A black, beautiful billionaire? If only she were white

I love writing and reading the writing of others at DailyKOS.com. We have an unforgiving community but one where gems — political, social, academic, and artistic — blossom every day. It does not hurt that it is the most significant progressive blog, website, community in the country. — Not just another billionaire story.

Today, I ran into another one of SemDem‘s informative articles. And his title was perfect and necessarily click-bait-like to get a message out that too many are made oblivious to much too often. So what is the title of his article? “A black, beautiful billionaire? If only she was white and Kardashian, she could make the cover.”

SemDem first tackles the unfortunate truth about the contrast between two billionaires Kylie Jenner and Pat McGrath. He grouped Kylie & Kendall together for his “admiration.”

To be perfectly blunt, I think Kylie and Kendall Jenner are simply awful people. Both are the personification of privilege and act the part as well. Neither are particularly gifted in any way, and it’s extremely unlikely they would ever have made it in the industry without their famous last name, vast family wealth, and pre-established contacts. This is unfortunate because they are both as harmful as they are successful.

Kylie Jenner is notoriously rude and helped enable one of the worst sexual predators in the industry. She is also accused of endorsing shady products to her followers that she credits for radically altering her appearance — not plastic surgery, of course.  Mind you, I’m not opposed to plastic surgery, but I am opposed to the sharp rise of young girls aged 13-17 getting cosmetic procedures done to emulate these models. Specifically, there has been a rise in botched lip injections among teens trying to copy what Kylie did when she was just 16.

Kendall is not much better. She, along with Kylie, seemingly has no scruples when it comes to making money.  Both of them blatantly exploited and profited off of musical icons.  Kendall also told her followers to attend a scam festival without disclosing that she was paid an obscene amount of money for posting about it. 

Both Jenners, however, ALWAYS make the covers of national magazines. The media consistently dotes on them, either with gushing drivel that praises their “hard work” or, as Forbes tried to do, heaps unearned praise with this stupid “self-made” narrative:  The magazine calls her a “self-made billionaire”.  She is none of those things.

And then the contrast.

Another type of billionaire

This brings me to Pat McGrath.  

Born to a Jamaican single mother with absolutely no connections, Pat McGrath made a name for herself by perfecting her craft.  

Her cosmetics company, in two short years, has been valued at over one billion dollars.  It surpasses Kylie’s, which is worth around 800 million. Unlike the Kardashians, she’s actually a positive role model.

Yet she isn’t on Forbes.  She won’t be.

In fact, she is one person you won’t see on the cover of any business or beauty magazine.
The question is…. why?

Pat McGrath has a fascinating story, and she is the definition of hard-working and resourceful. While she was growing up, she found it damn difficult to find cosmetic shades for dark-skinned women—so much so, that she was sometimes forced to use cocoa powder as foundation. 

She obsessed over her work, and through raw persistence and talent, was able to make a small name for herself in the beauty industry.  Every single time she was handed a challenge, she crushed it. Eventually, she was allowed to lead the makeup for the models of Fashion Week and was so successful that she ran over 60 shows.  Allure magazine stated she “set nearly every major makeup trend” in the industry.

In 2015, she launched her own company, Pat McGrath Labs. It started with limited editions but has since expanded into a permanent collection in 2017. This year, it surpassed the billion dollar mark.
I’m sure McGrath doesn’t care if she makes the cover of Forbes, but I do. I care that almost no one has heard of her, but everyone knows Kylie Jenner. Why? McGrath should have surpassed any standard of acknowledgment. Is her achievement less worthy?

For those who read my political blogs and listen/watch Politics Done Right remember our discussions on meritocracy versus chosen. There is so much in SemDem’s article that meat-“ifies” that reality.

Welcome to America, the UK, Canada, Brazil, and… The majority of the world lives this reality in various incarnations in business, hell, in life generally. It is always refreshing when the privileged, however rich or poor sees the bigger picture for that is how one breaks the indoctrination en masse. Every so often, I send direct messages to authors at DK. SemDem, you got mine.

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