So where is the Black Miami? A growing metropolis where you must do business with us and conform to our culture? Why can’t we have restaurants where the only place you can buy soul food is from us and put one, or several, in every community? When will we be able to forgo the need to buy the latest model Mercedes and Nike Air Jordon’s and pool our money to build our own corporations? These and many other questions brought the tone of the discussion up a few octaves.

 

For decades Blacks were told they couldn’t have material things: Cadillac’s, nice suits, fine jewelry, etc. So being able to buy them is like throwing it in their [white America’s] faces – I can have whatever you have although you’ve tried to do everything in your power for me not to have it, are the cries you’ll hear from many Black American’s. I can shop in the same stores and pull up right next to you in a bigger more luxurious car, is what spills from the wounded and determined voices of Black folks. Around the table, sacrifice was definitely a sensitive area.

 

Figuring It Out

 

“I don’t know about you,” Benjamin replies, “but I’m kind of tired of trying to figure it out. Is it a racist statement or action or, is this person just ignorant or what?” Benjamin’s sentiments were echoed by many. Blacks, for the most part, are tired of trying to decipher the secret code of White America. Many agreed that in a white household they’re sitting around talking shop, talking business; in a black household they’re not doing that. A black person oftentimes does not have a dad who is the head of a large corporation to mentor them. Our culture is different and reflective in the way Blacks interact with Whites and ultimately how we adjust to the corporate environment. And when ones adjustment fails, is it because the black person’s not cut out for the position? Or, like many Black Americans, they were not afforded the opportunity to fully acclimate and assimilate into the White culture due to segregationist mentalities and behaviors? Conversely, have Blacks been so overly sensitized that they have lost the ability to distinguish between racism and constructive criticism?

 

According to James, “White America feels a sense of entitlement.” Could this feeling of entitlement be the very thing that we lack and “the wall” that has wedged its way between Blacks and success? “For some [minorities] they are given the money to get an education, and money to own business, but they think it’s too difficult; generation upon generation were told ‘go get a government job,” states Ratanam.

 

Maybe Blacks need to develop a sense of entitlement. Maybe there should be a reclaiming of what millions of blacks, and other minorities, built over the centuries; this reclaiming could transform into the sense of entitlement that we are seeking or simply, entitled to. Our parents and grandparents needed to teach their children survival skills,” . . . so they told you to go out and save your money, work hard, get a good job and one day you’ll be able to get a car. Whereas other people [tell their children] the world is your oyster, you can do anything you want to do, and you’ll have a car, a boat, a summer home. They’re taught one way and we’re taught another way – so we have to start teaching our people the other way,” explains James. Understanding our place in society and taking stock of what we are entitled to could make the difference between having a government job and having an executive position or privately owned business – which still requires working with White America on one level or another.