I'd be more the happy to reply. I mean all woman, anyone a monthly visitor or an XX chromosome or who ever just looks better in a dress. (I'm in New York so that last one could get a bit dodgey.)
I've had four businesses in my life time. Two of them were decidedly Black oriented, geared towards the on-again/off-again "buy black" ideal. Know what happenned? No one Black bought Black. Okay, let's be fair about thta one: Not enough people of African decent purchased or created a customer based to sustain the businesses.
I was selling artwork at one time - artwork of Black heroes then an now. Me and two artists invested money and time creating original works of Black heroes and figured we could sell them at events, online, demonstrations, and Black organization. Do you know who my direct competition was? Koreans. (I am not even joking about that one - at the time, which was 1996, it shocked the hell out of me too.)
While I was losing my investment bit by bit and the other guys went from enthusiastic to feeling like they were over a dead horse working the whip (and they were quite justified), the Koreans who were selling African artwork, pictures of our Black heroes (that were not original at all - you could find the same pictures all over New York City) where growing while we were going broke. Do you know who was buying from these Koreans? Black people. (I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.)
Another business i was in was selling hair. Now that one did pretty good. Once we were up and running we were turning a decent profit. Apparently if you say the magic words "Indian Remi" it's like a siren's song to the sistahs. However, that too was a fickled business and stuff just happened that I won't go over.
Or, let's look at this site. Here's what I can tell you without even having to lift a finger to do any amount of research. This site seems to have something to the tune of 30K members. I bet it doesn't have 30k Premium members. Rescue me if I'm wrong on this? I bet there are plenty of arguements about the plight of the Black race (because places like this love their discussions on the "plight of the black race") but I bet the networking is practicually zero to none - or at a number so small it would take a calculator app to quantify it.
Let's be clear no what I mean by networking. Not hi-fiving each other in a chat thread, not giving each other praise for great artwork or wonderful ideas. By "networking" i mean financially supporting each others is such a way as to ensure fiscal stability and economic growth. 30k people can do that in leaps and bounds - it just not that hard at all with that number of people connected to one place. If everyone just bought one item from each other, they would make each other quite comfortable. Hell, if just half the number of member did it, everyone would be happy. But I do not have to ask or look at the back end. I already know. It ain't happening.
I'm 51 years old and did the "Black Power" thing for years - my father who was one of the few Black men who actually participated in things of the 1960's many others lie that butts off about would never let us forget. I literally learned at the
feat of people like Dr. John Henrick Clarked and Ivan Van Sertima. You are speaking with someone who literally read both volumns of Black Athena, and know the Isis Papers like tweeners know the words to a Pop song. What I am clear on is if you're going to make money, you cannot use Black people alone as a niche market. That is not true in every single case, but it's true enough to make me know that
if I want to move forward in a money making effort that is not negative rap or drugs or products to make you look as far away from Black as possible, there is no way to do it and rely on Black people. It was true in my youth, true when I was a young adult, and it's true now.
So when I say "women" I mean all woman. No race, country of origin nor adult age gets left behind on this. And after my experience I am making absolutely no apologies for it. Indeedy.
Umar H. Soaries
overexposedinc(dot)com