Stay on your..

We need to move past this secularized version of prosperity gospel pushed by so many Black youtubers. There are economic numbers and they can be looked up. Black people in general own nothing. And the problem isn't mindset. There's no mantra that you can repeat your way into success with. We have been locked out of wealth from the very beginning. The middle class was created by things like FHA in the 1930's and we were locked out of that. The trillion dollar spending power you hear people say we have is nonexistent when you realize that it costs to live and going into debt isn't purchasing power, but a measure of how much you can enrich others.

The two step plan to economic independence I constantly hear is step 1) Start a business and step 2) generational wealth and legacy building. It's ridiculous. It's as delusional as the thinking of the obese, baby mama, feminists thinking they deserve childless, rich and successful men. Black people are at the bottom and Black men have the most obstacles erected against them including Black women. At this point in the game, the bottom line is you will have to work for others. While doing that, you may decide to work on a side hustle. If you hit the lottery with that side hustle, then it can become your main job. But most people will not hit the lottery. So what we really need are good paying jobs that allow people to save enough to take their shot. And taking their shot could be as simple as paying off a mortgage and having some life insurance (see my blog on seed planters). In fact, that should be the standard goal for Black people, not entering into some risky business or getting rich off gamestop shares. We need collective advancement, not a patchwork of individual success stories or investment schemes.

Let me be clear: individuals can succeed, and I'm happy when they do, but that doesn't mean anything in terms of collective advancement. And telling people to simply be their own boss isn't a plan. It isn't anything at all. I paid off my first property about 7 years ago while working a job. Doing that allows you to either generate revenue by renting it out or reducing your cost of living by living there and making it even easier to live a simple yet fulfilling life on your terms. Instead of having to work full time, I can now work part time and maintain the same quality of life. Isn't it odd that you never hear people talking about doing this. It's always about earning more and expansion. In any case, when I look at what I had to do and how few mistakes I had to make, most White people can't do what I've done and they were given every advantage. I, on the other hand, started with nothing. And this is what most Black people start with: nothing. For those Black men who made it without rapping or throwing a ball, tell me how much of the following story sounds familiar.

You study hard in high school and pretty much fly underneath everyone's radar. You go to college and graduate in a field that's in demand(e.g. STEM). You go to grad school and do the same thing. You leave school maybe 20-30k in debt so you get a decent job and add an apartment and a car note to your list of bills. You work to pay off your debt which means you have a squeaky clean criminal record by the way, because, how else would you maintain gainful employment as a Black man in this racist society ? You look around at the women and realize the prospects are awful for anything long term so you keep it casual and focus on work and doing the simple things you enjoy. In your mid to late 20's, you start looking at buying a home. You pay rent every month so it might as well be a mortgage. Good thing you had that stable employment and made all your car payments, right? How else will you qualify for a mortgage that requires at least 2 years at the same place and 5 to10% down? Note: Your White counterparts in college graduated and were often gifted down payments to a home at 22. You purchase a home in your late 20's and keep working. You start to build some equity and/or eventually pay it off. Your retirement account starts popping. Now you got even more to lose and the women are even shadier due to their ever growing amount of baggage and children. So you continue to focus on you and that brings us to the present.

Now here's the kicker. You've amassed some wealth or started your business and experienced some success. Where does it go when you die? My beneficiary is my brother. One of my best friend's beneficiaries are his parents. His effing parents! If they die, then it falls to me. The point is all this gospel prosperity and staying on your purpose talk is empty rhetoric. The people I see who live by this slogan are no more forward thinking than the so-called wage slave. In fact, these sloganeering snake oil salesmen are usually less progressive in their thinking. They believe they are better than the straight nine to fiver, but it isn't true. They just may be working longer and/or harder to have the life they want. Or they found their inner CONfidence, man. In any case, if you don't care about being a dandy with a closet full of designer clothes and boots, you can live quite well by simply controlling your debt and paying yourself back with more time to enjoy a simpler life. When these Black youtubers talk about staying on your purpose i.e. firing your boss and starting a business, what they really should be saying to Black men is act in your own self-interest and maximize your happiness. I'm in complete agreement with that. When they go beyond that, you start hearing all the elitist talk and pie-in-the-sky nonsense (See Kevin Samuels, Dame Dash, etc.) that's more about their own self-aggrandizement than putting forth an actual blueprint for success people can actually follow.

What's interesting is I hear this prosperity gospel talk coming primarily (not exclusively) from Black men who are mid 30's or older and are unmarried. They are often childless as well. So they're working 12 or 16 hours a day for what? For whom? The State? Because that's who is going to benefit if you have no plan for when you die. And I ain't heard nan one of them talk about beneficiaries. Ask yourself what happens to the "empire" built by these black youtubers the moment they die. The answer is the empire is instantly gone. I'm not saying you shouldn't start a business or build an "empire" if that's where your passion lies or you need it to get the things you want. But this singular obsession with starting your own business or being your own boss is unnecessary especially if you have no one to continue building it after you. You're still ultimately working for the State.😄 You should only work insofar that it allows you to do the things that you enjoy. No more. Designate a beneficiary for whatever it is you have and then let it go and live. Do you see how none of this requires you to start a business or to be your own boss? I think working from "can't see in the morning" to "can't see it the night" as your own boss is largely a waste of your life if you have no wife and no legitimate children ready to take over for you when you're gone. You're just working to work. And that hardly sounds like a life worth living.