Barney Blakeney, Charleston City Paper, March 12, 2008
{snip}
Another participant in the discussion suggested that integration has led to what many consider stagnated economic progress in the black community. The premise is one I’ve heard many times. Before integration, black-owned businesses flourished, the guy said. In the past, Morris Street in downtown Charleston, along with Spring and Cannon streets, was a vibrant center of activity for black business. Those businesses flourished because blacks were unwelcome in many white-owned businesses.
A classic example of how integration caused the demise of many black-owned businesses is the former Dee Dex Snack Bar. During the late 1960s and 1970s, integration opened the doors of fast food restaurants like Piggy Park on Rutledge Avenue and the Patio on Spring Street. Until then, Dee Dex Snack Bar had been the premier fast food restaurant for blacks downtown.
The business was originally located on Calhoun Street where Gaillard Auditorium is now. The auditorium’s construction displaced the snack bar and drugstore owned by the late Deward Wilson and scores of black families. When the business relocated to Spring Street, its business continued to flourish, but its days were numbered.
The old Brooks Motel, formerly located on Morris Street, is another example of how integration has contributed to decreasing numbers of viable black-owned businesses. Built prior to the signing of the Civil Rights Act into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967, the motel accommodated most of the civil rights leaders when they came to Charleston, including Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. Today, there’s no sign of the motel or Brooks Restaurant, across from the motel on Morris Street. Both were demolished to make way for condominiums, which have displaced not only businesses but also families in the traditionally black neighborhood.
While integration has contributed to a reduction in the number of black-owned businesses, I’m convinced that our failure to fully implement integration is the greater culprit. America has never fully integrated its society, and that has left many would-be black entrepreneurs out of the economic loop.
{snip}
Original article
(Posted on March 20, 2008)
Comments
The black journalist Tony Brown wrote in his book about a black who spent all of the money that he had to start a grocery buisness. He hired only blacks. The buisness failed miserably.This is further proof about the abilities of black workers.
Posted by Peejay in Frisco at 6:15 PM on March 20
The article brings to light some interesting points. But it didn’t take the next logical conclusion. Entrepreneurship is hard. Segregation forced blacks to become creative and start businesses, some of which would eventually do quite well. Without the protective structure of segregation described in the article, perhaps it was easier for blacks to simply work for white people. However, the article didn’t mention the fact that many government contracts have special treatment for minority-owned businesses (i.e. they don’t have to be the lowest bidder).
The final paragraph is a major disappointment, and seems like it was written by a different person. Sounds like typical PC garbage about how “wonderful” integration could become. The true end result of integration however would lead to the eventual genocide of all races, so we should be swiftly reject this call for any continuance or expansion of racial integration, pluralism, diversity, or whatever journalists call it these days.
Posted by at 6:54 PM on March 20
So in other words blacks are to blame for black business failures for choosing of their own free will to patronize white owned businesses instead of black owned businesses. I wonder why?
Posted by Robert at 8:10 PM on March 20
Why, Barney Blakeney, who dares even bring this up in the Charleston City Paper, sounds like a real ‘bargainer’. Someone who promises to levy as little guilt on whites as possible, in exchange for friendship perhaps. Cheer up Barney. At least they don’t fire blacks for that. They’re only shamed and rehabilitated.
Posted by at 9:41 PM on March 20
Blacks are equal to whites, right? Well why then do they need white men to do everything for them? Some how or other blacks got the childish idea that other people’s business was their too, just because the other people are white.
The Legend of Black Sports Heroes: Before blacks got justice, the evil white men who didn’t invested his money, time, and energy to organized and produced sports teams, but had it handed to him, wickedly kept the blacks from taking their rightful place in the Universe of Sports Heroes.
Blacks had a God given right to play with whites in the white league. This right was denied them by evil whites. End of discussion. Every time there is TV special about professional sports, the Ken Burns PBS Special being a good example, the whole documentary is two hours of boo hooing about the poor blacks who were not allowed to play with white guys. Well the answer is: the whites got their own league, nobody was stopping the blacks from getting theirs.
I want to see the big TV special about the great clown white basketball guys who wanted to play with the Globe Trotters, Laugh a Minute Sid Reuben, or Pat I’m not Emmett Kelly, but who were “different” and didn’t fit in.
Posted by P Noctura at 10:27 PM on March 20
“America has never fully integrated its society, and that has left many would-be black entrepreneurs out of the economic loop.”
Again it is America’s fault. I read an article in the NYT a while back that brought tears to my eyes…. because it gave a picture how US born blacks kept themselves out of the market place. I think the reasons for this is the something for nothing attitude that came about in the 60’s and is still rampant today….they do not take advantage of the many opportunities right under their nose. They listened to radical anti-america hogwash and play the hate/blame whitey game instead of putting that energy to more productive use and make a contribution to society….Shelby Steele discussed this matter in one of his books and he was right on cue….
Posted by Lisette at 12:19 AM on March 21
I’m in a discussion group and I brought this up and everyone was aghast. I stuck to my guns though. I told them about when integration came about in the south, most black teachers couldn’t pass the state qualification exams to teach and lost their jobs and all the black hotels went down and as is mentioned in the article, black eating establishment folded, etc. They couldn’t believe someone would say these things, but since I brought these things up, people in the group have been thinking over what I said and have told me they’ve changed their minds on the subject and some are even looking into the subject in some depth.
The thing is to keep the discussion civil. If you can do that, you’ve got a chance to change peoples minds. Our group is made up of middle aged people and there is less likely to be emotional outbursts as well.
Tom Iron…
Posted by Tom Iron... at 7:48 AM on March 21
As one who listens to black talk radio and reads the black press, I can attest that blacks fondly recall the days when they had their own neighborhoods.
While many long for the good old days, many have too much invested in the belief that segregation was wrong. Although they want their own businesses and communities, most refuse to admit that they were wrong in demanding integration even though they know integration destroyed their self-sufficient neighborhoods.
Blacks know integration has failed and is making things worse but blacks would rather cut off their own noses out of spite than admit they were wrong.
As I say, the way to destroy blacks is to give them what they want.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 9:41 AM on March 21
As I say, the way to destroy blacks is to give them what they want.
And Zimbabwe and South Africa are prime examples!
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Posted by Brian Deller at 12:10 PM on March 21
Other ethnic groups like Jews, Koreans, Chinese etc, have their own successful businesses and merchant class. It would seem that if blacks had kept on giving their business to black stores their wouldn’t have been such a decline. BUT THEY DIDN’T! It looks like blacks need a captive customer base to thrive.
Posted by at 2:44 PM on March 21
This is a good example of why big business is all in for integration. It’s much easier to market to one demographic than many and integration makes for a bigger single demographic.
Then the article turns farcical with the “the reason integration has failed is because we need more integration” bit. This is the standard liberal excuse after a half century of liberal failure; “we aren’t pure enough!” Reminds me of the circular logic of the Hebrews of the Bible, or the typical huckster witch doctor type (if we sacrifice and good things happen, we owe thanks to the gods, and more sacrifice; if we sacrifice and bad things happen, the gods are upset at our stinginess and we must redouble our sacrifices).
Posted by Svigor at 3:41 PM on March 21
Hasn’t integration hurt all-black neighborhoods also?
The (small) percentage of black people who might actually be good role models for other blacks leave for white neighborhoods the first chance they get. You know what remains.
Posted by Dennis at 3:49 PM on March 21
I live in a mostly White area but if I walked into a business and was greeted by a black owner or even a black employee, I would walk right out. I pulled up to the drive thru at a Krystals about two weeks ago and gave my order. I pulled up to the window and this White woman took my money and walked away to get my order. A black manager at the end of the counter looked at me with these eyes full of hate and came up to the window to ask me what I ordered. In my mind I started thinking this is an odd thing to do and I was pondering how to respond. I told him what I ordered and he went over to where the woman was and took care of my order himself. Needless to say when I got it I threw it in the trash can at the end of the drive thru.
Posted by at 10:34 PM on March 21
This is true. I live in a city that is heavily black, and was segregated at one time. You rarely hear black people, particularly those that were around for segregation, or grew up as it was dismantled, wringing their hands about white flight the way white liberals do.
They bemoan black flight. You can see the evidence of it, too. We have all these great old boulevards that were the black business districts. They lie fallow and abandoned, but you can tell they were once bustling.
People speak fondly of all the great old stores and theatres, the parades that used to run there. Neighborhoods they fretted over and took pride in.
They resent the middle class blacks that moved away. They also resent the whites that move in and try to restore things- the “gentrifiers”! Clearly, they don’t feel it was the presence of whites that made things better back then.
Posted by at 11:04 PM on March 21
“Needless to say when I got it I threw it in the trash can at the end of the drive thru.”
Posted by at 10:34 PM on March 21
You should have cancelled the order at the point where the black anti-white hate-filled manager appeared on the scene.
In my neighbourhood, there’s a Hindu family supermarket and as people know, their prices for some articles can sometimes be lower than multinational supermarkets.
Getting on 6 months ago, I was shopping at this family owned store and happened to find the wire hand basket which is all that’s available, wasn’t big enough to accommodate my purchases. I borrowed a large trolley used by them for stocking shelves and headed towards the checkout. Before I got there, the son, who was evidently running the store in his parents’ absence, told me to remove the goods and place them back in a wire hand basket. Explaining that the hand basket wasn’t large enough didn’t cut it so I ignored him anyway and wheeled the trolley to the empty checkout. Of course, he became agitated and carried on mouthing to the effect that the trolleys were for shop use only, that the store wasn’t big enough to allow for their use and that they’d get in the way of customers at the checkout. I conceded his points ok, but also pointed out that on this one off occasion how could it do any harm since nobody was at the checkout right then so what was the point of his carrying on the argument, etc. Nope, again he was having none of it and added that it was his shop and he could make whatever rules he liked, etc, etc.
Trying to tell him about good customer relations and employing tact in his dealings with them, had him even more agitated. I placed the purchases at the till and waited until he’d rung them all up. When he put his hand out for the money, I turned round and gave him the biggest lecture he’d probably ever had in his life about whose country it is, etc, etc.
A white customer who had since entered the shop, heard most of what I had to say.
It goes without saying, I had tried to be reasonable with the Hindu, but was forced to tell him, in the nicest possible way, of course, where he could stick his merchandise and that if he continued showing such blatant disrespect and lack of appreciation for people’s custom, he shouldn’t be surprised if his parents’ customers started drifting away.
Of course, my boycott of the store is permanent and I tell everyone I know who lives in the vicinity, about what happened, too.
Posted by A Swain at 4:11 PM on March 23
While A Swain is right in not going back to the store where he was rudely treated, he should have allowed the Hindu to ring up the items, and then simply walked out, leaving the insolent jerk to first clear the register and then restock the shelves.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 7:36 PM on March 24
I don’t think integration has left black entrepeneurs “out of the economic loop,” as the article says. I suspect it has resulted in the successful ones moving to the suburbs. Of course, miles of empty storefronts in the black urban neighborhoods they left have done nothing good for the property values in these areas, which can only have accelerated the economic downturn, but let’s face it; the blacks remaining in the inner cities are accustomed to having everything done for them, and the “would-be entrepeneurs” remaining have a very high proportion of drug dealers and pimps among their number.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 1:37 PM on March 25
“….he should have allowed the Hindu to ring up the items, and then simply walked out, leaving the insolent jerk to first clear the register and then restock the shelves.”
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 7:36 PM on March 24
That’s precisely what I did do although I probably didn’t make terribly clear in my post looking back on it.
Posted by A Swain at 12:19 AM on March 27
