Does a closeness to white culture lead to success? Rev. Hagler explains on The Offshoot podcast.

Having close relationships to white people, whether it be in the educational system, on the job, or marriage, seems to have benefited a select group of Black Americans and other people of color.  I personally benefited early in my career as a journalist by being close to white people.  In fact, there was a time, early in my journalism career, when I was the only Black person working in the entire news room.  (That didn't always go well.)  And in my early 30s, it was a white college professor, my advisor, who secured me the award of Alumni of the Year at The University of South Carolina.  But most Black Americans don't have and/or can't get to the kind of closeness to whiteness that benefits them career, financially, etc., the way it benefited, and continues to benefit, those few Black Americans and other people of color who sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, work in the White House, work in the top ranks of corporate America, or play a professional sport.  Why is that?  Is a closeness to white culture the only way to garner success?  Rev. Hagler says we have to abandon the narrative.  As a collective, there is great wealth within the Black community, he says.  "We just have to use it to our benefit."Support the show