Business and entrepreneurship is a journey, not a status – that is the main reason why Black Enterprise has always been a joke, still a joke and will be a joke until they bury the old man and quietly wind that crap down. Before we continue, I want to let you know upfront I don't give one damn about Earl Graves, Butch Graves, Derek Dingle, Alfred Edmonds or any other metrosexual moron affiliated with Black Enterprise magazine. These Black Enterprise morons since the beginning are the scum of the earth when it comes to our people with the divisive and negative media propaganda they ran against our black community just to get an ad insert from Ford Motors or American Express. At Dream and Hustle, we about real black business over here and we don't appreciate the petty non-business sissy-attitude crap Black Enterprise Magazine been about.
In this article we are going to highlight the current irrelevancy of Black Enterprise, why they became an irrelevant joke mostly propped up by corporate advertisers like Ford Motors and American Express and why Black Enterprise magazine can go straight to hell. Now, it's always some cornball that want to defend black ineffectual status quo and think they can challenge us saying "what are we doing?" trying to act like we ain't doing anything but talking. These people are just punks, the kind that steps to us with a rock but see me and my crew got bricks and baseball bats and bicycle chains – and Class IIIs and they disappear real fast after finding out we about that. I don't know, we got too many f-boys running around that talk too damn much. But anyway, let's celebrate Black History Month by analyzing why Black Enterprise magazine is a piece of crap.
How Irrelevant is Black Enterprise?
One thing I like about these silly black entrepreneurs is they like to talk about how "profitable" they are or try to sell you on that to think they doing good. You will have cats on Wall Street spend 30 million in a quarter and earn 30.1 million in that same quarter and call themselves profitable, so don't get caught up in that "profitable" term and that just a phrase cats be using hoping to convince the uneducated. You want to know profit margin, not the profit – anybody and anything can be profitable even by small margins. But let's be honest.
Hardly Anyone 18-45 Read Black Enterprise. The younger black business-minded cats are on the Internet talking about the hustle culture and on Complex while the other cats who about it read real stuff like Forbes and Fortune and Business Insider or Dream and Hustle, not even interested in Black Enterprise or their web site.
Black Enterprise Web Site Have Little Interaction. No one is over there commenting or interacting on Black Enterprise because quite frankly, Black Enterprise is full of crap and have no content that worthy of discussion and a forum. Black Enterprise content is just trying to brag about someone or trying to act like an authority figure or gatekeeper and expect their readers to just be quiet followers – black folks ain't trying to feel that in the social media age.
Black Enterprise Using Freelance Writers. If you have notice if you one of these black blog/magazine readers, they have these generic black content writers who write articles for a ham sandwich that contribute articles. These are the equivalent of the non-union, the illegal immigrant worker of the black journalist world, working for cheap and freelancing for a ham sandwich and push out generic content while media corporations fire members of the NABJ. These generic writers write generic content for Black Enterprise and that is the pipeline. A good print media have a columnist that is passionate about a certain angle like those cats in the New York Times or The Atlantic – Black Enterprise does not have that.
Black Enterprise Cut their Magazine Issues. They can talk all they want about how "good" they doing but they had to cut their number of issues, I don't see Black Enterprise on any newsstands, just in the public library which is corporate welfare and even further, they got generic articles written by generic content writers and no interaction so they can sell the BS they doing well but the obvious speaks louder – no one is talking about them.
All of this shows and points towards declination of Black Enterprise magazine which was already a worthless print magazine from the beginning. So why is Black Enterprise still around if no one reads them, they cutting back and is basically generic. Well, Black Enterprise is nothing more than a corporate-sponsored joke I believe their revenue come from peddling corporations for some of that "diversity supplier" crumbs like a homeless beggar on the streets. These corporations are better off putting their money into black community non-profits than advertising in Black Enterprise that no one really read nowadays.
How Black Enterprise Acted Towards the Black Community
Business is a journey, not a status. Business is not emotional either and you cats talking all that inspirational, motivation and ambition crap about the hustle – you ain't real and just romanticizing the hustle. Real business is sacrifices other won't take, making hard decisions and taking risk with real consequences that involves people money and their lives and their ability to support their families. You have influence over the lives of your customers and your employees and partners who believe in your vision as the entrepreneur or founder. In addition, there is greater economic and environment implications that directly impacts your business operation or influence by your business operation.
I never seen Black Enterprise promoted black business, black finance and black economics as a journey but instead promoted black business as a status symbol in an elitist manner. And Black Enterprise focused on selling that emotional narrative of inspiration, motivation and ambition towards black folks they probably didn't think was smart enough to want to actually pursue a business. Let's look at the silly and petty stuff Black Enterprise magazine has done that caused them to be a corporate-sponsored irrelevant joke in the black community.
Engaged in Picking and Choosing Black People. This is the major factor that destroyed Black Enterprise credibility is they believe they were gatekeepers and had the authority to decide who deserve attention and who does not deserve attention. They would not cover certain black people who were doing good just being petty while promoting Top 100 lists as if they had the right to anoint certain members of an entire race of people. This was a dumb move – never doubt the hustle of a black person who pushing their way to the top because if they are determine and Black History proves this – that black person will make it to the top. Black Enterprise decided to be divisive and pick and choose and this caught up with them - very dumb move on their part to be so petty like that.
Avoided Covering Real Black Community Topics to Appease Corporate Advertisers. If you skim through Black Enterprise, you should notice they don't talk about our true black entrepreneurs which is the merchant class in the black community and the backbone and leader and mentor of the black community. Black Enterprise was promoting mostly corporate characters working at white-owned firms or had a big contract with a white firm, not our people in our community doing business and serving black people every day. I had the feeling Black Enterprise believed corporate advertisers would abandon them if they pushed content deemed "too black" for their corporate advertisers to co-sign. But instead of chase revenue from the black merchant class in inner cities, Black Enterprise chose to pursue corporate profits and keep their so-called black business content corporate-friendly.
Presented a Fake Façade of Business Selling Emotion and Status. We already talked about this, the whole motivation, inspiration, ambition storytelling crap and emotion-driven black folks lapping it all up taking about that was a good read and so motivating or inspiring. Pictures of black business people with their arms folded, smiling with all their teeth showing and some happy ass story wanting me and you to admire the person they did the write-up on. Then when you do real business, you find out you don't smile with all your teeth showing, you stay on mission and stay firm and look like someone who have to make tough decisions but you are confident you will make the right call – that's the real look of a business person.
Wait for White People to Validate Us First. Yep, if you take a close look at what Black Enterprise write up, it is hardly original research and they don't have journalist that run into the black community looking for an angle to cover like most publications and stuff like Vice. What Black Enterprise practice is waiting for a white person validate that black person in a white publication and then Black Enterprise appear to follow up and profile that character. You would even see in Black Enterprise, they brag a black person appeared in a white magazine or won some accolades from white people. So this is not only lazy journalism but proof that Black Enterprise is scummy claiming to be about black folks but waiting for white folks to validate them first.
Black Enterprise and those metrosexual morons behind the operation chosen to promote materialism and status like they some Simi Valley high school girls. If you think about it, you should have peeped a lot of cats like the hip-hop entrepreneurs don't even mess with Black Enterprise magazine and a lot of other successful black entrepreneurs don't even mess with Black Enterprise magazine because of they all saw Black Enterprise was about black b*tchness, not black business. Black Enterprise by trying to pick and choose like they some gatekeepers alienated a lot of self-driven self-validating black entrepreneurs who put in real work and let's make it clear – black entrepreneurs don't have to answer to anybody but their own inner calling and the will of God. That is why Black Enterprise is irrelevant and just written as a joke by a whole new generation of young brothas and young sistas that don't even give Black Enterprise magazine a thought.
Let's Cover Some Real Black Business Stuff For a Minute
Look, I know you are tired of hearing how sorry and worthless Black Enterprise magazine is so let's take a break and let Dream and Hustle show you how to really cover and discuss black business and black topics that affect us. So here are two mini-stories on Chicago I think you will find interesting to read and will never see this kind of content
Chicago Black Politicians Resigns to Join AirBnB
Alderman Will Burns has announced he will be leaving Chicago's City Council next month and joining short-term home rental giant Airbnb as senior advisor and director of Midwest policy. Burns has represented the 4th Ward since 2011, a constituency that includes portions of the South Loop, Bronzeville, Kenwood, and Hyde Park.
"I am excited to join the Airbnb team and work to ensure that middle class families can continue sharing their homes and welcoming visitors from across the globe. As a native midwesterner, and longtime Chicagoan, I know firsthand the impact of bringing economic opportunity to new communities and looking forward to continuing that work at Airbnb," Burns said in a statement through Airbnb spokeswoman Catherine Turco.
So, I guess you black folks now realizing that the hyper-gentrification against the black community just got real, huh? I willing to bet there is also other regions with a black urban population they hiring senior advisors and directors too. I mean, why else do they need this guy? He is going to help AirBnB figure out how to get "investors" to buy up locations in wholesale – the Chinese – and let them convert blocks of mostly black residential areas to AirBnB rentals. They can even do mixed-use where some are apartments and others are just furnished units in a phantom name for AirBnB use. And as a result, black folks will find rent too damn high and have to move out to the suburbs. This is not going to take years to execute, this will take only a few months.
Chicago Best Wing Place
From what I saw in the video – this look exactly how the now-defunct Brown's Chicken used to cook their chicken. If I remember correctly because I used to work there, they would soak the chicken in buttermilk overnight, then flour and then re-dip the chicken in a buttermilk batter (think buttermilk biscuit batter) and then move it into a fryer. Now the sauce is just a combination of BBQ and Ketchup – that's what they call mild sauce in Chicago. Peanut oil or sunflower oil is what most people used also but anyway, let's get back to why we talking about this.
Years ago, I blogged on Dream and Hustle how smaller chicken joints basically put the fried chicken franchises out of business and it was one of the most popular articles on Dream and Hustle, believe it or not. This was a real black enterprise article where we discussed how some blacks wanted to own a KFC franchise or Popeye's or Church's and bring that to the hood with a SBA loan and call that job creation. But these business had to follow franchise rules and cook strictly to franchise standards – no mild sauce. Meanwhile, smaller black businesses used local fried chicken techniques and saucing techniques and opened up hole-in-a-wall fried chicken joints that was right down the corner to get and took all the business – franchise had drive-thrus in the hood and you was scared of getting robbed while you was in your car at the drive-thru.
This is a good Black History lesson because the point is you don't need to open a franchise or whatever and appear relevant or credible in the black community. All you have to do is be a local person that have something to offer the black community and what matters is where the black people shop at and do business and they doing business with Uncle Remus – this is not the only location, they have a few all over Chicago. And if you see the video above, that is deep West Side Chicago right there and you see people all cool and stuff – that's my people right there.
Overall, Black Enterprise Magazine Is Just a Corporate-Sponsored Irrelevant Joke
As you see, we talk about real black community matters when it comes to business and our community here at Dream and Hustle and we cover our real people. We don't name-drop or try to promote some status, we let you know what is going on and what to look out for like that AirBnB move I'm suspect about and also how we got small entrepreneurs who are serving the hood and in business. And if you don't want to admit it, we are way better than Black Enterprise garbage on any day and any time.
I'm pretty sure cats are like "I don't know you and what you doing" and I don't know..let me start listing. I do this blog here at Dream and Hustle that been around for 10 years and many black entrepreneurs and black digerati credit me for helping them get into entrepreneurship or into digital careers. I don't just talk about I'm doing, I created a group called the Global Urban Collective where I regularly have sessions with them and showing them techniques and establishing an environment for collaboration and information sharing and it working fine. I have the Black Professionals Network group that I help move from 14,000 members to 70,000 members in 2 years. I just created a new group called Black Living and Wellness to promote a positive black lifestyle. Then I have my own global crew, the 3rd Strategic Institute that does things we don't even publish because we come from hacking backgrounds and now focused on improving people lives economically worldwide. And last I have the Swagg-Scientific Empire that is being launched with over 40+ business models rolling out in 2016. So in case any of you cats want to ask who I am and what I doing, don't just act too stupid when you find out.
See, I don't need Black Enterprise to vouch for me because the hood can vouch for me and people can vouch for me. I don't need a white magazine to write me up because the last I checked, I built up my own network like the 70,000 brothas and sistas at the Black Professional Network to leverage as well as other groups. See, now I made all those cats out there looking to discount me in a comment section mad because they now realize I quietly built up my own empire and channels over the years to make sure the West Side of Chicago get heard if I got something to say and those morons at Black Enterprise are not my gatekeeper.
Oh, I just remember – I did a "How to Code" session where I showed black people how to create a Trusted Service Provider business model and setup their coding environment, didn't I? So with that said, let's do something special for Black History Month since Black Enterprise is an irrelevant joke. I'm going to pre-launch Hustle Space on Google Plus as a pop-up operation that will resemble the magazine/digital operation for our people to enjoy the content and share it over social media. Then as the black social media share our content on business models and our mini-articles and see that we about it, we can just sit back and make sure everybody know what real media focused on black urban communities look like and what a joke Black Enterprise magazine has been as a negative divisive elitist piece of crap that should just get tossed in the trash can somewhere.
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Before I go, let me say something - with the Black Professionals Network and the 70,000 user base the one thing I never done and never will do - I will never prevent content from a person because I don't like that person. You will see people posting Tariq Nasheed Hidden Colors or Jason Black 7AM or Umar Johnson school stuff all up in the group but I do not believe in not allowing these postings because I don't like them. Or even Dr. Boyce Watkins trying to charge $600 for financial education when the black community have financial planners who work for a cheaper rate than $600, I still let those content post to the group. The only person I kicked out of the Black Professionals Network was someone named Tommy Sotomayor who was promoting negative stuff about black women that had no place in a black professional group. But integrity should always be there when it comes to the topic of black business and everybody have a right to pursue business ventures. The one thing that makes me better than Black Enterprise is what I just described - to never allow myself to become so petty to stop another black person hustle, even if I do not agree with that person. Black Enterprise is a disgrace and a joke for even trying to pick and choose like that and that magazine operation can go straight to hell.
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