Chasing Success, Losing Freedom: The Journey of Black and Brown Leaders
The journey to success for Black and Brown people is fraught with systemic barriers and power structures designed to maintain the status quo. These structures often limit opportunities and create additional hurdles for historically and systematically excluded communities, making the pursuit of success even more difficult to grasp.
The Distinction Between Wants and Needs
Let’s think about injustice through a lens of wants and needs. For historically marginalized people, the struggle to secure basic needs like safe and stable housing often overshadows the pursuit of wants, leaving larger goals (or wants) further out of reach.
In some cases, this can even lead to economic desperation, forcing difficult choices for individuals who simply need to survive.
Societal norms and arbitrary expectations often hinder authentic success for Black and Brown people. There's immense pressure to conform to mainstream definitions of success, which frequently overlook the unique challenges faced by our communities. By recognizing the critical difference between wants and needs, we can begin to better understand how economic barriers impede progress and work against equitable opportunities.
Wants vs. Needs Defined
In economics, needs are essentials required for survival and daily functioning, such as food, shelter, and healthcare. Wants, on the other hand, are desires that enhance quality of life but are not essential.
Consider needs throughout your everyday life – those things necessary for survival, like food, water, and shelter. Today, that’s evolved to include transportation and internet access, which are required to connect with the world in one way or another, whether that’s because work, food, and health services may be too far away or online only.
Wants are better thought of as how you fulfill those needs. Some people might prefer to own their own vehicle for transportation, while others like to bike, and others find public transportation to be their ideal. Still, as a want, the idea is you generally have options, although some may be locked behind systemic barriers or cost.
For marginalized communities, the distinction between wants and needs can be confusing because we’re constantly being told that our needs are not necessary. This often leads to economic desperation. Limited resources can force individuals into difficult choices in order to fulfill their basic needs to survive.
"Economics is the study of how we choose to use limited resources to obtain the maximum satisfaction of unlimited human wants." – Harper College
Safe and stable housing is a need, whereas owning a mansion in a “nice neighborhood” is a want. The struggle to secure basic housing illustrates the broader economic challenges faced by marginalized communities.
Safe and stable housing is a fundamental need essential for survival and daily functioning, yet many of us face significant barriers in securing it. In many cities, the shortage of affordable housing forces low-income families into substandard living conditions or houselessness. In Los Angeles county, there are over 75,000 houseless people, predominantly from Black and Brown communities.
Gentrification further exacerbates this issue, displacing long-standing residents and disrupting their support networks and community ties.
In contrast, owning a six bedroom house on a wealthy block is made easier and simpler for people with social and financial capital – especially when they are white and upper class. Significant disparities in homeownership rates exist between white families and families of Color, with Black households having a homeownership rate of approximately 44% compared to 73% for white households.
Redlining and other forms of discrimination in lending practices, lower household incomes on average, and less accumulated wealth contribute to these gaps.
Additionally, homes in majority-Black neighborhoods are valued significantly lower than those in predominantly white areas by banks and lending institutions, impacting the ability of Black homeowners to build equity and wealth over the long-term. According to Brookings, homes in majority-Black neighborhoods are valued 21-23% lower on average than those in predominantly white areas.
Impact on Black and Brown Communities
Limited resources force difficult choices between fulfilling basic needs and striving for better opportunities, in some cases even leading to economic desperation to provide for one’s family.
Systemic barriers and socio-economic conditions exacerbate these issues, making it harder for marginalized individuals to achieve economic stability and growth. Further, research shows that Black and Hispanic families in the U.S. are more likely to face financial insecurity and have less access to wealth-building opportunities compared to white families. According to a study from the Economic Policy Institute, “The typical white family has eight times as much wealth as the typical Black family. This racial wealth gap is a long-standing vestige of centuries of government policies that explicitly denied African Americans the opportunity to build wealth.”
Understanding the economic concepts of wants and needs is crucial for addressing systemic injustice; these distinctions play a significant role in the everyday lives of marginalized communities and influence how money is spent, and government resources are allocated.
The Flint Water Crisis is a stark example of how systemic neglect and economic disparities can have devastating consequences for Black folks. In violation of federal law, untreated water was sent through lead pipes for years, with warning signs ignored by officials until thousands were harmed by the toxic water.
The lack of clean water in Flint, Michigan, has had long-term health and economic consequences for the predominantly Black population, yet it’s not an isolated incident but part of a larger pattern of environmental injustice. According to the NAACP, race – even more than class – is the number one indicator for the placement of toxic facilities in the U.S.
And in Flint, ten years later the work to provide clean water to citizens is still not complete.
Less toxic yet damaging in other ways is a lack of affordable and reliable broadband access across the country, especially in marginalized communities. Limited Internet access means limited access to jobs, education, health care, and overall economic mobility. The digital divide exacerbates educational and economic disparities in marginalized communities and creates barriers to true equity.
These disparities in access to basic resources like clean water and the internet are not accidents but the result of systemic inequities that prioritize some communities over others. Addressing these issues requires a commitment to equitable infrastructure investment and policies that prioritize the clear needs of marginalized communities that are not being met.
Even BIPOC people who “make it” can abuse power dynamics and end up perpetuating harm while exploiting others through their actions.
Jay Shetty, a prominent life coach and self-help guru, recently faced scrutiny for allegedly fabricating parts of his life story and plagiarizing content. Despite claims of spending years as a monk, the report from The Guardian dug into his past and questioned the authenticity of his narrative, while critics argue that Shetty profits off of ancient wisdom repackaged for a modern audience, often shared without attribution or context.
While Shetty's teachings may inspire some, the allegations raise questions about authenticity, cultural appropriation, and the commercialization of spiritual practices. And this also raises broader questions about the pressures to craft compelling personal narratives to succeed in the self-help industry, and in entertainment more broadly. What happens when your story doesn’t match your actions?
More disturbing allegations have emerged against Sean “P. Diddy” Combs – including multiple allegations of trafficking, physical abuse (with shocking video evidence), and financial mismanagement from Black artists.
These allegations highlight how even prominent figures within Black and Brown communities can perpetuate harmful practices, reflecting broader systemic issues within the entertainment industry and beyond. Throughout the years, some Black artists have flaunted wealth supposedly made from simply working hard, but the reality paints a far different picture… a picture of exploitation.
As Jamilah Lemieux said in response to the R. Kelly indictment, “We've been asking for decades to pay attention to the stories of these Black girls.” Until we dismantle the systemic racism and sexism in our world, too many of these stories remain unheard.
Under capitalism, wants vs. needs will continue to create dynamics where the profit of one is prioritized over the wellbeing of someone else. That needs to change.
Recognizing systemic barriers is not what makes the problem worse. Ignoring them does. Dismantling inequity is required to create equitable opportunities. That may come as a surprise to some who have been taught that representation is what brings justice. But it doesn’t.
Tokenizing that one Asian person, Black person, or Latine person doesn’t change any system. It may change the life of that one individual but it also often leads to isolation and deeper assimilation into a white dominant way of being and thinking. By recognizing the pressures and challenges faced by BIPOC individuals, we can support efforts to build a just society.
What could that look like?
Comprehensive policies and initiatives are needed to address the economic disparities faced by Black and Brown communities. Policies such as increased minimum wage, affordable housing initiatives, progressive income tax where people who make less have less taken out their checks every other week and people who make more pay more in income tax, and access to quality healthcare and education can help address economic disparities. Policies and initiatives aimed at expanding broadband access in underserved areas can improve educational and economic outcomes, while community-based support systems and programs can provide resources, hardware, and opportunities for people who have been historically and systematically excluded.
Systemic barriers and power structures destroy the chances of success for many Black and Brown people. Unjust systems paint the needs of those treated unfairly as wants while those with the most live in wild excess of what they actually need.
But that success of one doesn’t guarantee the success of all. Prominent figures within marginalized communities can perpetuate systemic issues and the more isolated they become, the more likely they are to assimilate into the mainstream channels of exploitation.
Advocate for policies that address systemic barriers and promote equitable opportunities and access to needs and wants. Support community organizations that work towards dismantling systemic inequities And ask yourself what your need-want mindset is. Have you been taught to believe that only the rich deserve to get what they both want and need?
