A Pilgrimage to Tulsa: Navigating Race, Privilege and Opportunity
On May 31st, 2023, I woke up overwhelmed by feelings of self-doubt. I was up early for a flight to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to meet with fellow aspiring Black leaders in venture capital through a not for profit organization called HBCUvc. Its mission is to build pipelines into VC for individuals with non-traditional backgrounds. The trip was meant to be an orientation before each of us fellows went off to our respective venture capital firms for a summer internship.
I had never traveled to Tulsa before but knew of it as the home of Black Wall Street, a period that was often discussed in Black communities but lacked the corroboration of most academic curricula - an unfortunate and far too common byproduct of history. The vagaries of this particular historical event were not what was gnawing at me and urging me to not board my flight however. The strong emotional response I was having was due to the realization that this trip was the first time in almost two decades that I would be in a room where I was part of the racial majority.
Over the 18 months prior to the trip to Tulsa, I started off on a path of self-discovery in both personal and professional growth. Professionally, I had worked for a global financial institution, a regionally reputable real estate family office, and was just starting to settle into a leadership role at the family investment office. The logical professional next step was clear — MBA. I began applying to graduate school for a master’s degree in business. Columbia Business School was at the top of my target list. My professional credentials appeared to be a natural fit however I struggled to identify my “why,” the personal motivation driving my professional ambitions.
As I prepared my personal story for admission, I wrestled with my right to belong at an Ivy League institution, especially a top-ranking program. I spent weeks tinkering with how I would tell my story, deciding which details to reveal and which to conceal. For the first time since perhaps my early life in private school, I began to notice the tension between my early life and my current vantage point. In previous moments in my life, I had been cautious about sharing the reality of my personal journey in conversations with peers, in part because so few of my lived experiences ever felt relevant enough to share in these groups. As I found more success in my professional life, it became easier to allow that area of my life to define me, an unintended consequence that that sat on the center of my personal journey.
I spent a significant portion of my earlier home-life in a handful of housing projects in Hartford, Connecticut. These neighborhoods were outwardly defined by their low-income status, crime rate, and uninspired, uniform brick facades. Certainly, unfamiliar to the typical student at the cushy, suburban, private school I attended. Inside of these housing projects, multiple generations of black and brown families were held together by a shared understanding of some of life’s most difficult truths. These communities made fertile ground for Black culture to root, grow and spread. The rich diversity in ethnicity was masked by the homogeny of being in the minority. For better and for worse, these conditions create an inescapable sense of belonging in these environments and bankrupt the possibility of a life outside of it.
Outside of these communities, the term Project is suggestive of something more temporary or whose results can be measured. Bound by a defined beginning and end. Inside of these communities, however, there was almost nothing temporal about our connection to it. Many of my friends were born in these housing projects and still remain there 29 years later. I distinctly remember the day my family purchased our first home — our neighbors asked us why we’d ever leave. These individuals were raised by single mothers or grandparents who themselves were likely to have been born or have grown up in the very same environment.
As I ventured further into my studies and the privileged world of private education and high-society, the occasional comments about my growing “whiteness” left me confused, ashamed and disconnected. These comments were often made by my peers back home who noticed a change in me, remarking that I had lost my “accent”, something that I did not realize I ever had. Gradually, my neighborhood friends and I grew apart as we appeared to have fewer things in common on the surface, ignoring the prior years of shared experience and connection. All the while, I remained outside of the social circles at school, unable to bridge the division between our worlds.
Through reflection, I realize this isolation had presented a rare opportunity for me to shape my own identity, peeling away at vestigial layers passed down from previous generations, who may have developed these elements out of survival but which I found hung onto me like a phantom limb. These layers represented elements of my identity that were incongruous with the environments I found myself in. These layers were neatly folded and hidden away in plain sight, visible by those who cared to look and invisible to those who did not. At times I found myself both within and without these layers, often forgetting the limitations that the world had set around me.
In hindsight, it is clear to me that these early social experiences outside of the neighborhood were like grafts, a collage of possibilities taken from one area of my life and transplanted over my vantage point from the neighborhood. These new experiences overlayed the foundation of my early development, just as a graft transplants tissue to a new area for repair and growth. This early exposure planted seeds with new possibilities and new implications for who I could eventually become.
A peculiar thing began to happen after I began to find early professional success. On occasion, I would feel comfortable enough to slip in a fleeting comment about my connection to the Downtown area where 99% of my colleagues commuted into. The same Downtown area where the housing project I grew up in was located. Rather than leaning into these moments of vulnerability, my colleagues would laugh as if to say there is no way that I had any connection to a place that in their estimation was so devoid of any obvious potential. In some cases, they would outright say, “what do you know about this neighborhood”. I went from striving for a seat at the table to giving the impression that I was born at it, complemented by the proverbial silver spoon.
The unfortunate reality of social mobility is that it is often achieved by only the most exceptional individuals within a minority group. In fact, as I write this, the Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional for colleges to consider race in their application process making the journey much more difficult and much less communal. I am a strong believer in meritocracy however I also recognize the social biases that exist across racial lines for all members of our society. Moments like this Supreme Court ruling and the moments mentioned above make it clear to me that it is a disservice to society to conceal the totality of our unique journeys.
It can no longer be enough for an individual alone to so called make it through the gauntlet of tests to prove that we are not just good enough but exceptionally distinguished from the pack. As I prepared my story for admission to Columbia Business School, these same thoughts began to swirl and stir a responsibility to not enter these spaces alone, but to leave the door open for others like me by telling my own story. It is apparent that too few images of educated, well-spoken black individuals are promoted in our world. Our minds have an incredible way of reflexing to the familiar. It is not surprising that the canonical image of black success oft includes entertainers and athletes — these arenas recognize and celebrate our culture. In these places, spectators do not assume that these individuals were handed their seat. Talent itself is not the inequity, opportunity and the ability to see it is. The lack of thriving black communities in present day was incredibly apparent once I was confronted by the gravity of Greenwood Ave and its reputation as the Black Wall Street.
Upon arriving in Tulsa, the city’s history unfolded before me, serving as an immediate reminder of its dark past. The new fellows’ retreat coincided with the 102nd anniversary of the Race Massacre on Greenwood Ave, which occurred on May 31st, 1921. I reached my hotel in the early afternoon, leaving behind the vibrant energy of New York City for a city whose present identity required an understanding of its past. I went for a walk around the streets that surrounded my hotel and was surprised to find how much the spirit of the central business district reminded me of home.
As the new fellows began to arrive at the hotel, we exchanged pleasantries, bridging the gap between our virtual connections and real-life encounters. One of our initial activities, the “Lifeline Exercise,” prompted each fellow to plot their life experiences on a two-dimensional chart. Negative experiences were placed below the X-axis, while positive ones were positioned above it. The goal was to share our highs and lows. I was pleasantly surprised by the diversity within each of our journeys and the shared triumphs that emerged from our stories. It was common to hear that each of us had stood out early in life, whether through demonstrated skills, knowledge, passions, or hard work. At some point in most of our individual paths, we recognized the potential to reach for dreams that may not have been realized by previous generations in our families.
Much like my college admission process, I brought my entire self to each and every interaction while in Tulsa. I shared perspectives that I developed from my time in the housing projects of Hartford, as well as my experiences attending private school. I shared my professional experience working around venture capital and the areas where I thought my blind spots were in the field. I shared my fears, aspirations, and most importantly, my story. Rather than excluding me from the group, I was embraced, supported, and celebrated. Having the retreat in Tulsa created a sense of seriousness around our trip. The experience felt more like a pilgrimage than an orientation. I couldn’t shake the historical context that set the stage for our arrival. The confluence of these factors gave way to an undercurrent, gently reminding me of both the consequences that arise when someone else is the author of our history, the power of authenticity and the importance of sharing our story.
By the end of the trip, I had the sense that Greenwood Ave embodied much of what the HBCUvc orientation set out to accomplish — a sense of solidarity in the fact that each of us clearly had the potential to be successful in all spaces. The burden of Black Excellence is two fold — it undermines normalcy in the Black community and simultaneously poses a perceived threat to the prevailing normalcy among non-POCs. As I took in my surroundings in Tulsa, I was surrounded by incredibly talented and deserving individuals who all recognized the importance of our journeys. Not just for ourselves, but everyone — those with the ability to create opportunity, those actively pursuing it and those not yet aware of their potential to pursue it.
