Dealing with racism can kill you, or make you crazy.

Being black and dealing with racism, especially on a job (where we spend a lot of our time) can lead to extreme mental and physical health complications.

Here is a summary of a recent survey where people of different races were asked questions about experiences with discrimination conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

“The research indicates it is not just the big experiences of discrimination, like being passed over for a job or not getting a promotion that someone felt they might have been entitled to. But the day-to-day little indignities affect health: being treated with less courtesy than others, being treated with less respect than others, receiving poorer service at restaurants or stores. Research finds that persons who score high on those kinds of experiences, if you follow them over time, you see more rapid development of coronary heart disease. Research finds that pregnant women who report high levels of discrimination give birth to babies who are lower in birth weight.“

This is exactly why Black people should explore entrepreneurial opportunities and aim to be completely free from the racist corporate plantation.

It isn’t so much about getting rich as it is about maintaining integrity and dignity as a human being. No person can stay sane in an environment of constant degradation and humiliation.

If you think America will change it’s tune any time soon you’ve got another thing coming. Rather than beg America to ‘treat us fairly’ we should be creating our own opportunities that never leaves us vulnerable to people who have historically lacked the capacity to treat any melanated people like human beings.