Why won’t black people support black businesses?
I have come to realise, that there is a lot of ignorance among our own people when it comes to support. As black people we must invest within each other and help each other to grow! Too many of us complain about the lack of services that cater to people of colour and that there is hardly any products, or businesses that reflect the diversity of its community ‘black people’ YET, when there IS a BLACK OWNED business, product OR service we are quick to turn a blind eye to it.
There are many excuses such as “too expensive” or “lack of trust” and many try to tear down their black brothers and sisters by giving them 100 reasons as to why their businesses WON’T work, and not giving ONE example of how it WILL! The only people stopping us from succeeding is ourselves!
We need to think LONG and hard about WHY, every time there is a black business we try to knock it down, and find any criticisms towards it? My theory is that this all stems from slavery days, people forget that slavery was more psychological than it was physical, and we have been mentally damaged and programmed into thinking we have no value. But remember, we didn’t START FROM SLAVERY! We came from RICHES! Kings, Queens, and Gods of the Universe is where we originate from, our melanin is worth MORE than GOLD yet we constantly devalue ourselves and the hard work of our people!
WHY is it that we have no question in spending hundreds of pounds/dollars on European Designer labels such as LV, GUCCI, CHANEL, etc or hundreds of pounds/dollars on Brazilian/European weaves?
Why as black brothers and sisters do we put our money in the pockets of companies that have no interest in representing our culture? It’s never TOO expensive to spend £800 on a LV bag, but it’s Always too expensive to put your money towards something one of your BLACK BROTHERS/SISTERS have made?
We constantly put Europeans standards above us, as a subconscious way of saying that we see no value in ourselves. A white man can make the same thing as a Black man, and it can be the same price/worth, but the Black man will buy from the White man’s shop. Do we not want to see each other rise up and succeed?
Why can Indians and Chinese people create their own art, culture, food shops and cater to their people and have the respect and support from their people but BLACK PEOPLE CAN’T? We will pay for a Chinese tattoo- to us that is art- before we pay for BLACK art, and if we do, we try to haggle down the price.
We come from riches, our melanin is rich, we as people are rich, Africa in which we ALL originated from is rich (where do you think diamonds come from) so WHY do we expect each other to create and sell things CHEAPLY or at a lower standard/value than ANY OTHER COMPANY? So we can’t have designer labels? We can’t make valuable creations? We must be cheap because we are black? WAKE UP AND STAND UP!
Blood, sweat and tears goes into the hard work of building a business, especially a creative one, it’s about time we showed some respect to our people’s talents, crafts and HARD WORK! It’s about time we started valuing ourselves at the same level if not higher than everyone else. The way we show respect and put money into European’s pockets and making them rich, is what we need to do within our own community. If you own a smart phone, nice car, or any designer lables, think twice before you tell another black owned business that their stuff is too expensive. Stop using European items to prove your worth and start rocking black created items to EMBRACE your TRUE worth and ROYALTY!
Don’t spend time complaining about the lack of black owned/created resources and services if YOU are not doing anything to support it.
BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL! We only can say it if we truly believe it and see the beauty within each other’s work.
#BlackLivesMatter and guess what else matters....BLACK ON BLACK SUPPORT!
BY Leonie Tomlinson x
