Episode 109
Shea Moisture, Dapper Dan & VP Kamala Harris: The Power of Black Women
Today we have a great conversation with Monica Wisdom
A vibrant and engaging conversation unfolds as Monica Wisdom takes her listeners on a journey of self-empowerment and collective strength for Black women. With a warm and inviting tone, she expresses gratitude for her podcast community and reflects on the importance of sharing personal stories in safe spaces. The episode carries a profound message about recognizing one’s own power and the necessity of standing tall in one’s identity amid a world that often seeks to marginalize. Monica articulates her vision of empowerment as a holistic experience, encouraging listeners to embrace all facets of themselves — the creative, the passionate, and even the angry — as valid expressions of their identity.
As the podcast progresses, Monica provides compelling examples of Black women’s influence in various domains, from business to politics. She reflects on the Shea Moisture incident and how the backlash from the Black community led to significant changes in the company’s direction. Similarly, she highlights Dapper Dan’s resurgence in the fashion industry as a testament to the creative genius and resilience of Black culture. The episode wraps up with a powerful reminder that Black women have the ability to create something out of nothing, urging her audience to embrace their potential and build their own empires with confidence and pride.
Takeaways:
- Black women have the power to create and lead their own empires in life.
- It's essential to recognize our accomplishments and share our stories with pride.
- The importance of building safe spaces where our voices and stories can be shared.
- Being aware of our unique place in society allows us to advocate effectively for each other.
- The journey to empowerment includes embracing all aspects of ourselves without fear.
- Black women historically push progress in society, shaping the future through collective action.
Links referenced in this episode:
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Black Women Amplified podcast.
Monica Wisdom:This is your girl, Monica Wisdom, and I hope that you are doing incredibly well.
Monica Wisdom:I tell you what, I have a great conversation in store for you today.
Monica Wisdom:It's going to be me and you having a conversation about becoming your own empire.
Monica Wisdom:And I'll get more into that a little bit later.
Monica Wisdom:But I just want to say thank you for supporting the podcast.
Monica Wisdom:I hope that you were able to listen to the previous episodes with our incredible interviews, as well as if you were able to venture over and listen to the Shaping Freedom podcast where I was interviewed by Lucian Basquiat.
Monica Wisdom:Lisanne Basquiat, I had a very incredible conversation with her.
Monica Wisdom:I told my story, things that I've never shared before in life.
Monica Wisdom:And oddly enough, I wasn't nervous or scared.
Monica Wisdom:She created a safe space for me.
Monica Wisdom:I know that there are lots of podcasts out there that are very iffy and salacious and trying to get people.
Monica Wisdom:But I found someone who was equal to me in the understanding that people need safe spaces and open hearts in order to share their stories.
Monica Wisdom:So I'm truly grateful for Lisanne Basquiat for asking me to be on her podcast.
Monica Wisdom:And I can't wait for you to hear our conversation that'll be available in the next couple of weeks.
Monica Wisdom:It's like I told you before, it's gonna be a two parter.
Monica Wisdom:So if this is your first time listening to the Black Women amplified podcast, welcome.
Monica Wisdom:Make sure that you go over to blackwomenamplified.com and check out our Internet home.
Monica Wisdom:We have a shop there.
Monica Wisdom:We have a blog there.
Monica Wisdom:We have services.
Monica Wisdom:It's a fully expanded experience into women's empowerment.
Monica Wisdom:So that goes from.
Monica Wisdom:I look at empowerment from a holistic perspective.
Monica Wisdom:First, owning our power and expressing our power.
Monica Wisdom:I'm not the girl who believes in the soft life.
Monica Wisdom:I'm a girl who believes in ease, but expressing our power as well.
Monica Wisdom:All the things we are, all the things.
Monica Wisdom:I don't want to diminish any part of who we are as black women.
Monica Wisdom:So feel free to express your creative side, your business side, your sexy side, your angry side, your pissed off side, all your sides.
Monica Wisdom:Live it.
Monica Wisdom:Live it out loud.
Monica Wisdom:Let them know you are here, honey.
Monica Wisdom:Yes.
Monica Wisdom:So make sure you check out the website.
Monica Wisdom:I tell people, just bookmark it.
Monica Wisdom:And if you can, be a black women amplified warrior and email it or text it to some of your friends and let them know that you found this great space to hang out that is safe, welcoming, and just full of love for black women.
Monica Wisdom:Now, today's conversation, be your own empire.
Monica Wisdom:Now, I was going to talk about something completely different, but y'all know God be downloading some stuff, and so I'm here to share the information that was downloaded to me.
Monica Wisdom:What do I mean by be your own empire?
Monica Wisdom:Here's the thing.
Monica Wisdom:I've been thinking about this whole election thing and how people have labels on who is what, what side you're on.
Monica Wisdom:Are you the left, the right, all the things.
Monica Wisdom:And I had to sit and ask myself, now, what am I on a side?
Monica Wisdom:I am.
Monica Wisdom:I'm on the side of black women and black people and black communities.
Monica Wisdom:I'm on the side of humanity.
Monica Wisdom:So I think about when I vote.
Monica Wisdom:Now, I'm a registered Democrat, but I vote for us.
Monica Wisdom:I vote for me.
Monica Wisdom:My God kids, my baby cousins, my cousins, my aunt and uncle, my community, and just marginalized people.
Monica Wisdom:I don't like to use the word marginalized, but people who look like me, that's what I vote for.
Monica Wisdom:And typically, the Democratic Party is closest to what I desire.
Monica Wisdom:Now, do they give us everything?
Monica Wisdom:Absolutely not.
Monica Wisdom:But at least I know that, my God, kids can live their fullest life from this perspective.
Monica Wisdom:Not so much from that perspective.
Monica Wisdom:So when I thought about it, I said, what does that mean, Monica?
Monica Wisdom:It means that we are a special force that most people don't know about.
Monica Wisdom:You know, most of us, many of us don't know ourselves.
Monica Wisdom:Let's start there.
Monica Wisdom:But most people, we're misunderstood as black women.
Monica Wisdom:And I think about that in the context when people say, hey, I don't really know Kamala Harris, but here's the thing.
Monica Wisdom:Gen X women, she's just like all of us.
Monica Wisdom:We don't talk about ourselves.
Monica Wisdom:We don't walk around like Josh and talking about, look what I did over here.
Monica Wisdom:Look, I'm this and I'm that.
Monica Wisdom:What we talk about is our work.
Monica Wisdom:We talk about our families, and we talk about the people that we love.
Monica Wisdom:That is typically our conversation.
Monica Wisdom:Well, hey, guess what?
Monica Wisdom:It's time to change that.
Monica Wisdom:That is my mission.
Monica Wisdom:For us to get louder, to really stand in who we are, because we deserve to be in these spaces.
Monica Wisdom:Why?
Monica Wisdom:Because we have a lot to do with why these spaces are created.
Monica Wisdom:The one thing I know for sure is that black women are incredibly special.
Monica Wisdom:The way that we think, the way they respond, the way that we take care of people is very unique.
Monica Wisdom:And here's the thing.
Monica Wisdom:People want to label us strong black women.
Monica Wisdom:But what?
Monica Wisdom:We are survivors.
Monica Wisdom:We every day are surviving a nation that looks to diminish us.
Monica Wisdom:But we are thriving anyway.
Monica Wisdom:And we're a young nation.
Monica Wisdom:I mean, if you just think about it, the civil rights act was passed in the mid sixties, and from then, our community has thrived.
Monica Wisdom:When they leave us alone, we thrive.
Monica Wisdom:If they give us the space to grow, we thrive.
Monica Wisdom:And that is something that is very special and unique about us, that we are able.
Monica Wisdom:We're modern alchemists.
Monica Wisdom:We're able to create something out of nothing.
Monica Wisdom:And I love that idea.
Monica Wisdom:And it's a philosophy.
Monica Wisdom:If you read this book called the Blue Ocean Strategy, blue Ocean strategy talks about in a sea of red, be blue, because there's nothing over on the blue side.
Monica Wisdom:Everything is crowded.
Monica Wisdom:Ideas and duplications and imitations and replications are over here on the red side.
Monica Wisdom:Why fight and compete?
Monica Wisdom:Black women are always on the blue ocean side because we weren't given the tools and the legacies and the inheritance that other communities are given.
Monica Wisdom:And this includes black men.
Monica Wisdom:But we're going to talk about black women right now, because we often talk about our men.
Monica Wisdom:We are there for our men, we support our men, we love our men, and we fight for them fiercely.
Monica Wisdom:So right now, I'm going to talk about us.
Monica Wisdom:So if this is uncomfortable to you, just sit, get your glass of wine.
Monica Wisdom:A glass of wine.
Monica Wisdom:I'm just going to be about 15 more minutes.
Monica Wisdom:But I really want to get into this conversation of how we have the ability to create something out of nothing.
Monica Wisdom:And we have a very unique vantage point of life.
Monica Wisdom:We were in proximity to the people, right?
Monica Wisdom:We have worked for the people throughout the generations, and we had to have a unique vantage point in order to be safe.
Monica Wisdom:And when I think about why we have this unique vantage point, it's because I know people always talk about enslavement, but we were raised by the kids of Jim Crow where looking somebody in the eye could be the end of your days, right?
Monica Wisdom:When saying the wrong thing could destroy your whole family.
Monica Wisdom:So I understand why we just don't talk about ourselves.
Monica Wisdom:But that is also a part of our trauma, our generational trauma, not speaking about our accolades about what we've accomplished, how we think, how we do things, all of those things.
Monica Wisdom:We will talk about our family, our friends, our job, our sorrows, our organizational people or church all day long.
Monica Wisdom:But let somebody ask you about yourself, or let somebody ask you about what you need.
Monica Wisdom:Silence.
Monica Wisdom:And I get it.
Monica Wisdom:I'm one of those people.
Monica Wisdom:I mean, being on a podcast, talking about myself has been like a great leap for me because I'm comfortable not saying a word.
Monica Wisdom:Now, I can help you build out your thing, but me building out my thing, it has been a great emotional olympics over here.
Monica Wisdom:The great emotional olympics.
Monica Wisdom:It has been twists and turns and flips and dips and swimming laps and crying and all the things.
Monica Wisdom:But what I know is that God gave me a vision, and I'm fully on that path right now.
Monica Wisdom:It took me a couple of years to get here, but I am here, and I'm ready to go.
Monica Wisdom:And I know that is the same for many of us, especially Gen X people.
Monica Wisdom:We have given so much to everybody else because we were given that assignment.
Monica Wisdom:Go.
Monica Wisdom:The civil rights busted down the doors, but now we had to go create the path.
Monica Wisdom:Keep your head down, be seen and not heard, and do everything in excellence.
Monica Wisdom:My father always told me, if you can't do it right, don't do it at all.
Monica Wisdom:So I am fiercely working on every detail of everything to make sure that it's right, to my own detriment.
Monica Wisdom: hat I would record, and it is: Monica Wisdom:I should be winding down, but I'm like, okay, let me just put in one more hour.
Monica Wisdom:And I've been working all day, so I say all that.
Monica Wisdom:To say that that is a generational thing for us.
Monica Wisdom:Millennials don't have this problem.
Monica Wisdom:And Gen Z is like, after 20 minutes, it's time for a break.
Monica Wisdom:So when they say that, they don't understand Kamala Harris, I understand her, because she's just like us.
Monica Wisdom:So here's the thing.
Monica Wisdom:In order for us to move forward, you know, we have a big election to get through.
Monica Wisdom:Big election.
Monica Wisdom:And I invite everybody to get in there early if they can.
Monica Wisdom:If you can take your ballot early, I would suggest you do that.
Monica Wisdom:But we live life from a very unique vantage point, and we are the ones who push progress in this nation.
Monica Wisdom:Every bit of this place was pushed because we pushed it, you know, from Harriet Tubman to Rosa Parks to Fannie Lou Hamer to many women who courageously stood up and said, no more.
Monica Wisdom:That is also what is in us.
Monica Wisdom:And it's time for us to move from this idea of living a life of service to being our own empire.
Monica Wisdom:It's time for us to build a new vision for ourselves, one where we fully recognize our power.
Monica Wisdom:And here's the thing.
Monica Wisdom:Let me give you three examples of our power so that you can kind of understand what I'm talking about.
Monica Wisdom:I'm going to talk about sham moisture, dapper Dan and vice president Kamala Harris.
Monica Wisdom:The first one, Shea moisture.
Monica Wisdom:We all love Shea moisture.
Monica Wisdom:Shea moisture was a product line.
Monica Wisdom:We can get it at the Walgreens, at the CV's, at the target.
Monica Wisdom:And it had the story about the owner's grandmother and how these were products that she formulated.
Monica Wisdom:Had the beautiful story, had the picture of his grandmother, beautiful ingredients, all the things.
Monica Wisdom:Well, there came a time when he wanted to scale his business, which is normal.
Monica Wisdom:In order for you to have more, you have to be bigger.
Monica Wisdom:In order for you to be bigger, you have to acquire money.
Monica Wisdom:So he went after venture capital money.
Monica Wisdom:And when you go after venture capital money, that's similar to, like, shark Tank or, you know, you see all these VC people.
Monica Wisdom:So VC people, what they do is, like, philanthropy for business.
Monica Wisdom:So they give you these.
Monica Wisdom:Well, not us.
Monica Wisdom:Don't give it to us.
Monica Wisdom:Look at the stats of what they give to us.
Monica Wisdom:They give us, I think, less than 1% of all the money that's given out.
Monica Wisdom:So he was going after the VC money, and in order for him to get the VC money, he had to appeal to a broader, more general audience.
Monica Wisdom:What does that mean?
Monica Wisdom:White folks?
Monica Wisdom:You had to make sure that these products were good for white people.
Monica Wisdom:So nobody knew that this was going on.
Monica Wisdom:Everybody just knew that there was a new ad campaign coming up.
Monica Wisdom:So we're all gearing up.
Monica Wisdom:We can't wait to see what they're going to do next, because this is a product line that was made for black women, marketed to black women, and grew because of black women's money.
Monica Wisdom:Multimillions of dollars went directly from black women into shea moisture, period, full stop.
Monica Wisdom:So he hires instead of using a black company that knows the brand, is familiar with it, and has connection to it, he hires Vaynermedia.
Monica Wisdom:Who is Vaynermedia?
Monica Wisdom:Vaynermedia is Gary Vaynerchuk.
Monica Wisdom:And if you're anytime online and you see this russian guy cussing, talking about he wants to buy a base, football team, all the things.
Monica Wisdom:So he's considered this marketing guru.
Monica Wisdom:Well, he made a huge mistake, okay?
Monica Wisdom:In the owner's attempt to diversify his company, he had to diversify his marketing.
Monica Wisdom:So they created this huge marketing campaign, and everybody could not wait to see it, because we knew it was just gonna be the bomb.
Monica Wisdom:This is our company, built by us, and we're ready.
Monica Wisdom:So we're all, you know, they're amping us up.
Monica Wisdom:This is gonna happen on this date.
Monica Wisdom:You can't wait to this.
Monica Wisdom:You can't wait to that, the day comes, everybody opens up their apps to see what it is.
Monica Wisdom:And this company, built by black women dollars.
Monica Wisdom:Here we are looking at a white woman with blonde hair and blue eyes.
Monica Wisdom:Now what?
Monica Wisdom:Now?
Monica Wisdom:So, the ad campaign was cool, but it didn't speak to us.
Monica Wisdom:So black women went crazy.
Monica Wisdom:By the time we got finished tweeting, facebooking, blogging.
Monica Wisdom:This is before TikTok was popular.
Monica Wisdom:So instagramming, all the messages, all the anger, all the rage, and all the pain, it devalued the company.
Monica Wisdom:Shea moisture.
Monica Wisdom:Shea Moisture had now been devalued.
Monica Wisdom:So the man who owned it was forced to sell it.
Monica Wisdom:We did that.
Monica Wisdom:I don't think it was our intention to make him sell it, but we also didn't know he had investors that were interested in partnering with him or giving him this money to expand his company.
Monica Wisdom:So he came on, he came out, he apologized, and then he explained that there was this full 40 day campaign that gave a.
Monica Wisdom:Each week or each day or whatever, there was gonna be a different photograph of a different woman who used the products.
Monica Wisdom:And everyone's like, why don't you just say that?
Monica Wisdom:You know, just like, we have a rapport.
Monica Wisdom:Just be honest with us.
Monica Wisdom:But Gary Vaynerchuk doesn't hurt.
Monica Wisdom:From what I've seen, I I don't see black people on his teams, so they wouldn't have known that this would bother us.
Monica Wisdom:And he hires a bunch of young people so generationally, they probably wouldn't have thought anything of it.
Monica Wisdom:So I don't blame the team.
Monica Wisdom:So, anyway, long story short, he had to sell.
Monica Wisdom:But what he did in order to make it up to us is he took the money from Shea moisture, and he went and he opened up two entities.
Monica Wisdom:He opened up the.
Monica Wisdom:He went and bought Madam CJ Walker's house and opened up an institute for entrepreneurship for black women.
Monica Wisdom:And then he bought Essence magazine, so it would be back in black people control, which I was fine with him buying it, because Essence magazine was started by Black Mendez, and he gave equity into the.
Monica Wisdom:He hired the women to be on the board and to run the company, and he also gave equity to black women.
Monica Wisdom:So it was.
Monica Wisdom:It's black women owned again.
Monica Wisdom:So that's the first example.
Monica Wisdom:Shea.
Monica Wisdom:Moisha.
Monica Wisdom:The second example is Dapper Dan.
Monica Wisdom:Dapper Dan is a designer, an incredible designer.
Monica Wisdom:And he is responsible for these iconic hip hop looks in the eighties and the early nineties.
Monica Wisdom:And he is the man who created the iconography for Gucci.
Monica Wisdom:So you see all the G's on the purses and you see all the lvs on the purses and the different brands.
Monica Wisdom:Well, he actually created that.
Monica Wisdom:So years into this, the company sued him and he had to go underground to do his designs.
Monica Wisdom:So first he started working with gangsters, and then he started working with hip hop.
Monica Wisdom:I'll just leave that.
Monica Wisdom:I'll just, I'll just leave that right there.
Monica Wisdom:So anyway, years later, everybody watches the fashion shows.
Monica Wisdom:Now the fashion shows are online, so we can all see them.
Monica Wisdom:So if you go to Louis Vuitton on YouTube, you can watch their fall show, their spring show.
Monica Wisdom:Same thing with Gucci.
Monica Wisdom:So then you've got all of these fashion bloggers who go to the shows and take the pictures.
Monica Wisdom:Well, Gucci did a line, and everybody was like, oh, my God, that's so fly.
Monica Wisdom:But if you know hip hop, you know that that's dapper Dan's work.
Monica Wisdom:They didn't give him credit for it.
Monica Wisdom:They literally copied his iconic work, put it under the name of Gucci, and they didn't think anybody would know.
Monica Wisdom:Black women knew black women.
Monica Wisdom:Got on the Twitter, the Facebook, all the social media, and started blasting Gucci.
Monica Wisdom:Blasting Gucci.
Monica Wisdom:Gucci had to apologize.
Monica Wisdom:And let me tell you what happened.
Monica Wisdom:Now, remember, we're speaking about the power of black women.
Monica Wisdom:We've got Shamoitster had to sell a company, and then he apologized by buying two more companies.
Monica Wisdom:Second thing, dapper Dan Gucci gets called out.
Monica Wisdom:Gucci is an italian designer.
Monica Wisdom:They were like, oh, my God.
Monica Wisdom:They honestly probably didn't know.
Monica Wisdom:It was probably one of their young designers was like, I'll just.
Monica Wisdom:They won't know.
Monica Wisdom:Well, they knew.
Monica Wisdom:The Gucci family flew to New York to meet with dapper Daniel in Harlem.
Monica Wisdom:And not only did they apologize to dapper Dan, now, mind you, remember, he got sued out of business 30 years prior.
Monica Wisdom:Not only did they come back and apologize, but they gave him an atelier.
Monica Wisdom:What is an atelier?
Monica Wisdom:An atelier is the ultimate design house for a designer, meaning he has access to all things Gucci to do whatever he wants to do.
Monica Wisdom:So they send him fabric.
Monica Wisdom:They set up this beautiful place for him, designed for him to design and do whatever he wanted to do.
Monica Wisdom:So now he's a part of Gucci, and Gucci's a part of him.
Monica Wisdom:Was a full circle moment.
Monica Wisdom:But remember, I'm talking about the power of black women.
Monica Wisdom:Let's talk about number three.
Monica Wisdom:Number three is Kamala Harris.
Monica Wisdom:Now, is it because she's black?
Monica Wisdom:Well, yeah.
Monica Wisdom:Is it because she's worked hard for everything she has?
Monica Wisdom:Yes.
Monica Wisdom:But the reason that she is vice president, and I don't know if everybody knows this story.
Monica Wisdom:I think I've told it before, but in the context of this, we're talking about the power of black women.
Monica Wisdom: Let's talk about how in: Monica Wisdom:And he got to the south.
Monica Wisdom:Black people, predominantly black women, showed out.
Monica Wisdom:Once he got to North Carolina, he swept through the southeast.
Monica Wisdom:Because we said, this man, the orange will not be president again.
Monica Wisdom:Not on our watch.
Monica Wisdom:The same thing we're saying now, not on our watch.
Monica Wisdom:Everybody else is like, oh, I'm undecided or I'm not going to vote.
Monica Wisdom:I'm not going to do this.
Monica Wisdom:We're not going to talk about that today.
Monica Wisdom:We're talking about the power of black women.
Monica Wisdom:So he swept through the southeast, wins the nomination, and we say, hey, Joe, hey, that is when win with black women was born.
Monica Wisdom:There was a gathering amongst black women, of women who were in media, women who had positions, all the things.
Monica Wisdom:They wrote a letter to Joe Biden and said, hey, you won this nomination because of us, and these are our demands.
Monica Wisdom:They demanded that he choose a black woman as vice president, that we will no longer be bypassed for this position.
Monica Wisdom:They gave him a list of women, and there's a group of girls called the colored girls.
Monica Wisdom:This is their choice, their name.
Monica Wisdom:It's not a racial thing.
Monica Wisdom:This is just what they call themselves.
Monica Wisdom:They're of a certain age, and I think it's five of them, and one of them is Donna Brazil.
Monica Wisdom:They have a book coming out.
Monica Wisdom:I need, I need to get her on the podcast.
Monica Wisdom:She's funny as hell, but there was a letter of 130,000 women signed this letter.
Monica Wisdom:And they said to Joe Biden.
Monica Wisdom:Joe Biden, here's the thing.
Monica Wisdom:We got you the nomination, but we will turn our back on you for this White House.
Monica Wisdom:He chooses Kamala Harris, power of black women.
Monica Wisdom:And then when he steps down, the same thing you better not.
Monica Wisdom:Everybody was saying, well, we need to have an open, open process.
Monica Wisdom:Now, let me say this.
Monica Wisdom:The process was open.
Monica Wisdom:The other people running did not qualify to be nominated.
Monica Wisdom:There's a whole process you have to go through in order to be able to be nominated.
Monica Wisdom:You have to be able to be, I think I'm using the wrong word, but essentially certified in each state to be able to get onto the ballot to do this.
Monica Wisdom:So nobody else qualified but Kamala Harris.
Monica Wisdom:Why does she qualify?
Monica Wisdom:Because 100 could, because 81 million people voted for her to be vice president.
Monica Wisdom:United States.
Monica Wisdom:So she already had the ground game.
Monica Wisdom:She had already run for president.
Monica Wisdom:She was already a senator.
Monica Wisdom:And now she's vice president, United States.
Monica Wisdom:And people like Nancy Pelosi and others were saying, well, we need to maybe look at some other people.
Monica Wisdom:We got three months, people, 90 days.
Monica Wisdom:Who else we gonna look at?
Monica Wisdom:Okay, let me, let me regress, because we're talking about the power of black women.
Monica Wisdom:Black women.
Monica Wisdom:The night that Joe Biden stepped down.
Monica Wisdom:And then he recommended, he didn't nominate Kamala Harris because that's not the process.
Monica Wisdom:He endorsed her.
Monica Wisdom:And when he endorsed her, there was a tweet put out.
Monica Wisdom:There's a call.
Monica Wisdom:When with black women, again, puts out a call.
Monica Wisdom:44,000 people showed up to the call.
Monica Wisdom:And let me tell you, I was one of those people.
Monica Wisdom:So let me tell you what was going on.
Monica Wisdom:If you were not on the call.
Monica Wisdom:If you were on the call, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Monica Wisdom:But there was only room for a thousand people because, and this, this is the twofer.
Monica Wisdom:Zoom only allows so many people.
Monica Wisdom:This.
Monica Wisdom:They had room for a thousand people.
Monica Wisdom:Zoom opened it up.
Monica Wisdom:They got on the phone and woke the CEO of Zoom up and said, we need this space open.
Monica Wisdom: So then: Monica Wisdom:It still wasn't enough.
Monica Wisdom:They opened it up to 50,000 people, I believe 44,000 people on that call that night.
Monica Wisdom:We were on that call all night.
Monica Wisdom:And in the midst of two and a half hours, less than 2 hours, there was $1.4 million raised for Kamala Harris.
Monica Wisdom:Star Jones headed up the fundraising piece.
Monica Wisdom:She set it all up because that's what she does.
Monica Wisdom:That's part of what she does for a living is she raises funds for different organizations.
Monica Wisdom:And then Donna Brazile, who was the head of the DNC twice, who is politically just rooted in politics, gets on the phone and starts calling delegates.
Monica Wisdom:Hey, this is what's happening.
Monica Wisdom:This is what's happening.
Monica Wisdom:This is what's happening.
Monica Wisdom:Do we have your support?
Monica Wisdom:And everybody said, we'll think about it.
Monica Wisdom:So the process began that night.
Monica Wisdom:That night it was evident that Joe Biden had better had.
Monica Wisdom:Because remember, we're talking about the power of black women.
Monica Wisdom:Then that call from black women has spawned out to almost 200 other factions around the nation.
Monica Wisdom:Cat ladies for Kamala.
Monica Wisdom:Asian people for Kamala, south asian people for Kamala.
Monica Wisdom:White dudes for Kamala, republicans for Kamala.
Monica Wisdom:Da da da da da da.
Monica Wisdom:Power of black women.
Monica Wisdom:And so I give you three examples.
Monica Wisdom:Shea Moisture, dapper dan, and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Monica Wisdom:These are three, just three, of many examples that show our power when we collectively come together and work our magic.
Monica Wisdom:And so what I'm saying to you is, while everyone is telling you to take your cape off, I just want to tell you it's time to exchange your cape for your throne and sit down and rule your own empire.
Monica Wisdom:Ladies and the men who love us, thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Black Women Amplified podcast.
Monica Wisdom:Please be a black women amplified warrior and share this episode with a couple of your friends.
Monica Wisdom:Put in your group text and let the people know that there is a place that loves, adores, sees and acknowledges us in a very special way.
Monica Wisdom:Have an amazing evening and take the time to take care of yourself.
Monica Wisdom:Take off your cape and have a seat on your throne.
Monica Wisdom:Until next time, this is Monica wisdom and have an amazing day.
Monica Wisdom:God bless.
