Dr. Rachel Naa-Du Laryea says navigating dual identities shaped both her academic journey and her groundbreaking book, Black Capitalists: A Blueprint for What is Possible.
Speaking on Morning Starr with Naa Dedei Tettey, the US-born academic of Ghanaian descent reflected on growing up between two cultures.
“In America, I felt very Ghanaian. But anytime I would come home here, I felt very American,” she shared. “It was just that tension of being hyper-Ghanaian, African American.”
She explained that at home, her upbringing was deeply Ghanaian, while outside it was entirely American. “At home, it was very much Ghanaian culture, but then the moment I stepped outside, it was American culture.”
Dr. Laryea said that over time, she moved from struggling with the duality to embracing it. “I don’t know if there’s really a balance. I think it’s more so just an awareness of it and an acceptance.”
Her educational path, strongly influenced by her mother’s belief that “education is the way out,” led her from Wall Street to academia. After being recruited by Goldman Sachs despite having no prior finance background, she became intrigued by how Black professionals navigated capitalism.
“They were using the tools of capitalism in the spaces that they were in really subversively in a really interesting way to not only benefit themselves, but their communities outside of that space as well,” she explained.
That observation inspired her doctoral research and eventually her book.
“I would say really it begins in terms of thinking about the fact that our beliefs beget our behaviors, not the other way around,” she said, describing one of the central messages of the book.
Dr. Laryea also addressed resistance to capitalism within Black communities.
“I talk to people all the time, and they’ll tell me, you know, I’m anti-capitalist… And I get it,” she said. “But I believe that our critique of capitalism should be the new standard by which we engage in it and do it differently.”
She maintained that change begins with agency.
“We are all relating to capitalism every single day. And so we’re already in it. It’s about how we choose to take the agency that we do have to change our relationship to it.”
The book is available globally in print and audio formats, the latter narrated by Dr. Laryea herself.
She will be embarking on The Black Capitalists European book tour with scheduled appearances in Amsterdam (21 March), Brussels (22 March), Paris (25 March) and London (27 March).
Source: Starrfm.com.gh
