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Is Blacks supporting Black businesses the antithesis of racial unity? by Devin Robinson
September 15th, 2010 | Posted in Featured Writers, News | 1 Comment » The fact is, in America success is measured by wealth, power and freedom.
We see musicians get awards for selling the most albums. We see athletes
get rewards for scoring the most points or get the attention for having
the highest compensation. It is understood that in America, for most,
respect is quantitative and not qualitative. Respect is given to have the
most of the three aspects mentioned above. Understanding this, if Blacks
decide to move forward in racial harmony the way America currently is, we
can expect discrimination and disrespect towards Blacks to continue for a
much longer time than if Blacks were to systematically and collectively
return its financial resources to the Black community. Economist, Social
Philosopher and Author of Wealth of a Nation, Adam Smith (1723-1790),
supports this concept by saying, “…”self-interest” might promote a more
just society… prefer the support of domestic rather than foreign…” In this
case, domestic being the Black community and foreign being communities
outside of the Black community. Adam Smith went on to be known as one of
the founders of Capitalism.
Let me explain. In psychology there is this explanation called,
“Predilection.” This means that people tend to gravitate to situations of
comfort. If you fill a room of diverse people in it, folks of the same
age, interests (music, family, hobbies), race, marital status, etc will
make their way to the same areas of the room to socialize. Businesses are,
understandably, an extension of our personalities. Managers not only
consider the skills of a person before they hire them, they also,
subliminally, incorporate predilection traits and will hire candidates
they feel they have things in common with. This concept is no different
than residents moving into neighborhoods they feel comfortable living in.
They use these same considerations of interest. Blacks still struggle with
unifying, while other groups struggle less with it.
How does this affect the Black community? If Blacks continue to dismiss
the idea of building a self-sustainable infrastructure throughout the
Black communities in America, we continue to send the message that says,
“The Black group is unable to successfully rebound from slavery.” It says
that Blacks rely on the groups of others to survive. It says we remain
vulnerable to being the last ones hired but the first ones fired. Some of
us in the Black community are going wrong by focusing on being accepted,
rather than being respected. Native Americans, Asians, and Jews have all
experienced atrocities that set their communities back. However, even if
they are not coveted by America, these groups remain respected. Their
respect comes simply because of the focus they placed on becoming a nation
within a nation through erecting and supporting infrastructures that
allows them to circulate a large percentage of their spending within their
communities. It affords them the opportunity to decide if they want to be
employed by or retain the services of other groups.
So here’s exactly what this means. It means that Blacks must aggressively
build a competitive and sustainable infrastructure for the occupants of
our community. It gives our citizens options and provides us the respect
of a resilient group. I don’t claim this concept to be the panacea for all
of the problems the Black community encounters daily. However, it is a
concept that would tackle many of them. It takes concentration, this is
one reason we tend to avoid it. It takes sacrifice, that’s why we tend to
discourage it. It takes being ostracized, this is why we tend to be
uncomfortable with it. Blacks and other races would say, we need to move
on from the past and live in interracial tranquility. Living in
interracial tranquility is a stance I fully subscribe to, however you
can’t simply paint a house after it was burnt. Repair is in order before
we can expect to equivalently move forward. Quite frankly, the repair
comes by way of modifying intrinsic behaviors and racial tolerance. But
truthfully, we have to ask ourselves the critical question, “Is other
groups asking us to move on a message of peace is it that they will miss
the piece of our $1.2 trillion annual spending?”
Devin Robinson is a business and economics professor in Atlanta, GA and
author of Rebuilding the Black Infrastructure: Making America a Colorless
Nation. He can be reached at devin@devinrobinson.com.
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Wednesday, September 22nd 2010 at 9:49PM
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