Melissa Tate

When I first began blogging, one woman reached out to me from across the globe. She is an Afrikaner. She knew I was going to be in London, and she was in Europe at the time. She flew in, and we had lunch, kept in touch, and had lunch again in London a few years later. She came to the Women’s Entrepreneur Festivals too. I like hearing from her. It is nice to have a like-minded friend across the globe.

She sent me this YouTube video of Melissa Tate and said it was worth the 9 minute listen. As an Afrikaner, she is interested in her story. I watched the video, and keep in mind I actually didn’t realize who this woman was. I did a bit of research after listening to her but mailed my friend my reaction below.

Very interesting.  She is a strong female.  I can’t entirely agree that the changes taking place are negative but positive.  The message is definitely you can do anything here, and we must make amends for not spreading that love to the Black community.  It is happening; I do not believe it is oppressive.  She has been able to rise up, but I fear her message is like our black Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, or even Tim Scott, the Black GOP senator who spoke out against Biden.  They are not helping their people but dismissing most of them for not being able to rise through the ranks.  Yet, I do hear what she is saying.  Bottom line, the biggest issue is there are divides everywhere, and we need to do a better job of agreeing to disagree.

She agreed with my response and noted the importance of understanding and listening to different views. That it is something about how we grow up and who raises us. We live by what we experience or are exposed to. Those layers are deep, but we need to be ok with agreeing to disagree at the end of the day.

Listening to Melissa Tate rattles me and reminds me that we are so divided as a nation on almost everything, even though some of the divides are larger and others smaller. How do we as a nation learn from our past and move forward?