, and favorable circumstances or situational conditions are necessary ingredients of success. Since these factors, internal and external respectively, are both the sum the actions and interactions of blacks and whites, according to Nagel's model of cultural identity, it follows suit that the adverse situations which white oppression has placed blacks in must be countermanded by a strong personal ability to succeed on the part of the oppressed blacks. But what kinds of traits form that personal ability, and why don't more blacks have them? While the subject of exactly what makes a person successful is highly elusive and as yet largely undiscovered, most would agree that there are certain elements that greatly enhance, if not outright constitute, the ability to succeed. These elements, whether actually present in black individuals or not, are part of a "toolkit" for success. Each element corresponds to a different tool, and if too many tools are missing, then success becomes at best difficult to achieve.
Similarly, Nagel describes the concept of a cultural "shopping cart," complete with individual items which are the elements of a cultural identity. She explains, " we construct culture by picking and choosing items from the shelves of the past and present" (250). The "tools" for success are some of the items that black would-be entrepreneurs can select as part of their "shopping cart" of cultural identity. However, since whites have already fabricated their own identity for blacks, one that presumably lacks these tools, a mere acceptance by blacks of their cultural identities from whites almost certainly would lead to imminent failure. In the case of a historically oppressed people such as African Americans, this inferior identity has become a weapon of devastating success wielded by greedy whites, unwilling to share the limited, if sweet, spoils of entrepreneurial success.
