Transcription
By 1990, Americans of African descent were a far different people than they had been at the dawn of this century. Different in what way? Once perceived as primarily a rural group with limited disposable income, African Americans, by the last decade of the 20th century, were free-spending, pronouncedly urban people. That's how they were different. They went from poor people out in the boonies to big spenders out in the city.
Despite this reality, however, advertising and marketing literature continued to discuss and document an ongoing insensitivity toward black consumers. Even when black consumers were duly recognized, the consequences were often mixed. For instance, the re-emergence of the blaxploitation movie genre, albeit in a different form, captivated a new generation of African-American moviegoers. So, he's saying that even when African-Americans were finally recognized by these industries, that recognition often came in an unhealthy form. A form that helped condition the new generation of blacks. And he's referring to things like the blaxploitation movies, which capitalized on black suffering for profit, as we're going to see in a bit.
Also, an accelerated interest in black consumers by white purveyors of personal care products and insurance put even greater strain on black-owned businesses operating in these areas. That's the white companies continuing to move into the African-American beauty market like they did in the '70s and '80s. And the result of them moving in, plus many African-Americans supporting that move, made it tough for black-owned businesses to survive.
As a result, a growing number of African-Americans are questioning the relationship between the black community and white-controlled companies. What was one of the questions? What is the black community actually getting in return for giving so much money to these outside corporations? After the high of excitement and the Martin Luther King I Have a Dream feeling started to wear off, some people were beginning to question what was really happening.
It remains to be seen if today's black consumers can indeed exert more substantive power in contemporary America. It remains to be seen if blacks can organize their spending power into a power that actually benefits them. This was in 1998 when he said this. And Dr. Williams is still alive today to see how it played out. Think about it. Then let's move on.
Many black films produced during the late 1980s and early 1990s were a manifestation of the anger expressed by African Americans in the wake of Simi Valley. Simi Valley is the city in California where the jury acquitted those police officers who mauled Rodney King. Tore him up. And he's saying that the movies produced during that period were manifestations of the anger that arose from events like this and also from larger frustration of black urban life.
Movies such as Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood, and Matty Rich's Straight Outta Brooklyn graphically chronicled the travails and frustrations of late 20th century black urban life. Critics of these films tended to decry their overtly violent content. In fact, the gang-oriented violence featured in Boyz n the Hood and New Jack City, another film of this genre, apparently led to gang-oriented violence at movie theaters across America in 1991. This stuff is wild. The images activated in their minds and started manifesting outside the screen in real life.
Despite the association of these new black films with violence, their supporters asserted that they merely reflected reality, however unpalatable. John Singleton, when interviewed for the July 29th, 1991 issue of Newsweek about violence at showings of his Boyz n the Hood and at black movies in general, responded, "It wasn't the film that caused violence. It was the fact that a whole generation of black men doesn't respect themselves. It makes it easier for them to shoot each other. This is a generation of kids who don't have father figures." Sounds like something someone would say today, doesn't it? The coil of life keeps twisting and turning. "They're looking for their manhood and they get a gun. The more of these people that get together, the higher potential for violence. Some people want black filmmakers to make films about black people sitting up in churches and singing." Clapping hands and foot stomping to Jesus. "That's safe to older bourgeois black people. And it's safe to some liberal-minded white people. But I'm not going to make films like that because that's not what I see my friends doing." He said he's not doing that. This is a new entity in town.
Regardless of whether one was a critical or supporter of such films as Boyz n the Hood, one fact that had nothing to do with perceptions of reality remained crystal clear. And what was that? Black movies were made or not made on the basis of profitability. That was the target. To make profits, just like we talked about in earlier commentaries. So, if profits were the target and creating movies that reflected violence and the lower appetites were the flying arrows to hit that target, then guess what? That's what they're going to shoot.
The fact that Boyz n the Hood grossed more than $60 million from an investment of $6 million clearly indicated a strong market existed for such a product. Now, if the movie only grossed like $7 million, then guess what that would have indicated? The exact opposite. That a weak market existed for such a product. But it beamed. And it opened up a ton of treasure chest. And that let them know that this is what the people wanted to see.
Moreover, Hollywood investors, with their bottom line mentality, intended to do what was necessary to fully exploit this apparent demand. The demand was already there. So, their job was to take advantage of it and make the most profit while it was still hot. As Spike Lee, the dean of contemporary African-American filmmakers, bluntly told Time in a June 17th, 1991 article about the resurgence of black-oriented films, "Black films will be made as long as they make money." Do you see that? Not as long as it creates healthy mental images and not as long as it helps build up that community. Now, that's not to say that he won't make those types of films, but the bottom line boils down to this. As long as it makes money. And it only makes money if people open up the treasure chest and hand over the tokens. Because it takes two to make a thing go right. And both parties have a say-so in the deal.
During the early 1990s, African-Americans continued to represent a disproportionately large segment of Hollywood's consumer base. While blacks constituted approximately 12% of the US population, their ticket purchases accounted for more than 25% of Hollywood's estimated $4.6 billion film revenue in 1990. So, proportionately, blacks opened up the treasure chest more than everyone else. There was a black to non-black movie spending gap here. Black people were only about 12% of the population, but they accounted for more than 25% of Hollywood's film revenue. Do you see that?
Although there were distinct parallels between 1970s blaxploitation films and black-oriented films of the 1990s, perhaps the major difference between the two eras was the 1990s focus on crossover marketability. What does he mean? Unlike such earlier films as Shaft, Superfly, and The Mack, which appealed almost exclusively to African-American moviegoers, movies like Do the Right Thing, Boyz n the Hood, and even Malcolm X were viewed by a significant number of whites. In the '70s, whites weren't really interested in watching black movies like that. But then in the '90s, many more of them sat in front of the screen to get programmed, too. Now, image entities of black culture had a chance to get active in their mind, as well.
There were a variety of sociological, psychological, and economic reasons for this phenomenon. Talk about it. During the 1980s, those African-Americans who did not materially benefit from the civil rights movement increasingly attracted the attention of both scholars and the nation's mass media. For many white Americans, the existence of a growing urban black underclass seemed startling, especially because the mass media, since the late 1960s, had projected an image of African-American progress by focusing upon the exploits and salaries of various black athletes and entertainers. So, apparently, many whites weren't used to seeing the growing black underclass at this time. Because since the late 1960s, they had been accustomed to media images of black progress through the athletes and the entertainers.
It was in this setting that Spike Lee, a film director with an admittedly limited grasp of the social, political, and economic nuances of African-American life, became what one observer described as an information conduit to whites seeking to know more about the urban black experience. He gave them access into the black urban world, which they knew little about. He helped soothe their curiosity.
Lee's film Do the Right Thing, released in 1989, focused on life in a black Brooklyn neighborhood. It quickly became a major crossover hit. Uh-oh. In fact, the entire July 6th, 1989 edition of ABC News' Nightline program focused on the movie and its impact on the country. As the show's moderator, Forrest Sawyer, noted in the program's introduction, "This film is making America listen, and talk, even argue, about one of the most painful problems of our society." Besides the educational nature of films such as Do the Right Thing, black films of the late 1980s and early 1990s reached a crossover audience because they accentuated the growing impact of black culture on the psyche of some young whites. Meaning what? The black culture images began rooting in the minds of young whites. And what happens when they root? They start influencing behavior. Observe.
During this period, undoubtedly to the consternation of white parents, hip-hop, or rap, became the preferred music of millions of white teenagers and young adults. Millions of white teenagers now had their minds colonized by these images. Their parents were disturbed. Disturbed as they watched hip hop and rap become the preferred music of their children. But being disturbed was not enough. These white teenagers were providing new homes for these entities to multiply. And multiply they did. By the millions.
Through rap music videos on such venues as MTV, even suburban whites could get a glimpse of the lifestyle of urban black home boys. While some of these inner-city images were, perhaps, contrived to accentuate the marketing appeal of certain groups, the unique language and clothing associated with hip hop and rap culture captivated young people of all races. Because race has nothing to do with whether the mind can be invaded by these images. It does not care. Once they root in the mind, they start influencing people to sing the lyrics, to speak the lingo, and also to wear the clothes.
Because of rap music's crossover appeal, it did not take Hollywood long to discover that this music genre could be profitably melded into the movie industry. As Elvis Mitchell, a noted African-American media critic, told the New York Times magazine in a July 14th, 1991 article about the black film resurgence, When Hollywood realized that white kids were really into rap, and don't kid yourself, that's the audience the studios are really lusting for, a little light went on. Hey, we can make money from black culture? You see that? Now, let's keep going.
The 1990s African-American community, like its 1970s counterpart, has reaped little, if any, monetary benefits from its disproportionately massive patronage of Hollywood productions. Consequently, blaxploitation, in an economic sense, has remained alive and well. Although many recent black-oriented films have been shot on location in urban African-American enclaves and have provided short-term business opportunities for neighborhood entrepreneurs, most of the money associated with the production of these films has ended up in non-black hands. For instance, in 1995, there were fewer than 10 black-owned movie theaters in the United States. In the 1970s, he mentioned that there was less than 20. Then more got devoured. So, in 1995, there were now fewer than 10. And here's the kicker.
Thus, the vast majority of contemporary African-American moviegoers, paradoxically, spend their money at downtown and suburban cinema multiplexes to see films about life in the hood. They didn't open the treasure chest for the black ones. They opened it for the white ones. Now, the downtown cinema didn't make laws and legal codes saying that they were required to spend their tokens there. They simply provided an opportunity, and African-Americans acted on that opportunity. Now, let's move on.
Increased white competition represented a serious problem for black-owned companies, not only in the cosmetics and personal care products industry, but also in the insurance industry. In fact, since the 1970s, the collective plight of black-owned insurance companies had grown increasingly desperate. By the 1990s, black insurance companies, in comparison to the broader industry, were suffering from shrinking total assets, shrinking premium income, and a shrinking workforce. Watch this.
Even more illustrative of African-American insurers' woes is the increasing disappearance of individual companies. Between 1984 and 1995, the number of black-owned insurance companies decreased by 30% from 36 to 22. A decline just like the number of movie theaters declined. Not enough financial support.
Notwithstanding America's implementation of a one-way version of racial desegregation, which promoted greater interaction between white companies and black consumers, but not the opposite. Black insurers' present-day problems can be traced to the related factors of economy of scale and product diversity. Put simply, larger white companies can offer black consumers both more economical policies and a wider army of coverage choices. And this works because black consumers were looking at the immediate deal. Cheaper prices, more options, and better convenience. Which makes sense at the individual level. But what they were not considering was the long-term implications of doing that at the community level. Because over time, it drains the customer base from the black insurers. And it weakens them. So the seduction here is taking the short-term individual benefit at the expense of the long-term community benefit. You see?
Despite the gloomy overall picture, the four largest black insurance companies, North Carolina Mutual of Durham, North Carolina, Atlanta Life of Atlanta, Georgia, Golden State Mutual of Los Angeles, California, and Universal Life of Memphis, Tennessee, continue to keep their heads slightly above water. Still, it remains to be seen if they and their smaller counterparts will survive into the 21st century. And out of these four, Atlanta Life appears to be the only one still operating. The other three went to the grave. Universal Life died in 2001. Golden State Mutual died after 2009. And North Carolina Mutual died in 2022.
Ironically, while an increasing number of black-owned enterprises were disappearing from the landscape of American business, the increasing spending power of their former black clients and customers received center-stage attention in the July 1996 issue of Black Enterprise. In what was dubbed the consumer empowerment issue, readers were told in an article titled The Real Black Power. Which was what? While corporate America benefits from the dollars African-Americans spend, we haven't done enough to leverage that spending clout. The fact is that once harnessed, African-American dollars can be the difference between profit and loss for any consumer product on the market today. Does that sound familiar to anyone? Same coil, different decade.
Even more important, given our current sociopolitical climate, aside from our voting power, our buying power is the only major leverage we have left. Pay attention. Black Enterprise went on to cite the Dallas-based Black Consumer Organization of America, BCOA, as an important contemporary effort to systematically harness African-American consumer spending. As BCOA president Darlene Edwards Beecham told the magazine, "We underestimate the power we do have. We need to figure a way to muscle that power." Same stuff over and over.
The venerable National Association of Market Developers, NAMDI, too, in recent years has intensified its efforts on behalf of African-American consumers. This long-time intermediary between corporate America and black shoppers, comprised primarily of African-American marketing and advertising professionals, is seeking to use its influence to affect a more reciprocal economic relationship between US corporations and the black community. Individual members have been challenged to urge their respective companies and clients to invest more resources in African-American enclaves. Despite the good intentions of organizations like the National Association of Market Developers and the Black Consumer Organization of America, the task before them seems especially daunting. For two reasons. First, actually getting enough people in the African-American community to participate is daunting all by itself. What ends up happening is you get a few Kims that try to move an entire Parkmont second wave in a certain direction. And we know how that turns out. The values are not aligned. So, the effort ends up burning people out. And the second reason is that even if the people did get on board, the black businesses were decreasing. So, there were not many areas left to actually redirect the money. That's why Dr. Weems says the task before them seemed especially daunting.
Contemporary African-American consumers, despite their increased collective spending power, appear to have less leverage than their forebears. How? For instance, during the enormously successful Montgomery bus boycott, local African-Americans not only withheld their patronage of city buses, but increased their patronage of various African-American enterprises. This dual strategy ultimately helped them achieve victory. Yet the ongoing disappearance of historically black-owned businesses leaves today's African-American consumers all but totally dependent on white and other non-black enterprises for goods and services. You see that? They went too far into dependency. So, unlike the '60s, when they boycotted and they closed the treasure chest, they could still use their tokens to support other black-owned businesses. But in the '90s here, they didn't have that same opportunity.
Thus, the July 1996 issue of Black Enterprise, which linked black consumer empowerment to making purchases that directly or indirectly positively affect black-owned businesses, brings to mind the folk maxim, "It's too late to close the barn door when the horse is gone." The horse that's already gone is the independent black business foundation. And the barn door is the strategy that's supposed to keep the money flowing towards those businesses. So, he's asking, "Is it too late to start redirecting spending power when the businesses that were supposed to receive that spending are already gone?" It's like trying to change the locks on the door after the house has already been broken into.
One positive development in the midst of an increasingly disturbing scenario is a resurgence of interest in African-American consumer cooperatives. One such company, Black Heritage Products Incorporated, based in Greensboro, North Carolina, offers members a wide variety of black manufactured products. Moreover, the company seeks to combine the traditional consumer cooperative with multi-level marketing. In its October/November 1996 newsletter, Black Heritage Products offered the following rationale for its existence. Presently, we only retain in the black community 7 cents of each dollar made by us. Just like Dr. Claud Anderson said, the money doesn't bounce in the community. Only 7 cents of every dollar remains. The other 93 cents are spent with people that return no value, no support, no concern. But it does bounce like crazy into the other communities. It's madness. Black Heritage Products is in existence to stop this madness. Remember, when we stop willingly giving our money away, we all will start to prosper.
Despite the logic behind Black Heritage Products and similar enterprises, it remains to be seen if they can ultimately attract enough black consumer support to truly compete with white-owned businesses. I didn't find any reliable information showing whether Black Heritage Products actually survived or went into the grave, so I don't know the outcome here.
As the 20th century draws to a close, it is clear that since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, increased black consumerism has produced some serious negative consequences for the African-American community. Individual African-Americans possess more consumer goods than ever before. That's on the individual level. Still, if one were to take a stroll through most urban black enclaves in America, one would be hard-pressed to see where increased African-American spending has improved the infrastructure and the ambiance of these neighborhoods. Which is one of the reasons why those areas became vulnerable to gentrification. Black neighborhoods often sit in some sticky parts of the city. And a lot of people want those areas. So, the outsiders, they look at it and they say, "Well, if the African-American spending hasn't improved the infrastructure and the ambiance of these neighborhoods, then we'll just come on in and renovate the places ourselves. Right? And then afterwards they raise the prices, which squeeze out the older residents and get them out of there.
Black consumers, who now spend the vast majority of their money in shiny downtown and suburban shopping malls, enhance the economic basis of these outside areas to the detriment of their own enclaves. It is what it is. This self-destructive tendency raises the question, is the slow but steady destruction of urban black America and its businesses too steep a price to pay for unrestricted African-American consumerism? For contemporary African-Americans who would answer yes, the future demands the development of strategies that will stimulate more constructive economic activity within the black community. A truly free people possesses the power to produce as well as to consume.
So looking back at slavery, we see how those who were forced to identify as blacks were put inside a situation where they were completely dependent on the master. Dependent pretty much for every essential need to survive. And they had no choice. Then after emancipation, they were segregated and excluded in their own world. And in that world they built businesses, they built communities, and they had the necessary essentials to make it on their own. Then in the '60s we see the road opened up to a world that was once largely forbidden. And the assumption was that this was the way out of the pit. So little by little they chose to leave the old stomping ground to root themselves into that new world. And when some looked around and realized what happened, they saw the road back had been closed and barricaded behind them. And through the barricades, they can see just how much the old foundation was gone. Thus, the economic shackles appeared. Tightly clamped with the colonial grip. There are many roads that lead out of the pit. But there's only one exit. And that was not it. So with that, we close the book. And we pick up with the last one in the next commentary. I thank you for your time and attention. My name is Brooklyn Saint Michael. And I'll see you in the free world.