Blacks & Koreans Unite (sort of)

I was reading an article on the Black Electorate and came across an interview with a gentleman named Aron Ranen who did a documentary on the black hair care industry and how it is dominated by Koreans (click here to read). In reality, not a new story, just a new industry. It's pretty much what we blacks do with anything we're involved with-sports and entertainment? We do all the work, someone reaps all the benefit. I don't know how many artist have had their life blood sucked out of them by some corporate exec only to die penny-less while the exec is still wealthy and sucking the blood from the next victim. I don't blame the leach, I blame the host. Why do we who know better keep offering up our babies to this blood sucking machine? Oh, I know why, deep down inside, all we want to do is shine, bling. Yeah, my son plays for the Laker's and bought me this house! That's cool, but when he gets injured or his career is over, who's left holding most of the profit? Not the athlete. I've met some destitute athletes with superbowl rings and nothing else. When the river was flowing, they were the hot commodity, the moment they stopped making 16 solo tackles a game, or averaging 3 touchdowns a game or scoring 30 points a night, it's over.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't allow our children to do these things, I just believe that we should own it. It pains me when I hear people complain about the lack of black coaches in sports. A coaching job is just that, a job. We need to stop complaining about getting concessions and put ourselves in the position to own the whole damn enchilada. It's not as if their isn't a market for it. First of all, all of the entertainment that America exports is predominately black. Hip-hop music? HUGE internationally. Black athletes? HUGH internationally. Obviously they don't give a damn about skin color. Instead of getting to those market through American companies, we should go directly to the source. We need to stop being nationalist and get back to what Kwame Toure' and some of the other Pan-Africanist were talking about. We'll never get a fair shake unless we begin to control every aspect of the industries we dominate. And their is absolutely nothing anti-American about speaking this way. It is no more anti-American than 99% of the products Wal-mart sells coming from China. No one calls them anti-American. No more anti-American than good ole' AMERICAN EXPRESS itself leading the way in globalization by having its customer service in India. See how that works? Get your hands on an arsenal of nuclear weapons and you get a place at the table (referring to India).

All of the aforementioned I can relate to, but the black hair care industry? We nigga's done gone and lost our mind! How the hell you have a product that is purchased by you exclusively and you have less than 1% controlling interest? Most of these Korean-owned stores are RIGHT IN OUR VERY OWN NEIGHBORHOODS! How the hell does this happen?

I think I have an answer to this question. We as a group have a child-like mentality. I volunteered once to live in the hood. And I'm talking da hood! I could have stayed in upper-middle class Orange County (SoCal), but I moved to San Bernardino (if you ask me why, I'll plead temporary insanity). While I was interning in the hood, the main question I heard from our people was Man, they see how bad it is here, why won't they do something? They spend all that money to help other countries but they won't help us. I never really had an answer for that question because I could never get passed the one that loomed in my head, Why won't you do something for yourself? When did the government EVER do anything for the black people of this country. Kanye said that Bush don't like black people....DUH!!!! No Kidding?? Really???!!! You don't say??!!! Everything they've EVER done for us set us back. Welfare? Made us extremely dependent. Allowing drugs to be brought into this country and sold on the streets of our communities? Fostered dependency. Allowing us to intergrate? Fostered low self-esteem because some of us were bussed to places that did nothing more than to highlight our lack of material wealth. And don't get me started on the religion they gave us. Nothing has paralyzed us more as a people than Christianity. I'm sorry people, turning the other cheek is what you do to people that love you-not to your sworn enemy. We got it backwards, if our brother offends us, we gun him down in a drive-by. Our government allows us to suffer and we just turn the other cheek. The only reason I turn my cheek to my enemy is to gather up momentum to swing back around and slap the shit out of him.

Jesus didn't even stand for the shit that we put up with. He was the one that tossed the Jews out of the church for peddling their wares in the Lord's house. That shit cost him his life too. In the immortal words of the late comdedian Richard Pryor, You don't go down there messing with them Jews without any money!

The bottom line is, we're going to have to start doing away with creature comforts in order to change this shit. We need to stop buying hair care products from the Koreans. Not because I don't like them. Quite the contrary, I admire them and we could learn something from them. We should strive to emulate them. But we also need to start opening up our own stores right next to theirs and as a people start buying from ourselves. We are like babies! A baby can't even wipe it's own ass, it has to depend on someone else to change it's soiled diaper. And if white folks decided that no more toilet paper would be sold in our communities, we wouldn't be able to wipe our own asses because we don't even manufacturer, distribute, or sell the bare essential to wipe our own asses. Now people, that is SAD. Our fate is inextricably tied to a nation that doesn't even care for us! If America falls, the Jews have a place to go-Mexicans can just reverse migrate back across the border. Italians, back to the boot. African-Americans? Most of us don't even know an African much less know one that would accept or help us in a time of need. Katrina should have been our wake-up call. When our people are in need, we should be in a position to not only help them, but pressure this government to do the same. We pay tax dollars just like everyone else, but we couldn't even get them to help our people! We are like children. But I will tell you this people: America is looking for the next black messiah. No, this is true. Reason being, they've been living off of us for CENTURIES. The Korean hair-care debacle is just one chapter in this never ending saga. $750 BILLION COMES THROUGH OUR COMMUNITY ANNUALLY. Not my statistic, read Entrepenuer magazine, the June 2006 edition. we need to first of all become aware of the fact that we have economic power, and we need to parlay that into political power.

I know this is a long post, but please, let's start today trying to help ourselves out of this mess. Aron Ranen is a white guy, and even white people are trying to tell us to wake the fuck up. PLEASE PEOPLE... Let's do something before it's too late. I also want to implore you all to reach out to Africa. I am sponsoring an African student right now. It costs me $20 a month and it pays for his books and living expenses. JUST $20 A MONTH. If we help our people there, they may come here and help us out of our mess.

WHO'S WITH ME?????

I AM BLACK I