Recently I was reading an article about what two of the top Black businessmen were saying about the election. I didn’t even finish the article because of the lack of real meaningful context.
Why are Black businesses always labeled the the prefix of Black? Is it some type of badge of pride or is it a tag to the system which marginalizes most Black owned or Black led businesses. I don’t see Forbes, Bloomberg and other major media prefix white businesses as being white.
My businesses always had more patronage with the deliberate effort to not be labeled as a Black business. Black people traditionally do not support Black businesses in the same quantity and quality of purchases as they do white businesses. McDonalds can continue to sell cold fries and grossly over-priced menu items and the average ticket remains between $20 and $30 for truly unhealthy food.
I took my grandsons for a Saturday afternoon lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and the place was very busy. From my observation the restaurant had more than half Black patrons with a couple of people I had not seen in years. My total ticket came to $125.00 tip included and I only had three on my ticket. There were people with five and more. With that kind of patronage, why aren’t there any Black owned eateries comparable to Cheesecake Factory in size and layout?
Being labeled a Black business in not good for business unless your business is in a very small business category such as Black rappers and that segment is now dominated by white rappers when it comes to the top venues and revenue generated.
I know people that keep their skin color anonymous when it comes to business and they attest they will never mention Black owned because of the systemic devaluation that accompanies that designation.
By and large African-Americans are more or less 13M-20M individuals. Neighborhoods are simply just that, and as one prominent Black Rhodes Scholar said that Blacks have left the neighborhoods and just left a “Hood”. Until Blacks have a true sense of community as other communities and support each other from within, the Black business label is a label of devaluation and a signal not to allow Black business operators to be on par equity/value in American society.