Where has all of the Black Businesses Gone?

What subject did Martin Luther King Jr. argue & fight for in his last days???

Economic empowerment/freedom… his last days were spent organizing the march for the black sanitation workers of Memphis, TN. To receive equal rights and equal pay.

Strangely enough this is something we had in a segregated system and lost in our educated integrated system. Now I am not diagramming our re-entrance into segregation. However, I will describe a conscience movement towards economic segregation, building black business loyalty (outside of the barber or beauty salon), spending your $$ with those that look like you. I will also describe the marketing strategy of increasing the belief in quality of goods & services delivered from black businesses. Finally, the movement away from the education systems that engrained the “Black Pride” in us to use facilities by us & for us.

ECONOMIC SEGREGATION

My last post had to do with the fact that when we pool our economic resources we present an insurmountable economic force. Black Wall Street showed that in the early 1900’s we worked together, we spent our money together, we worshiped together, our children were educated together. Our “Family Values” were molded and shaped from the cradle to the grave.

Each & every other community practices economic segregation however we seem to lag in this endeavor. On a normal payday:

· The Asian dollar circulates among Asian businesses 28 days a month before leaving the community

· The Jewish dollar circulates among Jewish businesses infinitely and then only a small percentage ever leaves the community.

· The Black dollar circulates only 15 minutes.

Now how is it that their dollars circulate within their community so many times more than ours? One word… “Pride” Jews believe that “the pursuit of business & wealth is Godly” (Thou Shall Prosper by Rabbi Daniel Lapin) and it benefits the entire community to do business with their own.

Our prevailing mode of thought is pay my bills… pay my credit card, pay my car note. Now I don’t know of a black owned credit card company, do you? That brings me to another quick point, name me a black bank in your city. There are 48 Black banks & Thrifts in the country. That isn’t even one per state. We will store our money & finances with a small credit union but will not patronize a black bank.

BLACK BUSINESS MARKETING

We have a 2 fold issue:

Issue #1 – The automatic default belief that black businesses deliver inferior goods & services.

It needs to be identified that the above noted circulation of dollars falls on deaf ears when discussing the purchase of goods and services, and more specifically who to purchase them from. One of the primary reasons for this lack of circulation is the growth of the mega-mall, mega-retailer, & a brand loyalty that has all but eluded the black business owner. On a smaller scale when we purchase from small businesses we tend to purchase our specialized goods & services from Asians. I tend to hear… “The Korean Lady does better embroidery/tailoring with a faster turnaround”

The largest wholesale clothing market in the United States is Magic held in Las Vegas twice a year. The buyers from most of the major retailers attend this market and miscellaneous markets held in cities around the country. In other words, the same distributors /wholesalers that the big name retailers purchase from is the same market that the black business purchase from. Therefore the belief that inferior goods are provided by black businesses is without merit.

I hold licenses in the financial services industry and was trained by a white gentleman who is very close friend of mine. It always irked me (for lack of a better term) that when I would sit down with potential clients that looked like me, they would question my education, suggestions, training, product offerings, etc. Until the time when my white friend would come in the door. When that would happen, the nature of the transaction completely changed and the deal closed. What changed??? I had more education than my counterpart, my product offering were exactly the same. The difference was skin color and the inherent belief by my own people that I was going to steal their money or get them in a risky investment. Self hate…

Issue #2 – The actual level of customer service delivered by black businesses comes with an attitude. I will agree, if I am spending my money I deserve a certain level of respect, not attitude. I find that we can be treated inferior in a large retailer and continue to spend money with them, but if the same bad service comes from someone that looks like us in a minority owned business boutique, “they should know better.”

Black businesses have to be consistently on a red level of alert forever cognoscente of the customer service that they offer, to their own people. This is because a black business patronized by a black customer only gets one chance, redemption is not an option.

In the words of Dr. Cornel West "You can't lead the people, if you don't love the people. You can't save the people, if you don't serve the people." Many Black businesses are around, exist, thrive & fail, by loving our people, but has our larger community returned the favor or adopted a suburban materialistic stance and fallen into the strategies of the big name store makes it better by default.