Just think of it this way, itis easier or more convenient to drive one mile to go buy junk food. But it is better for you to drive 15 miles to the Black all natural health food store for your cereal, rice, fruits and vegetables. So just because it is easier to go down the street to buy from the Asian hair care store than to drive 20 minutes to buy from the little Black hair care store... which one is the right thing to do for OUR community, even if it costs a few dollars more on gas and product? There are over one million Black owned businesses in this country, but unfortunately we spend 95% of our income outside of our community.
Have youever asked yourself why there are so many commercials with Black actors that are targeted to the Black consumer. You might have thought, Wow! This company must really care about Black people to
have this type of commercial. Or you see major bank like Wells Fargo sponsoring a huge music event with top Black entertainers. Or a panel like Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Union. Well think again. McDonald's became so convenient for us, we started eating breakfast, lunch and dinner and now have the highest obesity rates ever! Wells Fargo was one of the worse companies in this country who put Black people into horrible loans. It was if they designed these loans for the Black home owner to fail after 3-5 yrs. Some were put into
interest only loans, some were put into adjustable rate loans that after the “teaser” period was over, the interest rate could adjust up every six months until it reached 15%! So I believe one of the purposes of sponsoring the events is to get more Black consumers to patronize their products/services, and for no other reason. So why
do we put so much faith into companies like these that continue to rip us off, than in our own Black owned businesses?
I worked over 20 years in broadcasttelevision working with consumer market research. Main stream advertisers continue to spend millions of dollars to find out where Black people spend and how often they spend. There are thousands of data bases with information on what TV shows we watch, what radio shows we listen to and what newspapers and magazines we read. So that these corporations can customize their advertisements to entice us to buy their products. Knowing that as a race we currently spend about $900 billion dollars as consumers... who wouldn't want a piece of that kind of money. Isn't it sad that our highly spiritual people would rather go for convenience rather than the principle of doing the right thing. This is THE same thing that Marcus Garvey, Dr. King and Malcolm X spoke about. We MUST buy from our own people because it not only is the right thing to do, it is the only way for us to rebuild our communities, with thriving Black businesses and give our children more role models that are business minded in nature.
Lookat how many businesses Marcus Garvey built between 1916-1920. Do you realize what he really created? He created communities with Black people organized with their own self-sufficient economic resources. Grocery stores, laundries, hotels, clothing shops, every kind of biz for Black people. I believe desegregation lead to the downfall of Black businesses for decades!
Fast forward from 1920 to theyear 2008, millions of us pulled together as a people and registered to vote in numbers that were staggered the imagination, so that we could vote for a Black as President. So why can't we come together on creating our own economy by recycling our dollars back into our own communities by buying from more Black owned businesses just like the Jewish and Asian communities do? How long are we going to let other ethnic groups set up shop in our communities and take that money back to their neighborhoods to spend with their own people? We are probably the only ethnic group in this country that DOES NOT support
each other on a wide scale economic basis. (Excluding the brothers and sisters in the Nation of Islam.)
So how long are YOUgoing to keep doing what is convenient... instead of doing the right thing for you and your community? Especially when we have brothers and sisters who make high-quality products that are made specifically for OUR skin, OUR hair, OUR body types, etc. I really want to know what you think.
Darlene Robinson
Independent Marketer
TAG Team Marketing, International, Inc.
www.BlackBusinessNetwork.com/TeamDollar
black, business, support, community, unity, culture, black-owned
