprised to see him.  His request was even more surprising, “I would like to meet the top three students in your school.”

At the time, as I walked to my principal’s office, I did not know what was about to happen. My world was still small then, stretched by a football or basketball game across town at one of the white high schools, and stretched a bit more on family trips to visit relatives here and there. For all practical purposes my world revolved around my black teachers and coaches who were doing their best to uncover and polish my talents.  They expanded the world in my mind’s eye beyond which I could travel — but only so far. All the preparation in the world was of limited value if there were few opportunities to use it.

In the principal’s office, Pete invited me and my parents to a city-wide reception later that month to meet others from Harvard and learn more about the college itself.  When my father and I arrived, Pete was there to greet us and to make it clear to the all-white gathering that we were his guests. At the end of the reception, Pete strongly encouraged me to apply to Harvard and, thinking I had nothing to lose, I did.

As a graduate of Harvard, I can look back and know that Pete opened a door to a whole new world and changed my life. By deciding to go it alone, abandoning conventional wisdom about who is worthy and sharing his privilege in a different way, he created a unique opportunity for me that was the foundation for many more. But the crucial first step Pete took was to decide that there must be talented black students off the beaten path who were worthy of the privilege he could share, and then to his credit he set out find them.  I am living proof that he was right.

For Pete this was a big leap of faith.  Summoning the courage to abandon conventional wisdom can be very difficult because the rationale upon which you comfortably hung your hat is no longer sacred. It requires you to question long held assumptions and look deeper for differences that speak to a person’s worthiness rather than just their similarities. And then it requires you to share your privilege in ways you’ve never done before.

Change is gonna come — you get to decide what kind.

Today we have a desperate need to create opportunity more broadly across the people of our nation — particularly folks of color and women.  That need is visible in all manner of ways, positive and negative.  There is also a strong rejection of that need which is being expressed in the local and national headlines every day.  Each of us has a choice to make, whether to reach out to those who are “not just like us,” or whether to push further apart.

Our nation was founded on the (then, as now) radical ideal of finding our differences worthy. Will we embrace that ideal, or abandon it?  You get to choose.

Join us

Reinventure is pioneering with others in capturing the value of seeing people differently.  We are part of a growing group of financial intermediaries through which the privilege of wealth can be more broadly shared and new opportunities — and new prosperity, new equity — can be created.  Our approach is to channel investment capital to innovative founders of color and women who are worthy of investment yet overlooked by the mainstream investment community. The return on investment will be rational.* The return on inclusion, measured by the ripple effect of opportunities created for years to come, will be priceless.

Please join us.

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*While there’s no such thing as a guarantee in investing and no one can reliably predict the future, Ed’s prior track record provides direct evidence that it is indeed possible to consistently invest for both financial returns and social value creation.  To learn more, please contact us.