I had occasion to think about this topic again here recently. There were two things that triggered it. First, my good friend and fellow blogger Black Diaspora had a post up recently on the Black Hair Care Industry which can be read here. Shortly thereafter, I was speaking with someone who wound up closing up shop and their view was that they lacked the support of the African-American community. The latter is a frequent complaint that I have a perspective on and I’ll be addressing that in part 2 of this series of posts. I’ll preview this second post by saying unequivocally that my success in business has come from substantial backing from the African-American community, so my experience has been different and I really need to talk about my experiences with that.
This black hair care issue is a topic in and of itself, so I thought I’d devote this post to it. Although Madam CJ Walker and others created this industry, it has been taken over by Koreans, so we find ourselves in the incredibly ridiculous position of not being in control of products that black women use exclusively for their hair. Not only is this the situation here in the US, but in many places abroad as well.
So, the situation with the black hair care industry is a condition that exists internationally. I’m sure that if one were to go to areas in Africa and the Caribbean, we’d find a similar situation.
As a male, I don’t buy hair care products, so I really hadn’t thought much about this until BD’s post on this and viewing the videos produced by Aron Ranen. My first reaction is anger and it’s not directed at the Koreans, although it does seem that they’re doing some things to lock out African-American hair products entrepreneurs. I’m angry because once again, I hear someone laughing as they count the money they made from us wanting to “look good”. This “looking good” thing doesn’t stop with hair, but extends to clothes, cars, jewelry and whatever else that loses value as soon as one walks out the door with it. At the end of the day, many of us only have memories of looking good in whatever we’re wearing or driving while those who accommodated those needs extract wealth directly out of the African-American community. The Koreans are merely the latest installment of the various groups who’ve done this.
I really don’t need to say that with all our talk and bluster about this or that, this sort of thing makes us look like fools and there really shouldn’t be any doubt that we’re being laughed at.
This issue is a reflection of several things. The first thing is that rampant hedonism is the prevailing state of affairs among many within the African-American community. Totally unbeknownst to most, the African-American consumer market is heavily studied and behavior is shaped toward mass consumerism. If there’s any statistical blip in income or wealth, there’s someone who’s sitting around trying to figure out how to tap it. Trends and movements within the community are watched very closely with a near CIA type intelligence gathering operation as there are major dollars quietly riding on what direction things may take. Given that, there’s an interest that things stay in certain direction or that conditions remain a certain way. What I mean by this is that any degree of enlightened thinking is a direct threat to a host of economic interests that thrive off the existing conditions. For example, let’s say a movement took hold where Black Women decided to opt for natural hair styles. Such a movement would likely have its impetus from a political or social movement within and that mere movement would displace economic interests wedded to the existing state of affairs almost overnight. The African-American community is being watched very closely in this regard (as are most others).
Of course, a social change movement, that’s other than a fashion statement, will likely come from a leader or a group of leaders. Here’s where we have to ask what exactly is the state of black leadership. I’ve one litmus test for leadership which can be laid out with one question—is the leadership or group funded primarily from the African-American community? This is a critical question to ask, as if you don’t own the leadership, then you’re not in control of them. If you’re not in control of your leadership, then they don’t represent you, rather they’re someone’s representatives to you. This is so because whoever writes the check has the power to exert accountability. If you go through every major civil rights organization right on down to the various activist types, you’ll find not one where the majority of their income is tied to the community they purportedly represent. If you weren’t aware of that previously, you might find that shocking, but it’s true. Black people aren’t the majority financial backers of those who are supposed to be representing us and if their real backers were to stop funding them, these organizations and activists would disappear overnight. This is directly related to the black hair care situation and a host of other maladies in the African-American community.
Another word for all this outside funding would be advertising. Still another word might be lobbying. You might want to even consider it to be hush money, because not one of these so-called leaders has ever spoken about, let alone developed a structure to address, the hedonistic thinking. They’ve largely not spoken to the need for economic development in terms of what we ourselves can do. They’re too busy trying to stamp out the last vestige of racism while everyone and his mother is making incursions in our backyard and making out like a fat rat in a cheese factory.
It must be understood that we’re being very subtly positioned to continue a pursuit of social justice exclusively. This is what is being funded and it’s being funded by those who really have no interest in social justice. Their interests revolve around economics and as long as 100% of our efforts are directly towards the latest march, commemorations, victimhood and etc., they know that there’s no one attending to the political and economic development of the community. That provides a clear path for uninterrupted wealth extraction. Like I said, the Koreans are only the latest installment of various groups who’ve exploited the situation. Let me be clear here. Social justice isn’t the only problem and yet 100% of our efforts are spent in that direction. At bottom, this is a leadership problem, so that means that fixing the problem means fixing the leadership problems first and before the other issues can be addressed.
On the one hand, our problem is the lack of financially independent leadership. On the other hand, the leadership ranks are depleted because our best and brightest are not available to our community as they’re generally employed elsewhere. In a way, another form of wealth is being extracted in terms of people. That leaves us at a competitive disadvantage as the Koreans and others have their best with them as they figure out how to target and control an industry.
We have to understand the issue more broadly and see it as more than just the Koreans taking over. It’s our positioning and a dearth of leadership that has set this up and as long as this continues, we’ll experience successive iterations of various groups doing the same thing while our community gets poorer and poorer. Yes, I’m angry, but it’s not at the Koreans, but at the pretenders sitting on the throne of leadership. If there’s any place where there needs to be a palace coup, it’s in the African-American communities across the nation.
PROLIFICK WRITINGS by TREMAYNE TATEM
Black History Month: Where Do We Go From Here?
“I don’t want Black History month. Black History is American History.”
-Morgan Freeman
Who Dropped The Ball?
Black History Month was initiated by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, which started out a just a week. He set out to create an opportunity to further recognize the contributions African-Americans made to society, but also to underline the harms of racial prejudice and black self-esteem following centuries socio-economic oppression.
Something would stir up pride and dignity for the African American race and improve race relations on a whole; and that was great in the late 20s, especially as it evolved from being recognized as a national celebration in 1976 from what it has become today. Each generation thereafter has added more and more meaning and depth to the celebrated month, but what happened?
Did a generation drop the ball; have we become satisfied with just one month of celebration?
Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the opportunity to recognize and celebrate those on whose shoulders we stand, but I think this generation needs to raise our voices through blogs, social media, etc. to push more Afro-centric points of view into the public school system. Our educational system is the first point of reference besides our homes that children have to learn about themselves.
Generations before us have got us to this point; to have a month that celebrates African American heritage. However, is it the responsibility of this generation to continue to push to integrate our heritage in to the public school classrooms where we are celebrated on a weekly basis? This would be no easy task and could take decades to accomplish, but our fore parents sacrificed and did it for us.
The Power Of Positive Images...
Let's face it, even our white counter parts, under some simple assessment would admit to this hyper-euro centric view that is showcased in the history textbooks, where African Americans maybe get one chapter that is normally taught in February. This is not a Marcus Garvey, let's go back and move to Africa message, I just think we are doing the total student population with all of its diversity a disservice by not making the African and African American view to the table. For instance, did the Greeks really invent geometry, algebra, calculus, etc? The history books will tell us the Greeks played a major role in evolving these mathematical expressions, but they learned all that from the Egyptians, who were kings and queens and architects of culture and civilations.
All I am saying is tell us the whole story.
When the children do not have positive images portrayed continually they will only perform at the level of what has been shown to them. So if the highest level of income earners that they see are the drug dealers on the corner that is the level at which they will perform. If the highest level of education in their home is barely a high school education at what level do you expect this future generation of African American boys and girls to perform at.
The "Golden Years"
Since Martin was silenced and passed on into the next life, its seems as if we have slowly lost our voice of reason for justice. Becoming confused in the 70s, "arriving" in 80s and producing group children in 90s that have lost the sense of what it means to struggle. I am also included in this that have enjoyed the fruit of the labor of our fore parents labor. The 90s were definitely the '"golden years" for African Americans, Bill Clinton was in office and everything seemed to be great and if you ask most black people they will tell you that Bill Clinton was the real first black president. When he went on Arsenio Hall playing the saxophone, that sealed the deal.
However have things changed much for African Americans since the 90s?
Have We Made Progress?
Although not many things have changed in our neighborhoods, I must say that we have made some progress on the entertainment and sports front. There are even more opportunities in other areas of influence as well such as, law, medicine, and politics. Not only African American babies, but all races of babies that were born in 2008 will be fortunate to only know having an African American family in the White House up until the age of 4, maybe 8 if Barack Obama wins a second term.
Do you think this generation when they get older will question having just having one month to celebrate African American history. They will see this as just American history. I think it is the responsibility of this current generation to sacrifice our lives to give that gift to them, and this was the hope of the original founder Dr. Carter G. Woodson.
No comments:
Post a Comment