A term coined by Elder Herb of the Solution Based Community podcast in 2020. It is used to describe the idea of a person of color needing and/or feeling the need to be validated by white people in order to obtain a high level of success or financial independence.
Tyler Perry used his own money to build his own studio so he no longer needs that walidation for his projects. He can put them out all on his own.
The grindset is a contemporary ideology of self-exploitation disguised as strength, deeply tied to the aesthetics of the “sigma male” and to new digital forms of patriarchy. It promotes the idea that human worth depends on productivity, economic success, absolute emotional control, and the ability to work endlessly, turning vulnerability, rest, community, and tenderness into signs of weakness. Beneath its rhetoric of discipline and power often lies a profound inability to relate healthily to pain, fragility, and human interdependence.
“That’s the grindset, brother. While weak men sleep and complain, sigma males stay disciplined, work in silence, suppress emotions, and build power while everyone else wastes time chasing comfort.”