In my last 42 years in business I have had to be careful not to label any of my business endeavors as Black or incorporate the word Black in naming a business entity. The reason for the resistance is that it automatically put a cap on my market impact. I am Black and I am proud, but that pride just doesn’t pay the bills and live a progressive lifestyle.
I have had for more success distancing myself from the Black theme since I am not providing entertainment. I started to add food along with the entertainment, but even then there are no guarantees Black people will support food categories from other Black people. I had a meal several weeks ago at the Cheesecake factory and my total bill including tax came to $125.00 plus tip. It amazed me how many Black groups I saw there and they had many more people than myself. I don’t know of any Black owned Cheesecake factory outfitted restaurants. If you do please let me know.
Black people are our own worst critics and collectively have the most needs for simple and complex reasons which I will not reiterate as my opinions are already opined throughout this blog (www.innerkwest.com).
In a recent post on Facebook I stated and asked the following:
Not many of my FB friends acknowledge that they keep up with my page, but I look at the admin stats which reveals a lot, but I am curious to know how many of my friends know who and what is BlackRock.?
This post started getting responses almost immediately, but one stood out because her reply was “Okay Mr. Frazier(Frasure), I want to know more”. And my reply to her is as states:
BlackRock manages USD 10.01 trillion in assets as of January 2022 and was founded in 1988. BlackRock is headquartered in New York in the United States and operates globally with 70 offices in 30 countries and clients in 100 countries. Along with Grayscale, Fidelity, Vanguard and governments around the globe, they bad mouth cryptocurrency while they become crypto whales, including the U.S.
Now I know everything isn’t racial, but my experience in America is most things are when it comes down to the creation of “real” wealth attainment and capital generation/retention.
I tried climbing the corporate ladder with BP Amoco in my early twenties and it almost killed me for a little bit of money. I also realize everything is relative, so when someone tells me they make good money on a job for someone else, I understand their perspective from which they are referencing, but a spotty $110K yearly wage for a limited time is fleeting. Plus the average Black person in America makes far less that $110K. Agreed?
Back to the point
Black people’s non-Black contemporaries can mesh the word Black into their businesses and flourish beyond what most can imagine without fear of loosing value or credibility.
I will stop here for the sake of ending this post, but I hope I answered her question.
