A Nation Within A Nation

Hey Sis,

I was deep in one of my research rabbit holes the other day. You know I love data and a good deep dive, and I came across something that stopped me in my tracks.

I was looking at a report about Black consumer habits, which I don’t usually check out. But something about it caught my eye, and I’m so glad it did because what I found had me sitting up in my chair.

$2.1 trillion.

That’s the spending power of Black Americans. Trillion. With a T.

I had to pause and let that sink in.

When you put that into perspective, if Black America were its own country, our economy would be in the top 15 in the world. Right up there with places like Brazil and Australia. And yet, that’s not the story we’re told about ourselves, is it?

We’ve been fed this narrative that we’re behind. That we’re struggling. That we don’t have enough, aren’t doing enough, aren’t building enough. But when you really look at the numbers? That story falls apart.

And here’s the part that really hit me—this didn’t happen over generations and generations. The Civil Rights Act was passed just 60 years ago. That means Black people in America have only had six decades of full citizenship.

Sixty years.

That’s no time at all in the grand scheme of things. Other communities have had centuries to build wealth and stability. We’ve had a fraction of that, and still, we’ve built a financial force that can’t be ignored.

So why don’t we see ourselves that way?

Because the messaging we’ve been given isn’t designed for us to see our power. It’s designed to keep us doubting ourselves, questioning our worth, and playing small.

And the wild thing is, most of us don’t even realize we’ve internalized it. We focus on being safe instead of being seen. We put our dreams on hold, thinking we need to wait for the perfect moment. We second-guess our ideas, wondering if we’re “qualified” enough to step into the vision we have for our lives.

But here’s the truth: there has never been a more perfect time to step fully into what you want to create.

Black people are galvanizing, building, creating, and shaping culture in ways we haven’t seen since the 1960s. The landscape is shifting. The old guard is fading. And the people who have something real to say, something real to build, something real to give—this is our time.

I get that it’s not easy to unlearn decades of false messaging. It takes work to separate what’s real from what’s been programmed into us. But the more I study, the clearer it gets—we’ve been powerful all along.

If we weren’t, there wouldn’t be billions spent trying to hold us back.

So what would happen if we truly understood our power at a DNA level? If we saw ourselves the way the numbers reflect, not the way the media portrays us?

Imagine what we could create if we moved with that level of awareness.

Straighten your crown, my friend. The truth has always been right here. And as Kendrick says, turn the TV off.

P.S. If this hit home for you, and you want to go deeper into unraveling the old stories and stepping fully into your next chapter, I created something that might help. The Next Chapter Guided Journal is designed to take you on that journey—because knowing your power is one thing, but owning it? That’s where the magic happens.