I saw an Instagram post interview with Ashley M. Fox. And what struck me was her poignant self-assuredness. Her confidence. Her wealth acumen. Her legitimate history. Nothing pompous. Nothing overkill. It was rich and anchored. Grounded. She exuded the persona of becoming a billionaire — not aspirational performance, but earned positioning.
And it dawned on me — more than the constant parade of Trumptonian debacle after debacle — is it even possible that the burgeoning growth of Black wealth in the billionaire arena has propelled America to reach, once again, for its most exhausted card trick?
Racism.
Because Black billionaires are building more than fortunes.
They are building counter-narratives.
They are building economic insulation.
They are building structural answers to a system addicted to distraction and constitutional decay.
Consider the scale — quietly, deliberately reshaping the terrain:
David Steward~$11–12B
Robert F. Smith~$9–10B
Mellody Hobson~$1–2B
Tope Awotona~$1–1.5B
Sheila Johnson~$1–1.2B
And yes — we can name Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Rihanna — whose billionaire coffers sit far beyond the old template of “rich.” These are sovereign-scale operators.
But even this is not the full accounting.
This is not a true estimate of the volumes of unnamed entrepreneurs and wealth bearers — private, unranked, unbothered — forging through glass ceilings and, in many cases, bypassing them entirely. Capital held quietly. Companies owned outright. Governance exercised without applause.
And that is what has accelerated fear into shamelessness.
Because capital that cannot be caricatured
cannot be controlled
and cannot be erased.
I am reminded of Shakespeare’s As You Like It:
“Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.”
But when the MAGA chronicles become this openly derailed, the head no longer holds the jewel. It becomes the cymbal — loud, clanging — announcing the fracture.
This unraveling is not covert. The racism is no longer coded. The fear no longer strategic. It is performed — because the illusion of permanence is collapsing.
And so is the myth of dominance.
Because the famous words of Michelle Obama — when they go low, we go higher — are no longer metaphor. They are manifestation. They are instruction. They are evidence of how we are becoming.
Black America, we are the catalyst — not by declaration, but by consequence. Because while MAGA and the Trump base posture loudly, they are not consolidating power. They are imploding.
What we are witnessing is not confusion.
Not coincidence.
Not isolated missteps.
It is exposure.
Black America is not reacting to history.
We are reshaping it.
And that is precisely why the noise has become so desperate.
