Enlightened Investment

I often worked with women who had come from environments of cultural shunning if they were promoted to management positions. I was promoted to management over them simply because I was white and willing. I had no community to challenge me, as I had left my society and family of origin to seek a better future for myself and my children, a daughter and a son.

In the deep south of the 1980s, divorced white women were assumed to be superior only to people who were of dark skin, called "Negroes" or "Niggers". I was faced with carrying out many decisions about which I disagreed. I was asked to fire people who looked gay and those who looked ill from AIDS. I was discouraged from supporting the wage rights of those who didn't understand how to read their pay stubs. I regret that I quit these jobs in frustration and shame that I wasn't obeying my masters, never realizing that I was a possible advocate and catalyst for change.

I would love to be part of an initiative to create micro loans for those with well organized plans for sustainable opportunities for women and others who are held down simply because of their genders, creeds, or colors. This model of investment would not be based on offerings, but on loans to those with successful track records of following through with their ideas and efforts at building community.

I have benefited from scholarships and investments by several husbands. i have received these partly because of my appearance and my ready wit. These are gifts for which I did nothing. I would like to share the fruits of my good fortune.