Fabolous, artist of Throw it in the Bag
Throw it in the bag. Money to blow. These two phrases have bubbled into slogans of some of the most popularized songs in America today. These mottoes display the heedlessness apparent in both the producers and patrons of this music. Taking into account that both the producers and patrons are black and at the same time blacks are afflicted with 4 times the unemployment rates of whites in metropolitan areas, you would think that these would be the last people to encourage each other to throw it in the bag or blow their money (Source: New York Times).
But, this is a complex issue. Black people whom are the participants in this failing equation all suffer from a well-crafted mentality. As a people, the values motivating their movements are defunct. Essentially, values dictate decisions. Over time, these same values will establish a pattern of behavior and these patterns will eventually become modes of operation. Collectively, black people’s value structure is heavily consumer-driven.
We must be careful to note that a consumer is not a role performed in a vacuum. A consumer is a role that must interact with a producer. Usually in economic exchanges, this exchange is mutual.
Here is the caveat. These exchanges will only take place during mutual benefit. If you are forced to purchase dog food at gun-point, you do so because it is beneficial for you to keep your life. And the exchange is beneficial for the producer to be compensated monetarily for the dog food. So as we can see, this economic exchange does not only account for monetary exchanges but psychological needs as well.
If we apply this to the values of black people, we can see how implanted values can mislead us into our very destruction. If black people continue possess an overwhelming absorption and desire obtain expensive clothes, jewelry, cars, fine-dining, alcohol and a host of other useless junk, that will be the only they are left with.
This is the mastery behind the concept. You have producers, who essentially produce junk. And you have a consumer, literally salivating at the chance to acquire their junk.
It becomes a greater concern, because black people are not the producers. Giving money to another black person would not be the death of black people financially, but typically the producers are members of other ethnic groups: white, Chinese, Arab, Hispanic, etc. So in this uneven exchange, black people become the very subsistence of these other groups, while we are left poverty stricken and we squander our opportunities to build wealth. We are left with the lowest savings count, the least amount of assets held. We are hardly business owners and we hardly have anything to offer our generations to come.
In terms of the successful members of our race, our musicians, our athletes or our politicians, you will see a common theme. What brings them to their prominence is the very thing that brings black people to their knees. And for our freedom fighters, what empowers the minds of our people is the very slogan that will become the defilement of their legacy. This is why I often say:
In today’s society and in what terms society regards successful: to be black and successful is to be constructive for whites and/or destructive towards blacks, and to be black and unsuccessful, a failure, is to be destructive towards whites and/or constructive for blacks. For these two go hand in hand.
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