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Black business ownership really has nothing to do with the bold. Black people are the poorest in wealth/assets because of real estate.
Buy real estate in areas that are more prone to hold values or increase in values and this is solved. We've had threads about this before. This topic has nothing to do with black business creation.
I'll further add that I also don't think it is "racist" for black people to support black owned businesses, but again, I do think it is outdated to think that we have to have these brick and mortar businesses in order to build wealth or be financially successful or that we have to advertise ourselves as black owned so more black people will come and open accounts with us.
Also, none of the black internet gurus who tell us to support black business because they "support the community" ever say how these businesses support "the community." specific benefits.
Right before the recession there was a giant push by AAs to try and increase wealth by taking advantage of housing and other real estate markets booming. When the recession and the housing bust happened it hit Blacks hard, Very hard. This was because foreclosures , bank failures, house sales slump, price plummet,etc. affected the most people who were just getting into the housing market and Blacks were far more likely to fit into that category than Whites.
The "gurus" do point out mostly that it helps the community to spend at B.O.Bs mostly because it keeps dollars from AAs circulating among each other and benefitting one another for far longer if this is done by all. This has helped many other American ethnic groups but then you also have the problem that if Blacks ever hope to achieve the business success experienced by Whites more of us must start businesses that target not only our own but the broader population.
Many Black people start businesses that cater to mostly Black clientele like beauty salons and such. But the biggest Black business success stories are among those that "cross over" into doing business with the general population which means lots of White customers.
Word up! This is what needs to happen. I think every major city needs to have a community like the old Greenwood neighborhood. Hopefully this will prevent the Black dollar from going into other communities quicker than it entered...need it to turnover more than a few times before it reaches another group's pockets. (Of course, more Black businesses are needed for that to happen).
There is really only one place blacks need to prevent their dollars from going, but the religious group that has a strong hold on blacks is rarely if ever discussed. The same people that capitalize off of the pain of black issues are the same people that try to place the blame on poor whites like the KKK and poor white police officers. They put these pawns in front of us but no one sees who the King and Queen is. Blacks have been fighting the pawns since 1959.
Right before the recession there was a giant push by AAs to try and increase wealth by taking advantage of housing and other real estate markets booming. When the recession and the housing bust happened it hit Blacks hard, Very hard. This was because foreclosures , bank failures, house sales slump, price plummet,etc. affected the most people who were just getting into the housing market and Blacks were far more likely to fit into that category than Whites.
The "gurus" do point out mostly that it helps the community to spend at B.O.Bs mostly because it keeps dollars from AAs circulating among each other and benefitting one another for far longer if this is done by all. This has helped many other American ethnic groups but then you also have the problem that if Blacks ever hope to achieve the business success experienced by Whites more of us must start businesses that target not only our own but the broader population.
Many Black people start businesses that cater to mostly Black clientele like beauty salons and such. But the biggest Black business success stories are among those that "cross over" into doing business with the general population which means lots of White customers.
The bold is the point that I'm trying to get across. All businesses must "cross over" to a wider audience and not specifically rely on intra-racial customers.
On housing, all homeowners were hit hard by the recession; however, what I stated is correct in that net worth is "wealth." American's wealth is inextricably tied to real estate. White Americans having over $100k worth of "wealth" is directly tied to them having higher rates of homeownership along with having homes valued higher than those of black and hispanic homeowners. In the other threads I mentioned, we did discuss the fact that housing discrimination is a factor in blacks having the least amount of "wealth." Wealth and net worth really aren't tied to income and business ownership (unless the business owner owns commercial real estate). It is how much one's assets are worth after deducting their liabilities.
On the internet guru's, again, on the red, I don't understand this line of thinking and IMO too many are just taking this as some sort of truth with no actual facts to back it up. How will circulating dollars with black businesses help black people as a whole? Again, it will benefit the business owner's family (which is not a bad thing), but not the community on the whole as we don't know what these business owners are doing with their money or in their family. They are more than likely just paying their household bills and commercial bills with their profits and paying themselves an income. This whole "circulation of money" thing has not worked well for other communities like the gurus say. If it did, there would be more ethnic enclaves of businesses. There isn't today because that is 20th century, segregation business sense. If black businesses are going to be successful they need to do what you said the "biggest black business success stories" do and IMO that is what most black entrepreneurs focus on today and rightfully so. Spending money at black businesses will not increase the net worth of black families. Only decreasing debt and increasing valuable assets will increase black family's net worth. Business creation can increase one's income as does increasing education achievement but on a "community" level someone's personal business doesn't have all that great of an effect. We can even look back in time to the former segregate urban centers that these internet gurus mythologize. During that era black people were poorer than they are today and they were less educated than they are today even though they spent a large amount of their income with black businesses in the neighborhood. The same can be said of all other ethnic groups including Asians, Hispanics, and ethnic Europeans.
I only brought this up because other minority groups do this that's how they are becoming more wealthier in this country. If blacks made more investments in our own community we could def shrink help shrink those proverty rates.
That was your motivation for this thread?? I find that very odd considering the racial climate going on right now. Very interesting.
Follow the money flow, these people are opening businesses in black neighborhoods extracting money from mostly poor black people and keeping the money in their circle. Money goes out of black folks hands into non black people's hands and 99.9% of the time a black person won't see that money again. This equals black businesses sturggling and perpetual black poverty.The only way to break this cycle is to play the same game they are playing.
Larry man....I feel you man. I tell my wife this all the time. "FOLLOW THE MONEY FLOW" almost word for word man. The money all trickles up in the same directions. You can name any famous person if you do your research they all work for some wealthy unheard of person that is way more wealthy than them. Everyone knows who Don Lemon is no one knows who Jeff Bewkes is. Everyone knows who Kim Kardashian is no one knows who Brian Roberts is. The wealthy have this way of keeping the poor distracted.
It will probably catch on.As an Englishman i found the nasty stare outs and rude comments by Atlantan blacks to be very uncomfortable.To be honest i was delighted when the month i was there came to an end,i just didnt feel safe,yet i have been in Central America and felt fine.
The very nice black girl on the hotel receptionist desk told me when i asked her "it is because so many blacks came from the likes of Mississippi and Alabama after WW2 believing there would never be equal rights there and brought with them a lasting hatred and bitterness that has passed down the generations"
Ive actually been in rural Mississippi and Alabama and blacks were much friendlier.perhaps the ones in Atlanta are just bitter and twisted.Ive never been anywhere with so many nasty ones in my 50 years.
Perhaps the attitude of a certain poster on this thread shows why Atlanta has such a racial problem.
I wont argue this point or your experience with blacks in Atlanta. I see some truth in what you are saying. Sorry you had a bad experience in Atlanta.
There's a thread running on the Africa forum about the Black Economic Movement in the US, featuring a video talk by former NFLer Jim Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMVjlY9l6o0
Please note, I do not take propaganda videos with no sources as a viable source for anything.
This video shows the same stuff that is repeatedly said by mostly black focused sites that seek to romanticize segregation and the overt racism black people were forced to endure for a hundred years post Civil War (FWIW ATLBlackStar is not a factual news site its posts lots of untruths and propaganda pieces such as this video).
1 - it again romanticized segregation and overt racism saying that black people were "better off" being forced to live in all black areas and not being able to use all the businesses of which we could afford (basically this IMO seems to incline it wants a repeal of Fair Housing laws and the Civil Rights Act).
2 - the "black family structure" has not "collasped." I'm black and even though my parents were married when I was born, I still know both of them and was raised with both of them and as far as I know, we are still a family. Also, the 8% out of wedlock birthrate for blacks cited in the video in the 1960 is incorrect. Accurate statistics on this were not kept until the mid 1960s however in 1967 almost 35% of black children were born out of wedlock (Source: CDC). The out of wedlock birthrate has risen for all demographics.
3 - The unemployment rate has risen for all demographics. The video cited that 0% of white men were unemployed in the 1950s, yet 4% of black men were. That means that black men were unemployed 4 times more than white men! Today black men are still usually unemployed at a rate about 2-4 times that of white men.
4 - the video spoke on policies of a "colorblind society" and how policies weren't put into place to specifically address racism against black people only. This is actually true but the video kind of skewed this IMO
5 - the portion about "black dependency" is based upon silliness IMO. It stated today only 2% of black people work for other black people, however it doesn't say where it got that number or what percentage of black people worked for other black people prior to 1965, which was probably less than 2% considering most black people back then worked in factories, in agriculture as laborers, or as domestics.
Only posted this to state you should not believe stuff you find on Facebook to the be truth, be they memes or random videos by faux news sources. On the Jim Brown thing, last I heard he was an athlete and a movie star and not a financial or economic expert. Also, based on the comments in the thread that was posted under it, he repeated the same stuff that is repeated ad naseaum by many black people on the internet, including the video that Staysean posted. All of these videos are not based in historical accuracy for the most part nor do they provide any sort of 21st century economic initiatives. They also still do not describe how me buying a product from a black business is helping any other black people except for the business owner and maybe his/her employees.
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