Before I go, I wanted to say something about wealth, brokeness, empire and family. As in all things, I am still finding the juste mot, b/c precision is important.

I am generally so uncomfortable and out-of-place w/the current obsession with Black "king and queen makers"

B/c I've come from a family that was obsessed w/that and the results were privately and publicly disastrous. So often when we talk about building an empire, and being ready for that -- we never ever talk about the fall.

It's more interesting, b/c it's real life. But no one should be aspiring to empire, esp Black people. I feel that we know better.

Empire building is a shedding of one's humanity, and a family's.

I think about certain members of my family who've gotten away w/off-shore accounts, being terrible parents, invested in Whiteness, and they got away with it b/c we are obsessed in a terrible way w/Black ppl enacting imperialism.

But this unavoidable in the building of a "dynasty." of a "family empire". You have to fall in line w/the expectations, and there's so little room to fail, experiment, and to wander and be lost. There is no room for error, just results.

I get asked a lot about where the Basquiats are that I grew up w/, and I can't really answer that question w/o talking about empires and the collapse of them. I see imperial longings in "Black Excellence" and I'm deeply uninterested in this campaign.

Money and sanity do not last, and I think when you're talking about empires, you have to choose one. I'm floored all the time that ppl sign up for the fool's errand of "building a dynasty", but in the name of freedom & inclusion. LOL

I have yet to see a Black dynasty that does not have a branch, and sometimes the whole tree, disappear into literal Whiteness. There's no other way to sustain this. It's impossible & ppl who tell themselves otherwise are absolute fools.

I am poor, but I chose myself, and I have no regrets. But that was a decision that came from watching family members destroy themselves in the pursuit of empire. If anyone knows Tennessee/Memphis politics and business, they know what I'm talking about.

All empires fall. All of them. And I think when women and people of color dream of empire, we don't talk about how we fall harder, faster and more publicly. But the way down is a fascinating story, and one that I've lived and the one I care most about in this end of empire.