The challenge of black excellence

Posted on May 4, 2016 | 3 comments

I am purposely going to write this post in a blog style versus article style I usually do as these are thoughts that have been burning the corridors of my thoughts for a little while and I need to, out of necessity, put them somewhere. The thought was inspired by a gorgeous black woman driving a drop top Maserati near Hydepark, where my colleague and I were walking to go buy some lunch; upon gazing at this woman my colleague exclaimed with a great smile “black excellence!” and I smiled back and retorted, “Indeed” until it dawned on me. If I were to approach her in hopes to have a conversation, she would more than likely be apprehensive or ostentatious depending on her perception of me (now I know it is more complex than that my dear psychology friends but humour my rudimentary analysis this once) and that is the very problem with black people who have ‘made it’ i.e. the main stream topic of conversation with those who are up and coming isn’t about how to create wealth, guiding principles on how the successful one made it which is my main problem. We need to make wealth creation a mainstream topic of conversation as black people.

To the successful black – I do not need you, who has made it, tell me that your jacket is a Burberry and about how amazing your holiday in a foreign country was, rather impart knowledge on me on how I can fish, give me the ‘if i knew what I know now’ moments so that I can build my house. The obvious supposition is, the successful black person will be surrounded by a few others like them which means they have a mini-network of successful fellow black people who may be in industries I want to enter, so what I need from you is not a freebie but a possible co-sign or even an introduction to a relevant person within your network who may be of interest to me based on what I want to do or do.This is how I believe one puts another person on. Your responsibility as someone who has made it somewhat is to bring up others, not flaunt to them, play your part in teaching and imparting knowledge to enable others to improve their lives by implementing the knowledge and doing the same. Anthropologically speaking, black people have always been communal in nature which is capitalism screwed us up so much because the system shuns the concept of sharing, it encourages competition and greed.

To the up and coming black – change your topic of conversation, don’t want to enjoy the good life without having worked for it, stop asking for freebies and expecting shortcuts from those who have made it, instead create your own business ideas and ask for knowledge, guidance and advice from those who have made it, connections, networks, investment and tips on how to create wealth, then pass on that knowledge to others like you.

As a people, we need to get to a point where we stop taking money away from black people and the way to do that is by building communities. A community comprises of schools, banks, hospitals, libraries etc we need to own infrastructure and enable ourselves to be self sustaining, since we are far from that, we need to start somewhere and that is by supporting black businesses and encouraging their birth. Alright I will leave this here. I believe we have a copious amount of thinkers but not enough do’ers, so there will more than likely be a plethora of profound comments below this article and then Taboo will be filled with more young black professionals buying blessees Moet, so before you share your astute thought, think also about how we implement your ideas.

 

I appreciate your time for reading this.

by Donald Neosapien Mokgale