The world is wide, and none of us know everything. Curiosity is what keeps us human.
I keep coming back to that thought, especially on the eve of Black History Month, because curiosity has always been double-edged for Black people. We’ve always been punished for it and saved by it at the same time.
Curiosity is how we survived systems that were never built for us to understand, let alone benefit from. It’s how we learned to read rooms, contracts, danger, and opportunity. It’s how we built culture out of constraint and community out of exclusion. For us, curiosity isn’t philosophical. It’s practical. It’s survival.
And yet, in this current American moment, curiosity is not what’s rewarded. Certainty is. Polish is. Familiar faces are. Proven names. Safe bets.
Lately, the closest way I can describe it is being asked to breathe underwater and pretend I’m not struggling. To keep moving, keep producing, keep smiling, as if the conditions aren’t hostile to begin with. There’s an expectation to perform ease where there is pressure, to appear fluent in systems that were never meant to hold us. That tension—the work of surviving while being asked not to show the cost—is what curiosity has always helped us navigate. It’s also what makes the demand for perfection before permission feel so disorienting. You’re not failing. You’re holding your breath.
I’m a small business owner. A Black woman trying to build something real in an American market that makes it clear I have to be immaculate just to be taken seriously. Considered legitimate. Not competent. Not growing. Immaculate. Mistake-proof. Fully formed. Already successful and validated somewhere else.
And even then, there’s this lingering air of distrust—like I have to keep proving I belong while holding my breath. A sense that I have to keep proving I belong in rooms where others are allowed to experiment, to be unfinished, fail forward, be underdeveloped, be average, be visible anyway.
That’s one of the gaps we don’t talk about enough.
We talk about access.
We talk about funding.
We talk about representation.
But we don’t talk enough about permission.
Who gets permission to be seen before they’re perfect.
Who gets permission to learn in public.
Who gets permission to build without carrying the weight of an entire people.
Black entrepreneurs are often asked to present finished masterpieces in a world that lets others pitch drafts and sell prototypes. We’re asked to inspire instead of being supported. To represent an entire people while just trying to feed our families. To symbolize progress while still struggling to pay ourselves.
And yes, we have Black celebrities. We have visibility at the top. But that visibility often comes with compromise, containment, and distance created between them and the rest of us still trying to make a way. It does not automatically translate into access for the rest of us.
Celebrity success is not the same as collective opportunity.
Meanwhile, Black America has real economic power. Real buying power. Real influence. A GDP that rivals nations. But that power doesn’t reliably circulate to small businesses, to early-stage builders, to Black women working without teams, without buffers, without institutional grace or safety nets.
So I’m asking harder questions now.
What if curiosity guided our support instead of familiarity? What if we invested in what’s honest, not just what’s already polished? What if we allowed Black women to build in real time instead of demanding perfection upfront?
If we let Black women grow instead of demanding they arrive fully formed?
I don’t have this figured out. I’m not standing here as an expert. I’m standing here as someone who is trying. Trying to build a name. Trying to build a legacy my family can stand on. Trying to stay solvent, sane, and human in a system that keeps moving the goalposts.
But I do know this: curiosity keeps us human because it keeps us open. Open to each other’s realities. Open to complexity. Open to the idea that the future we want might require us to support work that is real, necessary, and still in motion.
Black history isn’t just about what we survived. It’s about what we dared to imagine when survival wasn’t supposed to turn into legacy.
And maybe this season asks us to be curious again. About who we invest in. About who we listen to. About what we’re willing to grow together.
I don’t know everything. But I’m still here. I’m building. And I’m asking better questions.
And that’s not weakness. That’s the work.
With Care,
Tasha Monroe
Founder, Simply Edyn & Co.