Today, I am reviewing a really interesting podcast episode that I recently listened to. It’s from Jay Jones’ Black Entrepreneur Blueprint podcast, a fantastic podcast that you should listen to on a regular basis if you are a person of color and are interested in organizing your finances and creating independent wealth for yourself. The episode in question is episode 263 entitled: “Here’s What They Think About You – Why Other Ethnicities Think We Are A Joke In Business And In General”.
He starts of the broadcast with a replay of a recording by Fareed Omar II in which Mr. Omar recounts the story of a Chinese businessman that commented to him that black people are the “stupidest people on the planet” because they are the only group of people that let other ethnicities come into their communities and neighborhoods and take over business. The Chinese businessman went on to add that Asians buy from Asians, Indians buy from Indians, Europeans buy from Europeans, but blacks don’t buy from blacks.
Mr. Jones then quoted the Nielson statistic that in Asian communities in America, the Asian dollar circulates within their neighborhood for 30 days, the Jewish dollar circulates in their community for 20 days, the white dollar for 17 days, but the black dollar only circulates in the black community for 6 HOURS! One of the things that he said that I thought was extremely insightful is that there are Chinatowns and Koreantowns, but there are no Blacktowns or African-Americantowns. There are, of course, black neighborhoods, but the businesses that proliferate in those black neighborhoods are, 95% of the time, owned by non-blacks. That’s a problem!
There are some things in the episode that I don’t agree with (for example, Brother Jay believes that black people can’t be racist, because they have no economic or political power. I guess that’s correct if that’s your definition of racism. But it’s not mine. I’ve definitely known black racists. But I digress…). So while I could take issue with some of his comments for the most part, I’m behind him 100%.
The reason that we as black people are still having the economic and political struggles that we’re having is that we are not united as a people for our own common good – the old ‘crabs in the barrel’ mentality. Mr. Jones goes on to give five ways that we can correct this:
- Support Black Business
- Start Our Own Businesses
- Create Buying Co-Ops
- Develop Wholesale Businesses
- Buy The Block – and the Neighborhood
I won’t go any deeper into the details of what he preached, because I encourage you to listen to the episode yourself so that you can hear it in his own words, but Mr. Jones is a fountain of wisdom. I’ve listened to him for many years now, and he is clearly a brother that loves his people and is thoroughly invested in helping them “come up”. We need more of this type of sharing of knowledge and support. So please go to the Black Entrepreneurs Blueprint podcast, listen and tell your friends. You can find it on iTunes, Spotify and probably a few other places, where I encourage you to subscribe. You can also find his website at BlackEntrepreneurBlueprint.com. Finally, you can click on the link below to be taken to episode 263 on iTunes.
Until next time, take care and stay safe.
