I read an article on medium.com recently that argued that “black billionaires are a waste of space.”

 

 

Calling Black billionaires a waste is not a serious argument. It is a conclusion looking for a grievance.

If the issue is capitalism, then say capitalism. If the issue is extreme wealth, then say extreme wealth. If the issue is whether any billionaire should exist while working people are struggling, that is a real debate.

But do not dress up a general critique of wealth and aim it only at Black people who managed to win inside the same system everybody else is playing in.

Capitalism runs on consumers. That is not a Black billionaire problem. That is the whole machine.

The white tech founder depends on users. The retail billionaire depends on shoppers. The record label depends on fans. The athlete depends on viewers. The author depends on readers. The entrepreneur depends on customers. No one builds a fortune in the marketplace without people buying, watching, listening, clicking, wearing, eating, subscribing, or showing up.

So when someone says a Black musician or entrepreneur owes a great deal to nameless and faceless people across the globe, the first question should be simple.

Compared to whom?

Because every billionaire owes something to the public. Every brand is built on public support. Every fortune is tied to labor, consumers, infrastructure, law, culture, timing, and access. That is not unique to Black wealth. That is how wealth works.

The fallacy is pretending this truth becomes morally urgent only when the billionaire is Black. The standard only gets applied when the person who built the fortune is Black. That is where the argument breaks down.

Black billionaires and Black entrepreneurs can be criticized. They should be. Nobody should be above scrutiny because they are rich, famous, talented, or Black. But criticism has to be honest. It cannot start with the assumption that Black wealth is suspect while white wealth gets treated as normal.

That is not accountability. That is selective resentment.

It also ignores what some Black entrepreneurs and entertainers have actually done.

Robert F. Smith pledged to pay off the student loan debt for Morehouse College’s 2019 graduating class and later expanded that gift to cover parent educational loans, with the total reported at $34 million, according to the Robert F. Smith Foundation. He also made a $50 million personal gift to the Student Freedom Initiative after Fund II Foundation committed another $50 million to support students at HBCUs and minority-serving institutions.

Oprah Winfrey has invested $25 million into Morehouse College through her scholars program, which Morehouse College described as the largest endowment in its history. That program has supported more than 700 students, according to AfroTech reporting on the Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation’s records.

Michael Jordan and Jordan Brand created a 10-year, $100 million Black Community Commitment focused on education, economic justice, narrative change, and social justice, according to Nike. In 2024, Jordan Brand announced more than $8 million in grants to 37 organizations working in those areas, per Nike’s reporting.

Those are not theories. Those are investments.

Are they enough to fix every problem in Black America? No. Charity does not erase structural inequality. A scholarship fund does not repair every underfunded school. A grant program does not end discrimination, bad policy, predatory lending, health gaps, or the long shadow of stolen opportunity.

But “not enough” is not the same thing as “a waste.”

The biggest recent investment in HBCUs did not come from a Black billionaire. It came from MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife. Fortune reported that Scott’s HBCU giving crossed the $1 billion mark after a $42 million gift to Elizabeth City State University. Fortune also reported that she has donated more than $26 billion overall across education, health, community development, disaster recovery, and diversity work.

She is white.

That does not make her giving less valuable. It makes the double standard harder to hide.

If a white billionaire gives to HBCUs, she is praised as a serious philanthropist. If a Black billionaire gives to HBCUs, pays off student debt, funds scholarships, or supports community organizations, the conversation still finds a way to ask why he has not done more.

That is a crooked standard.

Black success is often treated like public property. The moment a Black person rises too high, somebody demands an invoice. Who did you save? What did you fund? What neighborhood did you rescue? What movement did you bankroll? What did you do for us?

Some of those questions are fair. But they should not be reserved for Black people.

Ask them of everybody.

Ask them of the corporations that extract from Black culture and never invest in Black institutions. Ask them of the legacy families whose wealth was built before civil rights law protected the people they excluded. Ask them of the banks, studios, sports leagues, record companies, venture capital firms, and universities that have profited from Black talent while keeping Black ownership limited.

Do not discover your moral compass only when the rich person is Black.

That is the real issue.

The argument should not be that Black billionaires are automatically heroes. They are not. Some will disappoint. Some will posture. Some will give quietly. Some will give loudly. Some will do too little. Some will do more than they are ever credited for.

The argument is that Black billionaires are not uniquely useless because they are Black and rich.

We can question wealth without turning Black success into a crime scene. We can demand responsibility without pretending Black entrepreneurs invented capitalism. We can push for deeper investment in HBCUs, neighborhoods, health care, housing, small businesses, and local institutions.

Reducing every Black billionaire to a symbol of betrayal is not accountability. That is lazy.

Black wealth is not waste just because it makes some people uncomfortable. Black philanthropy is not waste because it does not solve every wound. Black entrepreneurship is not waste because every dollar did not move according to someone else’s politics.

The better question is not whether Black billionaires should exist.

The better question is whether they are building anything that outlives their fame.

The answer, more often than they are credited, is yes.

 

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