When You're the Voice No One Wants to Hear in the Room

This blog has been having a place to write about my experiences as an entrepreneur. I naively began believing my dreams and voice were wanted in these New Orleans rooms talking about venture capital. SADLY, BLACK FEMALE FOUNDERS RECEIVE BASICALLY ZERO VENTURE CAPITAL! What I've learned these last 7 years is that they also expect you to be quiet about it! So I've used my digital voice. Now after years of building my resilience, I've found myself in the very same struggle in the Green Party US. For the last year, in the background of my work in the city, I've brought my Green Party affiliation with me. I have had an incredible amount of support from my local Green Party of New Orleans. They have created a place, one of the few places, where all voices are equal. I'm not sure how they've done it but they are an amazing bunch of people.

Because of the context of our city's decision to remove confederate monuments to white supremacy, my local party took a strong stance supporting the monument removal. It stands as a representation of the kind of Green Party I want to be a called a member. Last week I had the opportunity to attend my second Annual National Meeting, after being unanimously elected state delegate to the Presidential Nominating Convention last year. For the last year what little time I have between being human, mother, activist and entrepreneur, I've been working locally and nationally with the Green Party. I was a speaker at New Orleans' local Climate Change march, representing the Green Party, advocating for disenfranchised communities neglected in the conversation about climate change. My very issue of safe water access for all one of the conversations where endangered communities are the most at risk and the least heard. I've tried to be a voice for them but still have yet to make a safe water solution for them.

I thought the Green Party US was going to be a place where I could bring my voice and make change. The kind of change that stands up to New Confederates! Sadly that's not been my experience having to do part of that work in the national level. I feel no patriarchy or racism at my local level, though I live in a city rife with both, but at the national level that is a totally different story. My experience after working this past year disconnected is a prime example. The subsequent fallout has been unexpected. The fallout of me saying the way I was treated is not ok. The fact I am having to be very vocal in saying, "Find a way to make this right!"

Just like my years of showing up to New Orleans entrepreneur events, partly in protest to their lack of investment in black businesses. Or that New Orleans is comparative to Zambia in income inequality. The Green Party ANM was the watershed of my frustration. The lightening rod for me to rethink how my social justice mission will be done. How polite politics will get me nowhere but shut out rooms where decisions are made, simply because they do not want to hear my voice. Or the voices of those people that are behind me, with me.

I struggle now because while the New Orleans entrepreneur network they have largely ignored me. Factions in the Green Party attack me! Yet I still raise my voice. I don't like to quote Ghandi because he is troublesome on black people's liberation and self-determination, and his relationship with girl's and women, but his quote rings in my mind:

A week after my incident I really seriously considered quitting the Green Party. Despite a small group of people working to make change in Green Party US. I received a phone call from one of my fellow black Green Party members, who had shared their experience being called a nigger in their local Green Party. Told to go fuck themselves! A very clear indication their voice wasn't wanted in the room. Yet they stay in the Green Party for the same reason I joined- to change the way the country's culture does not make room for black voices or their struggles. Dominant white spaces quickly tell black people who want to be radically free, especially black women- SHUT UP! Your issues don't matter here! Especially when the ones telling us to shut up and leave the room are a part of our issue.