Dec 2007
A lot of Blacks are mad at Robert Johnson and Cathy Hughes for selling BET and some radio one stations respectively. Many claim that they are sell-outs, some say that they lacked vision, others say that they put profits over black ownership, many conclude that Blacks as a whole lack discipline and business intelligence.
The reasoning is that if many Whites, Jews, and Asians can own businesses for centuries and increase it for their children’s inheritance while not Cathy Hughes and Robert Johnson or why not sell to another Black family or enterprise? To the contrary, many feel that the Black entrepreneurs are usually under pressure to sell because Blacks do not support them anyway. Some say that while they start businesses to make profits and hire their own, their own do not buy their stocks in Dow Jones or products, so they have to rely on other races to support them. This leads to fear of being taken over or running the business at a loss, so they quickly sell the business while they can make a profit before they lose it all.
There is no leader without followers and there is no entrepreneur without customers and/or Dow Jones stockholders. If we want to encourage entrepreneurship among Black Americans, then we must be their consumers and stock holders. There should be a place where we can see all Black businesses and what they produces, and every Black American must support at least five of them on a regular basis as consumer or/and stock holder even if you have to buy one share. Black financial experts are to be tasked with the challenge of making this information readily available and encouraging their clients and Black America to buy at least one share. If we can maintain this pattern, I am sure no Black entrepreneur would sell a business for the profit that is already growing and will be sustained.