Leaderboard

I guess when I say I see small success stories, I'm not looking at the larger scope of business. I'm looking at the small Gluten Free Pastry company owner here in Memphis who was able to leave his job and has launched a granola brand as well. I'm looking at the locally owned DeJaVu restaurant that has two locations and is hands down one of the best restaurants in the South. When i say I see small pockets I mean just that. We have a chocalatier here named Phillip Ashley that recently provided chocolates for the Oscars and has been featured in Forbes. These are not just "illusions" as you say. There are small businesses doing well and maintaining very comfortable lifestyles against some major players. I had a lawn guy who moved from having one truck to having a fleet in 10 years. My garbage company is black owned and they are doing a better job than the bigger company i was with. Are there enough small biz people? No, but do not discount the small pockets because although the literary website that is fighting to maintain in a culture that doesn't understand how the internet works, that website is fighting and to me that's a success. It can be better, but it's here. it's not enough, but I'm not careful about saying there are successes because I believe strongly in the energy placed out here. When my energy is good I see a lot of good. When my energy is negative and doubtful I see very little success and accomplishment in the same things. I prefer to say I see success in small pockets and I don't think about the idea that it's a drop in the bucket. I think about the idea that people are fighting and working hard at learning. It definitely is a frustrating battle though so I get what you're saying. I also think you are speaking towards the larger idea of success. Black kids pursuing sports careers, musicians looking for the big ticket, these are grand ideas and you are right. But where you see a waste, I see a kid who pursues football as earning a scholarship. Specifically at smaller schools, not just the big stage D-1 schools. I sent 100 guys to college on basketball scholarships. I can say without any hesitation that probably 80 percent of them have degrees of some type and are leading solid lives because of it. We place too great an emphasis on the NFL chasers as opposed to the kids who are attending the smaller schools and graduating. Also the graduation rates are going up across the board even at larger high profile schools as more players begin to realize that pro ball is not a great option: http://www.chronicle.com/article/Graduation-Rates-of-Football/135400/ I do agree that we are in a battle for our minds. The most frustrating part is knowing you have solutions but because Black folks can't listen to those without celebrity a lot of answers just disappear.

OK, Facebook got me today. Every time I log in to Facebook to reply to responses to my posts, I see photos posted from several years ago; from a time when I actively shared personal shots on the platform, appear at the top of my wall. The two images below were there this morning: Both shots were taken in a brownstone (a large townhouse, attached on both sides) I owned in Harlem for about 10 years. During that time I hosted a number of events. I held film screenings in my backyard, a reading series called the Brownstone Series, and for over a year I hosted a photography exhibit. The image on the left is me giving a tour of the photo exhibit of Black writers. The image on the right was taken about 7 years ago, but it could have been taken 15 years ago or today. My morning routine is largely unchanged; a cup of coffee, the newspaper, and me parked behind the screen of a computer. I've sacrificed the brownstone, a well-paying corporate gig, to be able to run AALBC.com full time, so I don't host events now. Money from a good paying job, hosting events, and a big home are nice too but these would be sufficient to motivate me to dedicate the time and energy needed to run an AALBC.com. For the past year, I've probably put in 60 hours a week or more to upgrading the website. I would never have done this for a corporation. While I've had some interesting corporate gigs over the years, I've never cared enough about any of them to put in the amount of energy I put into AALBC.com. I know part of my motivation is freedom. Since I've been running AALBC.com I have pretty much-done anything I wanted to do. In recent years this has meant some financial pressures. But what is the alternative? To get another 9 to 5? One could make a good argument that would be a great idea and that I'm spoiled. No one has ever said that to me; it is an internal battle. The culture judges folks not by what they do, but how much money they have. Over the course of running AALBC.com, I've met many brilliant people who were close to being impoverished. I know brilliance is not a function of the amount of money one has amassed, but being part of the corporate world for over two decades, this is a mentality that I've fought hard get rid of over the years. I also know how much one makes is definitely not a function of the relative value they provide. Indeed many, particularly in financial services, cause great damage while reaping tremendous personal wealth. Still, people are judged on wealth regardless of how it was acquired. More importantly, money is also a source of power, without it, you can't accomplish much. Money has to be a function of what I do, but again it is not the driver. I also know I'm motivated by doing something that is positive for Black folks. I know some Black folks like to say, "Black people are not a monolith." To me, that person is trying to communicate that they are not part of larger Black community, that they are somehow different, better perhaps. Meanwhile Black owned business disappear and the opportunities for poor Black to escape their situation go the same route. Black folks have to be a monolith if we are ever going to do something for not just ourselves, but the most impoverished amongst us. Hmmm... all I intended to do was post a couple of photos and keep it moving, but looking at them conjures up these thoughts and more. If you've read this far thanks for indulging me.

Congrats!!!!! This was a great post and I'm sure Cynique is coming for you about that monolith comment, lol! You are appreciated!

A very beautiful cover.

We also overestimate who ''our" people are. As previously noted, class is beginning to usurp race, and money is the bottom line. Middle class blacks who "make it" on their own and are better off than poor whites, are satisfied to sit tight, just glad to be surviving. They have no incentive to sacrifice their personal gains by taking on the monumental task of dismantling the racist system they have managed to circumvent. As we have all agreed, blacks are not monolithic, although they actually are all in agreement about the white power structure being their "opponent". How they cope with this depends on how much they identity with their race and how obligated they feel to align themselves with a black coalition intent on toppling a formidable system where they, themselves, have managed to become a "have" instead of a "have-not". Black unity is a dream hoped for, but it shows signs of drying up like "a raisin in the sun".

Chris I would be very careful in confusing what we practice here in the United States with capitalism. What we have is an oligarchy; in which a handful of people control everything. This is not capitalism, nor is it democratic. Our friends at Google can put me out of business tomorrow. But worse there is NOTHING that any other Black person, or group of Black people, who would do to stop it. Of course this does not have to be the case, but we lack the desire to control our own destinies. So for now, I serve at the largess of Google. Also, and please consider this carefully, when you write, "... in small pockets their [sic] are extraordinary success stories and they are becoming more common." This is a myth. Yes there are some successes, but they exist to create the illusion that success is possible, which is necessary to keep the ponzi scheme going. It is worse than the myth of professional sports, where Black kids in schools across the nation believe they have a chance to become a professional football player. Sure there is a chance, but it extremely slim and even if they make it they'll last on average 2.5 years. The result is that so much talent that could have been used in other ways is wasted in pursuit of something that is unlikely. The kid who wasted their time pursuing football would have been better off doing something with their brain... The same goes for musicians it is fall less likely for a musician to make a good living today than it was in 1990. Again, there are successes we can all point to but the reality is that there are a great many very talented musician who will stuck struggling with the dream of making it. The same goes for webmasters of Black book websites. This is no different the lottery, sure someone will win, but the VAST majority of us will loose. It makes no financial sense for anyone to play the lottery given the odds. But again the marketing and promotion of it dupes us into believing that it makes perfect sense to play. Indeed I'm sure someone reading this is thinking what harm does the lottery cause--and that is my point. The amount of wealth the lottery extracts from poor communities is staggering! Nothing is returned to the community as a result--except for a pipe dream. We aren't even the ones who profit from the sales of lottery tickets in most cases! You know you are in a poor community when you go into a grocery store, run by someone not black, and the most prominent thing you see is a lottery machine and cigarettes. We are in a battle for the very minds of our people. Our biggest problem is we don't even recognize who our opponent is...