During a trip to Las Vegas, I arranged to interview a wealthy source in his fancy hotel suite. At the resort in question and probably at all of them , there was a separate entrance to the area where the suites are located, with its own elevators that are off-limits to other guests. We shared the elevator with a fit, well-dressed young Black man, who smiled politely and said hello. Later, my source, who is white, told me the guy was for sure a pro athlete. Could he, really? This actually happens a lot.
I write about it in my book, Jackpot. At that very club the day before we sat down to talk, a white member had spotted Raphael as he was getting ready to play a round. The man came over, all friendly, and asked Raphael whether he used to be an athlete.
He clearly assumed that the only reason you would get to be a member here is had you been an athlete. Black entrepreneurs and executives are overlooked by the majority culture, Raphael told me. And the ones who are successful, very rarely is it the professional, the businessman, the entrepreneur. Croix, several siblings ended up being very successful. His brother Sam now owns a resort in Dominica, where guests regularly ask him how he made his money. Another Hollywood trope.
I have an amateur musician friend , Mark Montgomery French, who is without question a card-carrying nerd. He also happens to be Black, six-foot-nine, and has zero interest in sports. MARK is standing on a street corner, minding his own business. Yadda-yadda-yadda Michael Jordan yadda-yadda-yadda high school coach yadda-yadda-yadda basketball-specific reference that I assume you understand…. At one job, he befriended a white colleague an inch taller than he is.
Fame—even perceived fame due to skin color and height—is more potent than racism. Growing up in St. Croix, Raphael told me, he was surrounded by successful Black role models, and that made him feel he could follow his dreams wherever they took him. Indeed, if you bother to look, these role models can be found in America, too. Walker, who is Black, grew up in rural Texas, where his family lived on the knife-edge of poverty, and bill collectors would come around to hound his hard-working single mother.
