Vision Circle

The truth must be told is that while I was progessive, I had a dreadhead poet's contempt for merchants. Before that, when I was a first class buppie, everybody had contempt for merchants - we were all about Corporate America. People 12 years my junior have fewer externally imposed existential restrictions.

Corporations are a form of 'cooperative economics', T3. Perhaps the most evolved form. Where I agree with Cobb on Ujamaa is its composition is cellular. There are bound to be efficiency losses involved with such a diffused structure.

MIB, I think I know where you're heading and would agree...but I'd like to hear more.

The efficiency losses are not only to be expected, but they are PROHIBITIVE...and it's why I raised the question of tariffs and the US imports of Brazilian sugar in another post on this topic. The absence of coercion suggests that folks ignore short-term economic benefits when they have little disposable income...not likely...when you add in convenience and the economies of scale...it's a wrap.

Cobb:

where did you poets buy pen and paper?

"where did you poets buy pen and paper?"

mmm-hm! boy, i love a good tho' down. there's lots in this stuff, T3 (sorry I missed your earlier post, too), so i'll just stick in a lil bit and get out the way cuz i speck there's more flushin to come.

i was going to bring up the old thing about corporations and asian cultures with their hive-mind approach to things (that's not a dis, btw), but then i realized i might be getting ahead of myself. for now. back roun to the issue in hand, the more i think about it, the more i dig the ujaama groove (again). it's only potential chink of course is if the business' primary USP is that it's black-owned. that's a nasty trap.

"Blackface capitalism would be Revlon through their 'Dark & Lovely' product line. White owned and controlled but strictly for the benefit of black consumers."

Cobb:

So your definition of Blackface capitalism = Black target demographic + White Owned

What about rap then? Some major record labels are Black-owned (Bad Boy, The Roc, Def Jam, etc), the product is essentially produced by Blacks, and yet the (logical) target demographic for rap music sales are young Whites since it is they who are the largest consumers of rap/hip-hop. White people buy more of a Black-produced product than Blacks do: what do you call that strategy? Because seemingly, this wouldn't fit into your definition of 'invisiblack' capitalism "in which black controlled corporations provide goods and services to the mainstream in which the race of the management team is black but unknown and materially irrelevant", because the race of the Roc-a-fella, Bad-Boy, or Def Jam management teams is readily apparent to the consmers who purchase those products. When Whites buy a Bad Boy record, they know damn-well that they are making Diddy richer.

There is a correlation betwen the nature of social science and economics. The best social science theory would be ethically neutral, it would apply seamlessly to Black, Whites, Asian, or Latios. The best business plan would be race-neutral as far as demographics goes. Doesn't the man with the race-neutral economic business model stand to make more money than his ethno-centric competitor? I mean sure, we've got products for "Black" hair, and rightfully so. But to the equal and opposite extreme, well-meaning but micro-managing liberals like Debra Dickerson would interject with the fact that many African American women are unaware that they have even the option of growing out their natural hair, due to the "pervasive" advertising and sale of products like Revlon's Dark & Lovely; thereby wasting money on a product which promotes the mainstream (read: White) aesthetic of beauty.

To me, an ethnocentric business model seems rather antiquated.

As a point of clarification (which may or may not be needed here):

The point of ujamaa is not that products are purchased exclusively or primarily by black folk. No advocate of ujamaa is intent on selling the world's best widget exclusively to black folk while ignoring the global market.

I'd hate to lose the point before we establish it.

No, that was needed. Sorry about that. (another plea to get a wiki-thingie installed in this muug so the slow ppl *raises arm* can keep up *flicks Cobb's ear*)

I think mebbe I've misunderstood Cobb's def of Ujaama, then. I was thinking of it in terms of scale and scope (locale/audience). Mebbe you could snap off a couple examples whilst I try that new innanet thing to get a better grounding of the term.

NR, if I haven't missed my guess, I believe Diddy's binniz falls under Black Capitalism, plain and straight.

Aight. (sigh) When do I have a minute? I'm in Santa Clara today with the HP Superdome Itanium pimp patrol...

Now I'm the brotha who digs on whitefolks celebrating Kwanzaa, but I have a hard time seeing the Forty Percent not wanting to throw a trashcan through Betsy's window during the Fire Next Time. Be that as it may, I must admit that the first phrase that pops into my head when you talk about P Diddy's binnis is 'Bamboozled' ie Coon Show, but that's just a matter of taste. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that America is swinging our way, and it can be said that Black Entertainment which is black controlled could be considered a major world industry. It seems like evry week NPR is talking about a new form of hiphop or reggae sprouting up somewhere in the second world.

I guess the question is whether or not Diddy's Black Capitalism falls under the same rubric of racial domination as Pat Robertson's - ie is there some greater (Pan Africanist) conspiracy involved in the race-raising? If not then it's as Invisiblack the hiphop on a BMW commercial. Or maybe it's a niche kind of Junglish Fever, like Japanese Anime. Popular for what it is whilst it's the flavor of the decade. Hiphop may not die, but by the same token, minstrelsy and vaudeville is not dead. All of these wind up as integrative products and services.

Understand that is perfectly fine with me. Take Toni Morrison's hashmaking of the literary industry or Oprah's redefinition of daytime talk. That's what Chris Rock calls Wealth. But here's a dynamic to take note of:

When Oprah does the Oprah thing, she is doing it at a level that doesn't allow her to kick back. How can I say it? She gets so far up that she *transcends* blackness in a way that Martha Stewart does not transcend her ilk. So Martha Stewart is a player (and still got bitchslapped) at a very high level and she's filling a space where there is something to conserve, whereas Oprah has to take her moola and cultivate new fields - doing stuff like buying dolls and shoes in Soweto.

Which brings us to the interesting question. Is the American black middle-class going to be the substrate of future African's wealth, or are there cabals of black businessmen in Durban who are better prepared to swing?

By the way, we bought our pens and paper from Nkiru Books in Brooklyn which washed our sins away as cleanly as Kinte made from Mississippi cotton.

Nkiru is gone...and so are the poets. Nkiru done closed yrs. ago. Them sins is still here, even is they are of omission, rather than comission, and they are not yours alone.

Nkiru has been replaced by a French bistro inclined to mediocre food and inflated prices. The emergence of roughly five higher quality bistros in this neighborhood has ushered their haste to post FOR SALE signs. So, that little space is in flux, once again.

Maybe someone will start up a SPOKEN WORD spot and sell pens and paper in the back.

Pardon my ?humor? All in love, all in family.

After reading Cobb's comments, I thought for a minute on enterprises such as Def Jam/Island's place in his schematic. Def Jam -- and by extension, Roc-a-Fella -- are subsidiaries of 'White' corporations. So is Diddy's Bad Boy label. Same thing for BET. There's a truth in that they began as examples of Ujamaa (well.. maybe not BET), but have grown into diversified, 'invisiblack' entities.

Understand that the differences between Black capitalism, Ujamaa, and Invisiblack are nuanced and perhaps in some cases, indeterminable. I see Black capitalism as a plug-n-play venture; an otherwise foreign-controlled product/service aimed at the Black consumer using Black retailers. Ujamaa involves coordination and application of the immediate community's resources (whenever possible). Control over production is the key component of Ujamaa.

Invisiblack, however, is predicated on market efficiencies over ethnic or geographic concerns. Invisiblack capitalists are industrialists who assemble capital, regardless of point of origin, then refine or create opportunities ('add value') for consumers and laborers without regard to political constructs.

T3's Papa John franchisee is best described as a Black capitalist; the late John Johnson, a Ujamaan (?), and Michael Jordan is an Invisiblack capitalist.

I think an essential difference may be demonstrated in the nuances between Roc-A-Fella records and Roc-A-Wear. The music is distributed through a large white-owned multinational...and that's where the revenues and margins are greatest. I would imagine, however, that Roc-A-Fella (and its artists) have NOT surrendered publishing (and the lion-share of residual $$) to the larger corporation. So, in the short-term, Roc-A-Fella may be an Invisa-Black (albeit highly visible) Capitalist enterprise. Over the long term, I don't think this will be true, particularly because of their forays into film, ring tones, and Dash's support of a long-standing hoop tourney in the PJs in Harlem (across the street from where I grew up)...the next step will be video game design that incorporates all of these layers of content...they will form temp-alliances or hire tech people to build the product and can skip over the record company distribution networks to get this stuff out...they have tons of options based on their content, the internet and the attractiveness of black culture globally. i wouldn't be surprised to see Dash, et al roll out a competitor to the AND-1 Mixed Tape Tour...which is spotlighted on ESPN...if he can get better players - easy to do, and a higher profile...FOX/BET/new part-time network on a kids station...he could easily SMOKE And-1 by doing an end-run to the next generation.

With respect to Rock-A-Wear...it's a slam dunk...they don't use white distribution networks to get their gear out and the margins are on their side...they can sell their product anywhere and they're not gettin' killed at the knock-off level. most folks are not tryin' to roll with knock-off Rock-A-Wear...and they have FREE advertising for their gear through the LABEL, VIDEOS, etc. so, the clothing line is a different ball game...DASH, PUFF, and RUSS all have revenues at or above $400 million (I believe, and rescue me if I'm wrong)...

Each of these folks stepped into a wide open market that had been cursed with fat, lazy white firms offering bland products that had not undergone serious innovation in decades...the economic downturn during the 90's of Levi's opened the door not just to these three, but to Lucky Jeans and tons of other brands.

simply, there are some nice nuances here that have not been splained...and I certainly believe that Dash's embrace of the King Towers tournament in Harlem is one of the BEST examples of UJAMAA in a while...but it provides a foundation for an exceptional rollout of black capitalism - in direct competition with a form of black-face capitalism (namely, AND-1)...

how much are they payin' bruthas in europe, israel, venezuela, japan to ball? would any of those cats come back to do a Rock-A-Rim tour, profile in videos, mack viddyhos, and see loved ones for the first time in years? maybe so? maybe no? but, all of them cats are better than the cats on the AND-1 tour...

as for papa john's...it's a bit of all three...it's blackface to the extent that papa john's does not derive from or represent an african aesthetic...it's certainly black capitalism...but it's also a bit ujamaa in the sense of being a community-based business owned by a community resident, hiring community residents, serving community residents, etc. the moralizing about the food and its quality is beside the point, at least to me.

he grew up a block from the MLK hoop tourney too.

Not to pick nits, T3, but for all intents and purposes Roc-a-Fella Records and Roca Wear's approaches to business are identical. Both employ non-Black capital (labor, financing, etc.) in the sourcing of raw materials. Once manufactured, the finished products are then marketed and distributed to (largely) non-Black consumers using (largely) non-Black controlled channels. Unlike the car dealership Cobb (?) spoke about or the proverbial Black-run barbershop, Roc-a-Fella and Roca Wear has transcended the idea of community. I have no doubt Dash, et al., at one time were closer to Ujamaans than not, just like I allow any Black entrepreneur can be a Black capitalist, Ujamaan and Invisiblack simultaneously at points. Let us agree that none of these categories are static and that perhaps the community on the whole benefits with all four paradigms -- even 'Blackface' -- operational.

that only depends on whether the intent is to differentiate between distribution networks in businesses where the margins are greater on the distribution side than they are on the manufacturing side...which was my intent...but otherwise, i entirely concur.

i certainly believe they operate in a manner that cannot be described as ujamaa...at the manufacturing level, ujamaa runs up against the hard realities of cost-effective production...at the retail side, good products priced at the high end will sell to those with greater disposable income...still these firms are able to stimulate community-based initiatives with funds derived from these and other sources.

i think the fact that these categories are mutable and crossover is the good news.

That they are mutable, I think, is because we've gone beyond the context of their original intent.

Ujamaa and black capitalism originated in the 60s when it was presumed that the nation would diverge way more than it has. So I think Ujamaa is particularly limited because once you get to a certain scale, it would be economic suicide to cultivate exclusively black partnerships.which by definition keeps Ujamaanists small-scale. I want to debate that point because I've been using this against the concept (and its communitarian origins) for a long time. I say that Ujamaa ultimately makes you into a Korean grocer and that's not how blacks are interested in enjoining the market.

My angle in this is the historic direction and dimunition of the 'black shopping district'. Once upon a time there were black doctors and black lawyers and insurers, etc. who got their clientele exclusively from black patrons. That whole model collapsed after the integration of the civil service etc after Brown. But there was a romantic notion attached to the idea and because of it an overburden put on the Talented Tenth. A great deal of the whole dialog of 'selling out' is not about Uncle Tomming, but the breakup of the old black neighborhood and the assumption that the educated blacks who were ghetto-bound with everyone else would continue their role.

Granted there is a lot of corporatism I would much rather have organic, but the fact of the matter is that when Pepsi started giving black kids scholarships, nobody cared about the black Elks Lodge scholarships any longer. The money was elsewhere and blacks who could integrate voted with their feet.

I'll leave it there without getting into the social implications. I simply want to stress that a fundamental flaw with black capitalism and ujamaa is that you can successfully capture the interests of sufficient numbers of the black professsional class and corral that for the betterment of the other 80-90%. It's based on an idea and model that African America itself has outgrown in the post-Jim Crow era.

I wouldn't confuse growth with the opportunity to enrich others. Similarly, I wouldn't consider the access to consume as evolution or a type of development. If this same phenomena happened in international circles, we'd simply say some poor bastard drank the free trade kool-aid after being bitten by high tariff tse-tse flies.

And with your new-found (post 1960's) freedom, I doubt you'll be able to buy cheap oil from Venezuela...even if Hugo cuts you some slack...because the same people who invited you to Pepsi forty years ago will ban you from Citgo - if the offer is formally made.

I certainly appreciate your argument that it's only logical to expect folks to roll out and do for self, but I would argue the issues are bigger than that - especially when it comes down to the calculus of foregoing opportunities to invest in meaningful opportunities. Those Negro Hoods that the so-called Talented Tenth (mostly qualitative social scientists, mind you - so don't get toooooo carried away)evacuated are now some of the most valuable real estate in cities across the nation...but at least they have small homes in the suburbs worth about $200,000 with mortgages paid off and kids in college...and probably still a few white neighbors. since their's was not the only choice, i would ask, "Who did the math?" Stay or go? What was the formula...what was the desired end game?

"Who did the math?" Stay or go? What was the formula...what was the desired end game?

yes brother, what was the coveted end-game in them laguna hills?