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by Malcolm G. Turner

Despite being more educated than our peers, well-spoken, non-threatening, generally good Negroes, Black folks tend to take the brunt of the damage during recessions, all the way from the janitors to the managers. The companies that are forced to comply with these equal opportunity standards are presented with the perfect opportunity to get a little vengeance during recessions when its easier to provide justification for firing large amounts of Black folk.

How can they get away with this you ask?

credit: Dan Thompson

Will your Economic Shop be Empty?

A Wall Street Journal quote from the 1990-91 recession sums it up nicely:

Affirmative action has gotten so diluted that companies can trade one minority against the other.

During that recession, Blacks were laid off at rates disproportionately higher than their white, Asian, and Hispanic counterparts. By allowing ourselves to be grouped in with all minorities, we have essentially forfeited our unique status as unwilling immigrants and senior claim to the debt owed to us from our free labor, military service, American apartheid, and taxation without representation.

Let’s put it this way. Black people for the past couple decades have been individually selfish and collectively generous.

It’s time to switch that around and start thinking as a nation within a nation. We fight for our collective rights and claims on the government and immediately share them with all so-called minorities (even white women). While quite noble, this is economic suicide. I’m not saying there are deliberate, high-level conspiracies to fire more African-Americans during a recession, but there are micro-level decisions influenced consciously or sub-consciously by racism specifically against Blacks more than other minorities that add up to large numbers of us being “right sized.” But we’ll see what the numbers say a couple years after this recession is over.

Meanwhile, we’re so busy celebrating one Afrikan-American man that broke the ultimate barrier, we have yet to discuss the inevitable backlash from white racists that have the ability to significantly affect our employment numbers (not mention our physical safety). You’re Black professionals right? So you know about re-orgs. It’s time to re-organize the YBP ranks and come up with a new corporate strategy. Some of us can remain as emissaries in these white corporations so they are reminded of our humanity on a daily basis and to make sure they don’t get too crazy with the discrimination and whatnot. But a gang of us need to get off the plantation. Why not just buy these companies that we complain about being racist all the time? Why not focus on ownership instead of employment; wealth instead of income? The car companies need money…well, Black folks in America spend a trillion dollars a year, mostly on stuff we don’t need that benefits other racial groups. We can afford a few billion to buy up some of these distressed companies.

I have a proposition. To make it easier, I’ll split YBP’s up into two categories: Toby and Kunta. Both are slaves obviously since they both work for white masters, but there are subtle differences. When Toby talks about his company he says “we” because he truly believes that his fate is that of his master and when his master is sick, he’s sick. On the other hand, Kunta says “they” or the name of the company because he’s just using the company for a paycheck until he can find the opportunity to run away. The higher your salary the more likely you are to be a Toby, almost by definition. Kunta just can’t spend every day for 10 years around these MF’s he can’t stand.

So my proposition is for the Kuntas out there. I have two tasks for you:

1. By yourself or with a group of trusted, business-minded colleagues, write a business plan or two. One of them can be a business you’d start from scratch, but the other, more important one, should focus on buying an existing business. You don’t have to actually start the business(es) yet, just get yourself in the mindset of thinking about other options.
2. Research Black-owned companies you wouldn’t mind working for that actually make it a point to have a majority Black employment base.

At the end of they day, capitalism is characterized by a competition for assets and resources in the pursuit of profits. Unfortunately, mankind has not evolved to the state where we do not separate ourselves based on ethnicity. Every other ethnicity operates as an economic cooperative with preference given to fellow ethnic members. Whereas, we’re still stuck in this mode of trying to crash everyone else’s party instead of getting together and controlling our own economic destiny. If there has ever been a time for an agenda of self-determination within the Afrikan community, it’s now while assets are cheap and governments are too weak to fight back with full force. Ethnocentricity is not necessarily a bad thing; it’s time we start practicing it in economically productive ways.

Finally, I’m currently enslaved on the plantation with a side hustle for extra income, but if anyone is thinking about starting a Black-owned and operated private equity company to take advantage of these low asset prices while providing jobs and building wealth in the Black community, holler at me. I might have a few good recruits for you.

Hotep