Black women have built empires from kitchen tables. And some of us have been the first ones in the comments tearing those empires down.
In this episode, Andrinique takes on one of the most uncomfortable conversations in Black women’s culture: the pattern of Black women tearing each other down. Not as critics or outsiders looking in, but as women who are part of the community and who have seen it up close. She traces the behavior from its roots in slavery and respectability politics all the way to present-day comment sections, and asks the question most people are too afraid to ask: do you even know your nervous system is dysregulated when this happens?
This episode is not a celebration. It is a reckoning.
This episode is a mirror. Come ready to look.
Andrinique gets into a pattern that too many of us recognize but not enough of us are willing to talk about: the way Black women direct some of their most destructive energy at each other. From comment sections and group chats to airport confrontations and coordinated social media attacks, it is everywhere. And it has been going on a lot longer than the internet has existed.
Andrinique traces the stories of Lisa Price, who founded Carol’s Daughter in 1993 and was called a sellout when she sold it in 2014. Monique Rodriguez, who built Mielle Organics from her home in 2014 and faced a coordinated takedown after selling to Procter and Gamble in 2023. Richelieu Dennis, who started Shea Moisture on the streets of Harlem in 1991 and sold for 1.6 billion dollars in 2017. Chilli from TLC, who has been targeted for her appearance, her relationship, and her choices for years. And Emma Grede, founding partner of SKIMS and CEO of Good American, whose opinions triggered a pile-on that stopped being about ideas almost immediately.
Then she goes deeper. Into the history of respectability politics. Into internalized misogynoir. Into what happens when a nervous system has been carrying generational trauma for so long it cannot tell the difference between a real threat and a stranger making a decision that has nothing to do with you.
People and Brands Referenced
Emma Grede is a British entrepreneur who co-founded Good American with Khloe Kardashian in 2016 and became a founding partner of SKIMS with Kim Kardashian in 2019. Neither company has been sold; she is still actively running both. In 2026, comments she made about remote work and parenting went viral and generated significant backlash, particularly from Black women.
Lisa Price founded Carol’s Daughter in 1993 in her Brooklyn kitchen as a natural hair care brand. She sold the company to L’Oreal USA in 2014. The sale price was not publicly disclosed. She remained with the brand post-acquisition, and in 2025, L’Oreal sold Carol’s Daughter back to Lisa Price. She is currently the independent owner and operator.
Monique Rodriguez founded Mielle Organics in 2014, building a natural hair care brand from her home after a personal health crisis. She sold Mielle to P&G Beauty, a division of Procter and Gamble, in January 2023. The sale price was not publicly disclosed, though the brand was valued at over one hundred million dollars at the time of sale. Monique Rodriguez remains CEO and her husband Melvin Rodriguez remains COO.
Richelieu Dennis began selling shea butter products on the streets of Harlem in 1991 and built Sundial Brands, the parent company of Shea Moisture, into a major natural beauty company. In 2017, he sold Sundial Brands to Unilever for a reported 1.6 billion dollars. As part of the deal, he established the New Voices Fund to invest in Black women entrepreneurs. He has since stepped back from day-to-day operations of Shea Moisture.
Rozonda Thomas, known as Chilli, is a founding member of TLC, one of the best-selling musical groups in history. She is not a business founder but has been a consistent target of public attacks from Black women, specifically regarding her interracial relationship with actor Matthew Lawrence, her appearance, and most recently her political activity in 2026. She publicly addressed the controversy and clarified her position.
Key Topics Covered
Respectability politics and its origins in the late 1800s and early 1900s as a Black community survival strategy under Jim Crow, and how it became an internalized standard used to police other Black women. The concept of internalized misogynoir, defined by scholar Moya Bailey as the intersection of anti-Black racism and misogyny directed specifically at Black women, and how it manifests when Black women enforce harmful standards on each other. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, as developed by Dr. Joy DeGruy, and its connection to the crabs-in-a-barrel dynamic within Black communities. JAMA Psychiatry research showing that racial discrimination literally alters the neural response to threat in Black women, creating chronic nervous system dysregulation that causes non-threats to register as threats. The way this pattern is being observed and absorbed by young girls who are forming their understanding of how Black women treat each other.
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Ebook: Running On Empty: https://andrinique.gumroad.com/l/czyonq
WHAT READERS ARE SAYING
"I have read probably a dozen self-help books in the past three years. None of them explained the why the way this one does. I understood my patterns after Module 1 in a way I never had before. The worksheets alone are worth the price."
Keisha M., 34 | Project Manager, Atlanta GA
"This book named things I did not even have words for. The module on rest hit differently. I cried reading it. Then I made a plan. That is what this book does."
Danielle S., 41 | Small business owner, Chicago IL
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black women, misogynoir, respectability politics, black female entrepreneurs, nervous system dysregulation, black wome...
