Black-Owned Businesses Are Not Ghetto
What’s going on, folks? You back again—with a business lesson.
In our community, the Black community, we hear it all the time: Black people calling Black-owned businesses ghetto based on one bad experience.
“I went to a restaurant and they ran out of food.”
“They didn’t have no sides.”
“They didn’t have steak, burgers, nothing.”
“That’s ghetto.”
And I always ask myself—why is that ghetto?
Because a business ran out of food that day?
Because the service wasn’t perfect that day?
How many times has McDonald’s messed up your order?
How many times has Chick-fil-A messed up your order?
How many times has Wendy’s messed up your order?
Crickets.
And you still go back.
So why is it that when you deal with a Black-owned business, it has to be perfect every single time—but non-Black businesses can mess up over and over, and we still give them grace?
There needs to be a higher level of grace in the Black community for Black-owned businesses—especially for the ones just starting out, still getting themselves together, still figuring things out.
I think it’s idiotic when people talk down on Black-owned businesses because they made a mistake. That’s ignorance. You’ve dealt with plenty of non-Black businesses that gave you terrible service, and you’re not running around town telling everybody never to go back. But when a Black-owned business slips up, suddenly it’s, “Don’t support them,” or, “That’s why I don’t mess with Black-owned businesses.”
Do you know how ignorant that sounds?
Equating Black businesses with ghetto is foolish. That mindset is exactly why people say the dollar doesn’t stay in the Black community—not for days, not for weeks, but for hours. We support everybody else but our own, then turn around and ask, “Why don’t we have wealth? Why don’t we have economics?”
How you going to build wealth if you don’t support your own?
Now let me be clear—I say this every time. You can support other people’s businesses. That’s fine. But primarily, you have to support your own if you want to build group economics.
You hear people say, “I don’t support low-budget Black movies.”
Every director that ever existed started off making low-budget movies. They built an audience first, then earned the bigger budgets.
Just because a movie is in a major theater doesn’t mean it’s better—it just means they had the budget and the backing to get there.
Look at Tyler Perry. Love him or hate him, he started with plays. When they saw how much money he could generate without their co-sign, that’s when they came with the big budgets and the deals.
We have $1.6–$1.7 trillion in spending power. So why aren’t we supporting our own? Why are we always calling our businesses ghetto?
There are non-Black businesses that are ghetto. So why is ghetto always associated with Black people? That mentality is ignorant, and it’s something we have to unlearn. We need to associate Blackness with quality.
There are a lot of great Black-owned businesses. A lot of good ones. Very few bad ones. Meanwhile, billion-dollar corporations give terrible service every day, and we keep going back.
McDonald’s service isn’t fast food anymore. You wait 30 minutes, they tell you to pull up, go by the window, and still don’t bring your food out—but nobody calls that ghetto.
Let’s be honest.
We value name brands.
We value quality.
We value consistency in pricing.
Those are Black consumer habits.
If you know our needs aren’t being met, why not create products and services that meet those needs? There’s $1.7 trillion on the table—let’s get those dollars circulating our way.
Because the truth is, society doesn’t respect our pain, our history, or our culture. The only thing it respects is our dollars. That’s sad, but it’s real.
Supporting Black-owned businesses isn’t about getting back at other ethnicities. That mentality is backwards. You support Black-owned businesses to build Black economics and group economics. Once you do that, politicians—Republicans and Democrats—start taking you seriously. Not just because of your vote, but because you have leverage.
We also need to read more. They say if you want to hide something from us, put it in a book. If you want to distract us, put it in something we can wear, drive, or show off—a recognition purchase. We need knowledge we can pass down to our kids.
Black-owned businesses are not ghetto.
If a lack of variety or a temporary shortage makes a business ghetto, then every business in history started ghetto. AT&T is ghetto. McDonald’s is ghetto. And those aren’t Black-owned—so stop attaching ghetto to Blackness.
Every business runs out of things sometimes. That’s business.
What society truly fears is our unity. They have no issue with us fighting each other. Black man against Black woman. Black on Black crime. That’s box-office news. They love that.
But Black unity? That makes people nervous.
That’s always been the problem. From a business standpoint, we need to become legal hustlers—multiple streams of income, selling products, services, building ownership. We are everybody’s best customer. We should spend on ourselves first, just like Italians support Italians, Irish support Irish, and everybody else does.
Build among ourselves first—then expand.
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