The Black Business Pit-Fall

I was having a conversation with a close friend's wife a recently. We discussed the Informer and as I do with most people to whom I introduce the paper I half jokingly, half seriously said to her as I handed her a paper, "Read Black News! Support Black Businesses!" To this she quickly responded, "Please, I don't support Black nothing". Ok, there were so many things I wanted to say on so many different levels but I just let her talk. After all, this is my friend's wife.

She went on to say, she didn't support Black businesses because none of them have their stuff together and if she's going to throw her money away she'd rather just go and give it to white folk because normally they will get it right the first time. She also said almost anytime she's been to an all black business she had left unsatisfied.

I respectfully disagreed but didn't get into this conversation too heavily because I didn't want to argue. But deep inside I was astonished. I was always taught if there was a way to patronize your own community and race first to do so. This way we lift each other and ourselves up. This is how every other race in America is making it aside from us. We always pull each other down, just as she was doing. I left their home with a broken spirit.

Recently I decided to go to the doctor and dentist regular.

When going through my doctors in my insurance group, I honestly wasn't thinking about race. I was looking more into convenience. I searched for a doctor's office less than 10 miles away from my home. I live in a Black community but that doesn't necessarily mean the doctor in that area would be black.

Anyway, after making my appointment I pulled up to the doctor's office and as expected it was a very professional looking environment. When I got inside the first thing I noticed was my pet peeve. All three of the girls behind the receptionist desk were wearing the big long, unprofessional, ghetto lace front wigs. I kept a straight face as I cracked jokes at them to myself and signed in.

Finally I'm called to the back and the doctor comes out. He was a black man that looked not much older than me. I tried to reserve my judgment because deep inside I'm hoping and praying that he knows what he's doing.

As soon as he started talking to me he began to drop f bombs and mf's and b's and every curse word imaginable in an everyday conversational tone. Now I'm wondering to myself, what about me made him comfortable enough to start cursing like that? What if I had been a preacher? Did I have to be a preacher to be offended? I'm not saying I don't curse but I was quite offended to be in that type of professional setting and have to put up with my doctor cursing while he explain to me the symptoms of high blood pressure.

How could he have completed high school, college and various degrees to become a physician and not have enough common sense to know not to curse in front of the patient?

My doctor's appointment made me go back and think about what my friend’s wife had said. Is it that hard to find good Black help?

Regardless, we cannot let one or two occurrences like those detour us away from Black businesses as a whole. We have become 4th and 5th class citizens when it comes to running our own communities and capitalizing on our own dollar. The Black dollar is out of our hands shortly after our checks are cashed or deposited into our accounts. I'm ashamed to walk through the community where I grew up in East Macon because aside from a Wal-Mart and a few new chicken joints, gas stations and liquor stores it looks exactly the way it did 20 years ago when I was in high school. We complain that they won't bring anything to our side of town but we should be grown enough by now to have some of our own businesses there. This is not just an East Macon thing, that's just where I was born and raised so it's what I notice more. It's happening everywhere.

It's really time for us to teach our children how, began building and supporting our Black businesses. It can take us really far. So much can come out of it. If you take this paper for example: We need a media outlet to reach each other and discuss things going on in our community that the major newspapers and magazines aren't going to publish. It is important to have a good number of subscribers because if you only depend on advertisers for money then you could easily compromise the integrity of the paper because you're too busy trying to please the advertisers and make sure certain things are said certain ways.

I plan on speaking to that doctor on my next visit or simply showing him this article. We cannot abandon the Black business because of isolated events. If there are problems, we have to work them out and work ourselves through them but please, don't give up on black businesses!

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