A recording of NLP's live conversation at Invest Fest in Atlanta! Hosts Angela Rye, Tiffany Cross, and Andrew Gillum are joined by Rev. Jamal Bryant and Dr. Key Hallmon to discuss the impact of the recent Target Fast and how Black entrepreneurs can thrive.
If you’d like to submit a question, check out our tutorial video: http://www.instagram.com/reel/C5j_oBXLIg0/ and send to @nativelandpod.
Welcome home y’all!
—---------
We want to hear from you! Send us a video @nativelandpod and we may feature you on the podcast.
Watch full episodes of Native Land Pod here on YouTube.
Native Land Pod is brought to you by Reasoned Choice Media.
Thank you to the Native Land Pod team:
Angela Rye as host, executive producer and cofounder of Reasoned Choice Media; Tiffany Cross as host and producer, Andrew Gillum as host and producer, and Lauren Hansen as executive producer; Loren Mychael is our research producer, and Nikolas Harter is our editor and producer. Special thanks to Chris Morrow and Lenard McKelvey, co-founders of Reasoned Choice Media.
Theme music created by Daniel Laurent.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Natively and pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
with Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome home.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Y'all all right, we got some fans and the Bill
and I heard a distant welcome home. We are thrilled
to be in the ATM shoty. We got a couple
of guests coming up that we're absolutely thrilled to have
joining us today.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Some of you all know.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Him from some viral videos where he's preaching the word
every single Sunday. Others of you may know him from
the latest action around Target the Target Fast. It is
none other than Reverend doctor Jamal Bryant in the building.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Jamal, come on and also joining us.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Oh he got and last, but certainly not least, we
have doctor Lakeisha key Helman from Village Market, Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
I know y'all have been that way.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Okay, yes, okay, So again you all. We are the
Native Land Pod where we shoot with iHeart every single week.
Our podcast drop on Thursday, and today we're having a
(01:25):
really important conversation. We are at invest Fest, so we
want to have a conversation about the black dollar turning
over in our own community. So I'm gonna start with you,
doctor Bryant. We saw a really big development this week
in the Target fast.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Can you talk to the people.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
A little bit about what happened and where black folks
should go from here?
Speaker 5 (01:46):
Before he answers that, can we just do a quick survey.
How many of y'all have stopped shopping at Target in
the wake of their boycott? Very good? How many of
y'all snuck off once or twice? I think get Ain't
nobody gonna see you?
Speaker 6 (02:03):
We see you.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Come on down to the halter.
Speaker 7 (02:07):
Let me first say thank you to the community for
making this happen. This is a significant moment for this generation.
You have officially taken the torch from the civil rights
era to this movement. It's the most effective economic boycott
for black people in seventy years, which you give yourselves
(02:28):
a big hand for doing it. This week it was
announced that the president of Target was stepping down. It's
not true. He's stepping aside. The COO is now the
CEO and he is now the chairman of the board.
So Target is rewarding bad behavior. But I want to
(02:50):
thank you in spite of all of that, because you
have not gone to Target. For the last four months,
Target has lost twelve billion.
Speaker 6 (02:59):
Dollars because of you.
Speaker 7 (03:01):
The stock has dropped from one hundred and forty five
dollars a share to ninety three.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
Dollars a share because of you.
Speaker 7 (03:09):
I want you to know the CEO's salary has been
slashed by forty two percent. But what we want to
talk about today, if we could do all of that
directing money away from a big box corporation. What could
we do if we put all of that energy and
all of that economy into black businesses.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
And I'm believing that we're going to do it in
this generation and in this year.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Well, we were talking backstage because a lot of black
brands Key are in Target and they're directly impacted by this.
Our really good friend friend of the show, a Rattler,
a FAM You grad like our brother Andrew Gilliam here. Yeah, exactly,
always represent Fam You. I hear some tears for Fam
You in the back, gorelous. But she, Melissa Butler, owns
(03:56):
the lip bar and she's impacted not only by these
tear from the Trump administration but also by the boycott.
So she's getting it from both ends. What is the
impact on black brands when we boycott, or the stories
like Target and how can we continue to support them?
So they are not a casualty of what we see
(04:18):
happening with Target.
Speaker 8 (04:20):
So first, I'm so excited to be here. Can I
say welcome home? I've been wanting to say it.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
So welcome home, y'all.
Speaker 8 (04:27):
But one of the things that makes Melissa Lipbar so
special is that while she's in a massive retailer such
as Target, she also has direct to consumer, so she
has a way that you can directly buy from her.
When we think about the impact of boycotts, it's more
so the impact of the infrastructure that our businesses do
not have. I think that we always have to position ourselves.
(04:50):
While we may get in mass retail, do we have
our own enterprises just in case the tithes change. And
one thing that has helped Melissa is that. So what
I want to empower all of you all to have.
You can have aspirations to be in big retail, that's fine,
but you shall also have your own infrastructure that if
something happens in corporate America that we're seeing now, that
you could still self sustain.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
True, you know, So we were talking a backstage, how
you balance with a boycott where we hold corporations responsible
to be responsive to the people who are keeping them
Afloat the black dollar, I don't even know if we
should call it the black dollar. I mean, it's a
green dollar bill, and we're not spending it the way
we should within the black community in and of itself.
(05:35):
Black folks, we are ingenious, We are creators, We are inventors.
We are folks who own businesses even when we don't
have storefronts to speak of. And unfortunately, the corporations that
currently run the landscape in this country in the world
don't always do right by us by respecting us and
(05:57):
the way in which we spend our dollar. That's how
it was so we easy when Trump threatened corporations for
them to walk away and say, look, we don't have
a emphasis on black people anymore. They dropped it like
it was a hot iron, right, And so I guess
the question for me becomes when we walk away from
the corporation, at least, whether it's for a period.
Speaker 6 (06:17):
Of time or we make that break permanently.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
My guess is, or at least my suspicion is, is
that we are still taking our black slash green dollar
and spending it yet with another large, largely white, multinational corporation.
How do we get into the hands of consumers people
like us, the information that we need to make smart
(06:41):
decisions around. Okay, if I'm not going to target, I'm
not going to continue to cause offense by just moving
that dollar over the Walmart. I'm gonna take that dollar
and I'm gonna put it toward a business that is
black owned or majority shareholder black owned, or forty percent
black owned. That gets us closer to recycling that dollar
(07:01):
right back into our community.
Speaker 8 (07:03):
Andrew, you speak of something that has always historically worked
in our communities for us, by us, we spend with us.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
So it's less about.
Speaker 8 (07:11):
The respect of Corporate America, but the respect that we
have for ourselves. It's the respect that how we are
intentional with how we spend our money. I think what
we have to make sure that we're not chasing behind
Corporate America to make a shift when the power lies
and our ability that every time that we hit pay
we can direct where that spending is. So there's a
(07:34):
notion of voting with your dollars. We can wield our
power to spend with our own communities.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
That has always.
Speaker 8 (07:40):
Sustained us and it will always sustain us.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
I want to go to this point really quick. I
want to do a little bit of a focus group
in here. If you all own a business, can you
raise your hands?
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Look at this room?
Speaker 6 (07:54):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
So let me ask you all this.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Do you only want want the money to come to
you when we're boycotting another entity?
Speaker 4 (08:04):
Say yes or no?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Okay, you want the money to come to you regardless.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Right, So, hopefully what we can do today, and.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Y'all we kind of pre potted already, but we talked
about this idea of what it means to not just.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Operate for our good when we're punishing the white entity.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
It's also about how we build in this room with
all you black, brilliant business owners, how we support you,
whether that's with investments, whether it's with buying a product
or purchasing some type of a service, contracting with.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
You for a service. That's the work of this panel. Now.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
This needs to be a strategy session almost where we
can figure out how we best support y'all. I don't
know if we have mikes. If we have mikes, it
would be great to open that up.
Speaker 7 (08:48):
But yeah, I think that it's mindful that one of
the largest real estate holders on the planet is the
Catholic Church. The second global aid is McDonald. They're not
selling Hamburgers, that flipping real estate. There are twenty six
thousand Black churches across the country kid as registered. It's
(09:11):
probably about fifty thousand, but it's twenty six thousand Black
churches that registered. They got paperwork, and most of those
Black churches are only open two to three days a week.
One of the things that we piloted through this Target
Fast is we turned the megachurches into black malls.
Speaker 6 (09:28):
So during Juneteenth.
Speaker 7 (09:29):
Weekend and then Resurrection weekend, we took one hundred vendors
and took them into Black churches in five different cities.
I think that the Black church has a role to
play that is central because of what I keep touting.
If the Black church only talks about black economics during
the offering, then it's a Ponzi scheme. But there's got
(09:50):
to be an economic development strategy of how it is
that we incubate these businesses so that they don't have
to go to a share space, but they can go
right to the fellowship hall. Black churches are in all
of our communities, and if they're not talking about economic development,
then they are a part of gentrification because they've got
(10:10):
to reverse the cycle of what is taking place. And
if the black preacher is only talking about tithing and
not talking about investing and saving and entrepreneurship, then we're
doing a disservice. I'll close by saying Desmond Tutu said,
at the end of every year, the poor people in
the community should vote to see whether the church is
(10:32):
open the next year. If that vote happened, I wonder
how many of our churches will be able to stay open.
And so I think that we've got to bring the
Black denominations together in settings like this to say how
can we do a partnership with my sister Key has
been doing all over Georgia and all over the country.
I think that the Black church has got to take a.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
Page from it.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I want to struck by you talking about the Black
church at this moment right now, Reverend Bryant, because the
twin spirit of economic development is really community development, and
we are at a very dangerous time right now where
we're seeing our civil rights being rolled back. And so
while people are building, you know, individual empires and brands.
(11:17):
We want to invest in our safety and our community.
And I will tell you while I'm here from Washington,
d C. Where there has been a federal takeover, thank you,
I see you, DC. Uh, there's been a federal takeover
of a black city, and I'm here.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
There might have been a siren sound tiff and not
a woo like a holler like at this point, it's
a siren.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, it's And he's already declared that he is coming
to Baltimore, Chicago, and Oakland. So this terror, this tyranny,
this authoritarianism is coming soon to a city near you.
So something that we've talked about on Native lamdpod, which
by the way, is the number one downloaded podcast at
our across all platforms on Apple. So if you don't subscribe,
(12:04):
please subscribe because we talk about this every week. One
thing that I want to know that we've talked about
is what price are you willing to pay? Because you
all have shut down kind of targets. I'm sure the
air Board of Directors is not happy with what's going on.
If we can do that to target, how can we
reclaim our power in this moment for a generation that
(12:26):
we are only used to gaining rights. We are not
used to losing rights, and that's what's happening. And I'm
concerned that we're not paying enough attention. So I want
to know from an economic perspective, key, how we can
make an impact on our civil rights, how else we
can hold the private sector accountable? And I want to
know from a Black church perspective, what role does the
(12:46):
Black church play at this very dangerous moment we're in
right now, Tiffining.
Speaker 8 (12:52):
What you're talking about is coalition building at this particular
time that we end individualism would be catastrophic for us.
It always has been the collective, the community model, the
village model is our way to solve the ills of
this time and the times to come. But when we
think about concentrated economics, it is what happens when we
(13:16):
spend our money on our communities. And I think Angela
just spoke on this. We can't decide to choose us
when we're mad at white people. We can't choose to
spend with us because we're protesting, of boycotting or fasting.
The choice of love has to be consistent. We have
to choose each other because we love each other, not
(13:38):
as a response out of anger.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Now, now let me say this.
Speaker 8 (13:43):
If target is what brought you to the movement, it
can't be what keeps you in the movement. We have
to have a sustained effort to patronize our businesses in
Since over one hundred and fifty years, the wealth gap
for the black community has actually widened. In the time
(14:03):
of enslavement, we own zero point five percent of the
economic wealth in this country. One hundred and fifty one
hundred and sixty years later, we at one point five
percent in this country. So we know that this is
economic warfare. So we have to choose to spend our
money responsibly and diligently on our community.
Speaker 7 (14:24):
I would say from the faith based in is look
at what happened. The Montgomery bus boycott was a year
and a day and every night for a year and
the day they went back to the church. What nobody
talks about out of the Montgomery bus boycott is three
mechanic shops were opened from those who used to work
(14:45):
for the bus company and lost their job.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
But say, let's figure out a way that we can
do it.
Speaker 7 (14:49):
Secondly, what nobody gives credit to is out of the
Montgomery bus boycott was the first ubers.
Speaker 6 (14:56):
They started their own.
Speaker 7 (14:59):
At high taxi services, driving people around. And so I
think in this moment, you can't fight well when you're angry.
You have to fight when you're sober of mind. Is
we have to think about the fact that Angel and
I talked about it.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
This the first time.
Speaker 7 (15:14):
In the history of black people that while in a boycott,
we push people to go to another white owned store.
Speaker 6 (15:22):
We've never done that ever.
Speaker 7 (15:23):
So we high five and about Costco and not realizing
that seventy years past Montgomery Bus boycott, we have no
nationally franchised business. So we've got to think about how
do we franchise and scale not just for individual wealth,
but we also have to have a pregnant pause. That
brought us to Target is that we spend twelve million
(15:44):
dollars a day in Target and I can't find a
black business where we spend that amount of money in commerce.
So we've got to figure out how do we employ ourselves,
how do we strengthen ourselves, and how do we incubate
The Patel family say in family here in the country,
they owned forty seven percent of all Moltil lodges.
Speaker 6 (16:06):
They did it by.
Speaker 7 (16:07):
Doing cooperative economics within their families. They lived in the hotel,
somebody else was the chef, somebody else was the maid,
somebody else worked at the front desk. If you are
lonely at the top, it's only because you took nobody
with you. So try to figure out how do we
build each other up and strengthen somebody else's business.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
So I want to pick pick up a thread from
where you left, uf Bishop. There's something happening in our
mentality that causes us to say white is right. There's
a brand that we're continuing to chase when we choose
to boycott this store and frankly make a gent on
(17:01):
that one institution. But as a whole, white people are
still getting the betters at the end of the day
and are still not having to do service to us
in exchange for that sacrifice that we're making.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
So I'd love for you all to address.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
What you think it is that might be, and frankly,
for our audience, I want to applaud you because y'all
are all choosing to be in the right place today.
Y'all chose building Black wealth and economic strategy for.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
Your Saturday conversation.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
When a lot of others chose to do something a
hell of a lot less constructive. So this isn't an
attack on the people in this room. They've made the
right step in the right direction. But by and large,
as a community, I am sick and moreover terrified that
(17:51):
with all of the oppression that we are experiencing, that's
happening in fast paced, quick order. In fact, it's happening
so fast y'all our heads are on a swivel every day.
It's another attack, and that's intentional. But when it comes
to the economy, our economy, we got to assess the
fact that there is something mentally emotionally, maybe it's part
(18:13):
of the remnants of segregation, maybe part of the remnants
of slavery that are still causing us to choose white institutions,
white products, white name brands, white local stores, and not
making the conclusion that we can do money within ourselves.
And I'm not talking about going to an exclusively segregated
(18:33):
economic environment and system, even though that's what some might advocate.
I'm talking about just with our everyday dollar, seeing that
dollar recycle more frequently in our community before it exits.
Where do you pin that on?
Speaker 7 (18:47):
I'm gonna push back, and then I'll yield to my sister,
who's really more policy in the area than I. This
is the most entrepreneurial era for black people in our
history on the planet. Is the largest number of entrepreneurs
in this country are black women, and we're proving it
to be so and necessary. Tiffany help school me behind
(19:10):
this stage of three hundred thousand have lost jobs since
the rollback of d have left the workforce. George Fraser
taught me something very important is that when we're going
into entrepreneurship, don't pursue your passion, pursue your profit. And
a lot of us have been trained to go after
our passion and doing the business. When your passion is
(19:32):
your hobby, your profit is your solution. And so this
is the era where you're really gonna have to do
autopsy of your community.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
What is needed and necessary?
Speaker 7 (19:42):
Does your community need another chicken wing stand, if somebody
else in your community need to sell hair bundles, or
do you need to really figure out when this big
beautiful bill goes into effect, it will be the largest
amount of black senior citizens who are going to be homeless.
What are you doing in terms of senior care. Every day,
(20:04):
every day, a million people are turning sixty five. There
are more sixty year olds than there are sixteen year olds.
What are you doing around senior services? When SNAP goes
into effect next school year and there's no public free
lunch for our kids, how in the world are you
going to be able to pull your food truck up
(20:25):
to that school and offer hot lunch to our children.
You got to figure out is there a profit in
the solution. Whenever it is that you find that solution,
you'll be able to do well. And you can do
well by doing well.
Speaker 8 (20:43):
Two points on this there's three point one million black
businesses who are single operators.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
So raise your hand right now. If it's just you
and your.
Speaker 8 (20:51):
Company and it's cool, that is it's three point one million,
it's just you, and there is little chide two hundred
thousand black businesses in this country tree who are employers.
Those two hundred thousand black businesses employ about one point
four million people, and it has about a two hundred
and sixty billion dollar economic impact. So a solution, a
(21:13):
tangible solution, is how do we grow that two hundred thousand,
How do we lessen that three point one million, meaning
how do we help you scale? That is what I
do for entrepreneurs every single day. I've been on this
journey now for ten years, striving to empower entrepreneurs to scale,
because if we do not scale, we will not have
(21:33):
the economic power to elect our elected officials, to decide
what opens in our community, to actually have an active
voice with what is being built in our communities.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
So we have to grow that two hundred thousand.
Speaker 8 (21:48):
But I want to address Andrew's question around psyche, why
don't we choose us? Well, I'm going to speak very plainly.
White supremacy is working. When you look in the mirror
and you have been trained to love everybody, then the
person that you're looking back at you that something far
different is better than you, the business is better than you,
(22:10):
the brand is better than you. Then you want to
subconsciously become the robot that they have programmed many of
us to be.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
So we have to get free in our minds.
Speaker 8 (22:21):
We have to know that we are the algorithm that
people are responding to, and so we have to psychologically
get free and know that if the impulse is to
go somewhere else other than our own, they are effectively
controlling us. So we have to take our control back.
And again I'm going to keep saying it. The greatest
(22:41):
way that we can wield our power is how we
spend our dollars. But we have to address the mindset
of how we see ourselves individually and how and how
we operate collectively as a community.
Speaker 6 (22:53):
I know Carter G.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
Woodson, the writer author many of us know, put it
this way in The Miseducation of the Negro that when
you tell a black man to go to the back
door and there is no back door, he will build
one for its special purpose because this education makes it necessary.
Speaker 6 (23:14):
So your point.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Around the power of white supremacy in its lasting legacy
is that we don't even have to consciously think about
it for it to dictate our actions. And I guess
if there was an ask for the audience and for ourselves,
is that we become a lot more conscious about why
we are doing a thing that way.
Speaker 6 (23:37):
Simply asking ourselves, is this the thing that we ought
to be we ought to be doing?
Speaker 5 (23:40):
And I appreciate it, but I think it is going
to require a wholesale solution. All of us pushing in
this direction of it doesn't have a thing may be
this way, but it doesn't have to be.
Speaker 8 (23:52):
It's called collective consciousness. That's what we have to tap
into as a community, the collective consciousness and.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
The way that we get deprogrammed.
Speaker 8 (24:01):
We have to make a choice that being controlled by
something stops with me. If every single person here chooses
that I would no longer be controlled, then collectively we
will move different as a people. But we can't get
the collective to move if the individual choice doesn't change.
So we have to shift the way that we see ourselves,
and we have to know that they have programmed us
(24:23):
to choose everybody else, to be proud to wear everything else,
so happy to live on the other side of town,
so glad that your baby got into that school, and
then when it's our own things, he was like, yeah,
I went to a black business today, Clap for me,
and where we should be proud of the businesses in
(24:43):
our community and wear them boldly as we do these
other brands who could care less about our legacy, about
our future, and could care less if this wealth gap
never changes.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
I think.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
I'd absolutely agree on the collective conscience business. It's necessary,
but we also have to take a step beyond consciousness
and thought leadership to action, especially in this moment. So
I want to just as a case study because my
brother Jamal brought this up. He talked about that big,
terrible bill, and in every piece of legislation, there is
(25:19):
always several business opportunities, even when the legislation seeks to destroy.
Something's seeking to destroy our reliance on a government that
we know never properly served us anyway. But what we
have to do in our collective consciousness is come together
and figure out where the gaps are. I'm actually really
excited today because one person who I know has been
(25:43):
working on a gap. And it's when you look at
Maslow's hierarchy of needs. One of the most basic things
on the hierarchy of needs is water. Black people are
still in this moment right now fighting for clean drinking water.
And I met this young man on our state of
the people who are my embarrassment and make them stand up,
King Bradford. Stand up, King Bradford. He's working on clean
(26:05):
drinking water in North Carolina, right on alkaline water.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
And why am I doing this?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
This isn't just a shout out, King Bradford. He's like,
I'm gonna get a social clip out of this.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
I love you, sit down, but this.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Is the point, y'all. There are other people in here
who are working on bottled water. Y'all, go find him
so you can build capacity, so you can scale for
the folks in here who are taking care of our seniors.
If you have a business where you take care of seniors,
can you stand up nobody or we got something.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
About Oh we gotta feel Look at y'all.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
If you know you need to scale, look around, see
each other and make sure that our seniors are good.
How many of y'all have restaurants or food trucks?
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Anybody? They all working, They all working right now, but.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
In some of them we need them to come together
to make sure that our kids are eating school lunch,
they can eat breakfast. We had a free breakfast pro
program with the Black Panthers, right we need to be
turning around and doing all of that right now. That
consciousness has to move to action to.
Speaker 5 (27:11):
Follow upon your brilliant point is how many of us
work for local government. Any folks work for local government, city, county.
Speaker 6 (27:19):
Any of those and you may know.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Some are related because local government was often in the
black community a way in which we were able to
move into the middle class by working government jobs.
Speaker 6 (27:29):
And it's also the place it.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
Is also the place where the government has turned to
basically eliminate the black middle class.
Speaker 6 (27:38):
That's how black women have fallen.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
So precipitously out of work is because of the job
firings of Donald Trump. But this was the point I
wanted to make around local government. If you work for
local government and you have a pension, there are guidelines
around those pensions that are set by the elected officials
for whom the government is run. They should be taking
those dollars, and we should be advocating for our dollars
(28:04):
because they're yours, that those dollars, when they are invested,
are invested a certain percentage back in black businesses in
the communities by which those dollars were created. Because right
now those dollars largely are being taken, and because we
have an affordability crisis in housing in Atlanta and in
so many other cities, that money is being spent with
(28:25):
venture capitalists who are buying up apartment complexes and wholesale
neighborhoods and then pricing us out of them. And when
we go then for rent, we're one day late and
they put us on eviction and all the fees that
come with it, and they build wealth for themselves and
we're paying for it. The local pension dollars are the
(28:47):
ones that are going into the investment firms or then
buying up the real estate and pricing us out.
Speaker 6 (28:53):
So if you're in.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
The local government, we ought to be advocating for the
policies that say I want ten percent of our retirement
investments to be invested right back here in this community.
Speaker 7 (29:02):
I take I want to take the pole in a
different direction. Most of you, at least eighty percent of you,
are entrepreneurs or emerging entrepreneurs. The million dollar question I
want to ask is how many of you have accounts
at a black bank? Yeah, because we're asking target to
(29:23):
do it, but if our own business people are not
doing it, then we're in hypocrisy. And the reason why
black banking is so important is with all of the ideas,
with all of the plans, with all of the studies,
one of the things that we need desperately is access
to capital.
Speaker 6 (29:39):
And if we don't have.
Speaker 7 (29:40):
Access to capital for entrepreneurship and homer ownership, we're always
going to be had in hand, and so I want
to challenge you, we now have at least three black
banks that you can do online that are not necessarily
in your community, but are global or national as it were,
that we strengthen it or at least do a poor
of it in black banks. Secondly, and Key would have
(30:03):
the data better than I. Over eighty two percent of
black businesses are only one generation. They are only one
generation because the children are not involved or they are
not interested. You're going to have to bring up that
next generation behind you and tutor and train and mentor
them to take on that business so that they'll be
(30:25):
able to flash and we can have sustainability over and
over and over again. You can't pass down a job,
but you can pass down a business.
Speaker 8 (30:40):
One thing I want to pick on that Andre Andrews
that talked about was local procurement.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
As entrepreneurs, we.
Speaker 8 (30:48):
Are naturally leaders, and I do not want us to
be afraid to engage in civics and politics. We can't
sit this out. We can't be voiceless. We can't be
afraid that if I say something going to hurt my business,
if you don't say something, it's going to hurt your business.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
It already has.
Speaker 8 (31:07):
So in order to get these procurement dollars allocated to
black businesses, then we have to hold our elected officials accountable.
We have to make sure that city council members understand
that this is a want that you have.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
So when they come knocking.
Speaker 8 (31:21):
And I hope everybody's engaged, in two years we have
a critical election coming up. When they come knocking, they're
asking for your vote, and in City of Atlanta we
have an election coming up this fall. When they ask
you for your vote, I think you need to be
very clear on the demands that you want for black businesses,
and you ask them what their plan is and what
is their follow through Because we will not get the
(31:42):
change we want from procurement or the allocation of dollars
flowing back to black businesses unless we fight for it
and advocate for it. We cannot expect that they're just
going to do it. They expect us to be afraid
to be politically engaged.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
One of our good friends, y'all know Joy Read, don't you?
Who we should be supporting by the way, on her
new platform, her new venture to let her previous bosses
know that we love her, we support her and we
trusted her, which is why we're following her to this
new platform. But Joy Alsen often says when we confront
(32:17):
our community and young people and older people alike who
say I don't do politics, and.
Speaker 6 (32:23):
Her response is, well, politics is going to do you.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
And that's a statement that really resonates with me, having
been in local government and run for some of the
higher offices in my state. Is that they water the
plants that are growing in their backyard, and then yours
can die or anything can happen to it because they
don't have to esthetically.
Speaker 6 (32:47):
Look at it. They don't have to appreciate them have
to value it.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
And so for those of us who think that government
isn't in service to us, that you elect people and
they don't do anything for you, we have to reflect
on that quote that power sees nothing without a demand,
and a demand means nothing unless you can hold me
accountable for not following it, and the only way you
(33:10):
do that is throwing me out of office or putting
me in.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
That's true, But we also go ahead to I always
bring this up if y'all listen to the podcast, you know,
but I would just say that accompanying this point about
politics is where you get your information, and they traffic
intentionally and misinformation and disinformation. So I would just beg
the audience share responsibly. Everybody on Instagram and everybody with
(33:39):
a podcast. Mike does not a journalist make everybody's information
is not equal, So please if you can monitor your
news diet and where you're getting.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
Your information from.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I think a part of the reason why we're in
this situation right now is because people were being fed
on truths and there was a lack of curiosity because
we were so addicted to our phones, and the news
media summarily ignored a lot of our issues.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
And this is why we have this.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Landscape now with the media landscape that's capitulating to this administration.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
So that's my own personal plea.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
But I had a question for the panel and before
this audience that's a little more philosophical. We're talking about entrepreneurship,
and you touched on this so beautifully, Reverend Bryant when
you talked about chase your purpose and not your profit.
And I'm just sitting here wondering because so many people
(34:37):
in entrepreneurship, a lot of people want to become Their
goal is to, you know, make millions, And I just
wonder the system of capitalism originated on the plantation and
if we're trying to build empires and not community, does
this system of capitalism serve us. We may not be
(34:59):
able to answer that on the but I just want
to throw that out to the audience to think about
it as we're building businesses and hopefully building community, and
if y'all have thoughts on it, I would love to
hear it.
Speaker 7 (35:11):
Thank you, that's a lot toffery. You done lived up
to your last name. But I think that we have
to drive and again this is from pastoral perspective, is
drive to make impact. When our number one goal and
aspiration is just to make money, I think that we
(35:34):
lose our real raison detra why are we here on
the earth? And I think that you have to figure
out what is the legacy that you're going to leave
behind and what will really be said of you at
the end of the day. Ain't nobody gonna remember the
shoes you had on or the bag that you had.
They really wanted to know how did you make an impact?
And America is really in a puberty's state right now.
(35:58):
In the words of my late grandma, America smelling itself.
It's smell like outside and really, somebody got to come
up with deodorant. So we got to figure out, with
all that is taking place in society and in the world,
how do we really make this kind of impact. And
let me go so far to say is we have
(36:20):
to start thinking diasporically. There's no way we will be
in this room with twenty thousand Jews in a room
and we didn't discuss Israel. There's no way as entrepreneurs,
y'all can be here for three days and we don't
talk about Haiti, we don't talk about the Sudan, we
don't talk about Jamaica or Congo. We don't talk about
(36:43):
Ghana now being on the red list.
Speaker 6 (36:46):
And so we got to think.
Speaker 7 (36:46):
About how do we do global business, how do we
do diasporic business.
Speaker 6 (36:51):
And there's a.
Speaker 7 (36:52):
Large open palette for us that has been unexplored. China
sees the value in Africa, Are y'all awake? Yeah, they
see the value in Africa in India. So I think
that we've got to look larger than our own borders
and our own parameters to hitch awag and on what
(37:14):
Anne said is that we've got to figure out how
do we monetize on where the issue is. America operates
in cycles. And let me say to you, go to
your own chat, GPT, Google search. Most of America's millionaires
are built during economic crisis.
Speaker 6 (37:33):
And so because we are in the middle.
Speaker 7 (37:35):
Of a crisis, figure out how you're gonna emerge financially
and how we're gonna emerge as a community.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
And it has to be communally.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
And I think that is the part, like we keep
trying to beat the white man at his own game.
That ain't our game. It's not our game. They got
trust funds, you know what. Let me do another poll.
How many of y'all got trust funds?
Speaker 6 (38:00):
I want to be your friends. It's a whole lot
of y'all. I want to be your friend.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Maybe, Okay, y'all stand up, because Jamal said, it's a
whole lot of y'all.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Stand up. If you got a trust fund.
Speaker 6 (38:09):
They all members of Pastor Bryant Church. If they were,
I wouldn't be on here many.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
But my point is this, and I'm not shaming you
for having a trust fund.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
That's a great thing.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
But there's not enough of us that come into money
and can try and error on our parents' dime. And
so what we have to do is build differently, build
more strategically, build more intentionally. I'm telling y'all we are
in a crisis. Just because the crisis hasn't knocked on
your front door yet, does it mean that somebody in
your family, somebody in your neighborhood, somebody at.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
Your church is not being impacted by these things? It
is time for us.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Y'all know all the stuff that we're telling you right now,
You know all the stuff you've heard all day. You
all are here by divine appointment.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
Do not leave without talking to.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Your neighbor about not only how you can spend with
their business, but how you can send that business and
how y'all can scale together.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
That is what time it.
Speaker 8 (39:04):
Is and what I add to that, and Angel's one
thousand percent correct. You would miss the purpose of this
divine assignment if you don't leave here renew relationships that
you can strategically build with. And we have to be
(39:25):
careful because sometimes we come to these conferences we think
the purpose is the picture with the person that we
always wanted to meet, and so then we missed the
person that's sitting left and Right of us could be
our strategic partner to help us scale and grow our communities.
So I will tell you all about my own entrepreneur journey.
(39:46):
I've been an entrepreneur for ten years and my goal
of launching the Village Market I wanted to free as
many black businesses as possible. Since starting ten years ago,
I've opened retail stores is a Village retail.
Speaker 4 (39:59):
One is at pun City Market. We'll have one.
Speaker 8 (40:01):
Opening at the airport in March twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
We have a location in California.
Speaker 8 (40:06):
All black businesses are in my retail stores.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
But not shy that in less.
Speaker 8 (40:12):
Than three or four years, we deployed over a million
dollars in grants and have given endless amount of technical
assistance mentorship services to black businesses across the country.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
So what I am sharing that.
Speaker 8 (40:25):
If you have a solution, I need you to build
your solution.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
I did not come into this as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 8 (40:32):
I'm a farmer but forever educator. I was teaching and
then I worked for the Georgia Department of Education. But
purpose and calling fell upon me and I had to
move and do something. So if there's anyone in here
that feel compelled to move. Doctor Bryan talks about operating
in your lane. I need you to have the confidence
(40:54):
in this season to occupy your lane fully. We need
people who are going to draw our community to solutions.
So don't just open businesses just to say you have one.
We don't have time for that. I want you to
open businesses to economically disrupt and build and model our
(41:15):
communities for the generations to come. But in order to
do that, when Angela said, you cannot and should not
do it alone, the lie of individualism was a lie
of division that if we if I get them to
operate as an individual, then I would disenchant the collective
consciousness of the village mindset. If I disrupt the collective
(41:36):
consciousness of a village mindset, then I disrupt the unity
with It's the compass in the efficenter of black existence.
Speaker 5 (41:47):
You know, I appreciate you calling out the big lie
that is often said in America, which is we got
there because we pulled ourselves into DIVIDI Julie up by
the bootstraps. It's a lie. It's always been a lie.
It's never been the truth. If that's the case, Donald
Trump got alan from his daddy, and that's bootstraps, that's
(42:09):
and failed in every business. So I guess what I
would say is is I think it's time out for
just wanting to see a new black business open up
that replicates the same attitude, traditions, and practices of white supremacy,
because that's death to our community. I would much prefer Angela.
You said that we won't win at their You know,
(42:32):
UH won't win this game playing the way.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
We're not gonna win the white man's game.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
So put another way, you'll never ever destroy Master's house
using Master's tools because his house was not built to
be destroyed, which means we have to pilot some new tools,
some new thinking and do this thing differently.
Speaker 6 (42:53):
And the collective.
Speaker 5 (42:54):
You're not gonna hear a lot of communities talk about
the collective when they're talking about building strong buildings, businesses, families.
But it's been so essential back to the Motherland of
how it is we as a community have held each
other and where prosperity comes from and comes through, and
it's been through our collective.
Speaker 6 (43:14):
And don't let anybody a lot of us to say that.
Speaker 5 (43:16):
We can't get there together, that there's only room enough
for only one of us in this room because there
are too many generations passer where we believe that lie
in the black community, that there's room at the top,
but the space is limited for the few of us
that are here. Yet yet their community never limits their
(43:37):
children and their children's children and their children's children's children
from being at the boardroom table.
Speaker 6 (43:44):
So we have to dismiss that lot.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I just want to echo that really quickly because I
think that's so important since there are so many business
owners in the room, and Angela has pointed this out
and called you all out, I truly have a testimony
about that. When it comes to sharing and information sharing opportunity,
we have a collective, a girlfriend group.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
We're all in media. We share.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
If somebody books Angela to speak somewhere, she gonna tell
us how much they paying her what she asked for.
We share that information. We're not competitors. And the reason
why I will tell you because I want everyone in
my life around me to be doing something dope. And
the reason why is because when I fall, they gonna
(44:28):
be in a position to catch me. So it's never
looking at somebody like why they get what I wanted
or what they didn't do And there came a time
in my life when I did fall and Angela caught me,
Joy Reid caught me, Sunny Howson on the View caught me.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
Who else?
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Brittany Pagnett Cunningham called me Latasha Brown right here in
Atlanta with black voters matter caught me. And so I
just want to encourage you, share information, share opportunity, position
every one in your life around you to do something
dope so they can catch you. But also that is
that collective consciousness that we collectively.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
Build, which really quick.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
I do want to make a distinction that I think
is important to if the community that Tiff is talking about.
We will talk about transactions as a part of being
in community and as a part of being in that
collective consciousness. But we also really genuinely love each other.
We actually really are connected. Too many of us have
(45:27):
been trained, again by the white Man, to go into
spaces you're looking at somebody's name tag before you're even
making eye contact. You're looking to see where they work
and what they can do for you, before you even
ask them how their day is going. That is not
how we are wired as a people. We love one
another when we normally go into our grandmother's house. The
first thing our grandmother asks us is baby, are you hungry?
(45:49):
Those are the kinds of communities in my line, Oh okay,
These are the kind of communities that we build. We
don't come up to people asking what we can extract
from you? Again, that is it to all white man.
I don't want us to move that way.
Speaker 8 (46:03):
Yeah, this relationship that you all just describe, it only
functions properly because you're not operating in the mindset of scarcity.
This relationship that we're talking about and that they're talking about,
and I can name some in my own life. The
only reason why it's okay for Angela to see TIF
(46:24):
win is because Angela understand if tif wind, she won also.
Speaker 4 (46:28):
And that is a mindset shift with.
Speaker 8 (46:31):
How we're going to be in community, in community with
each other. There is a notion that there is not
enough for all of us.
Speaker 4 (46:41):
Another lie.
Speaker 8 (46:43):
There is abundance that that overflow with me, all of
us if we assimilate and move ourselves in a position.
Speaker 4 (46:51):
Of that abundance.
Speaker 6 (46:53):
But it is.
Speaker 8 (46:53):
Highly contingent upon us divorcing the mindset of scarcity. You
can't be afraid just because your friend got put on
and you didn't that that was the last opportunity. It's
only making room for two, three, four more. It depends
on your mindset when you get there. So we and
when Andrews talked about the mindset, and I think Tim
(47:14):
talked about this as well, we cannot adopt or adapt
any harmful practices that have harmed our community. So if
you're that leader now, and this is just a level
of love and accountability self assessment that we all have
to do. If there is something inside of your spirit
(47:34):
now that you're only thinking about your own survival, and
even if you're thinking about hiring people but you don't
want to pay them a livable age. You want to
hire people, but you don't want to have mental health
days so they can have something to give to your company.
Speaker 4 (47:49):
When they come back.
Speaker 8 (47:50):
Then we're adopting the practices that have disenfranchised our communities.
So we have to be different operators, different leaders. But
it's going to take a resurrection of a spirit of
being communal to get there.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
We are we gonna treat this like church.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Since it's tomorrow, I think you might gonna walk, You
might gonna walk out of here with a few more members,
so he have jam clothes and then we got a
little plug. But we appreciate you all.
Speaker 6 (48:16):
Go ahead, no, I'm grateful real quick. Would everybody just
lift up that hand.
Speaker 7 (48:20):
I would just want to speak a blessing over your business.
Speaker 6 (48:23):
Come on, lift that hand up high.
Speaker 7 (48:26):
I pray that the Lord will bless you so you
are never empty handed. I pray that God will get
everything in your hand that you need to build to
the next level. I pray that your hand will always
be open to receive instruction and correction. I pray that
God will give strength to your hand so you can
pull somebody up. And I pray that God will use
(48:46):
your hand where you'll never have to close your fists
because somebody else will fight for you.
Speaker 6 (48:51):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
But also if you put that fist stuff because you're
using some different tools, that's all right too.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
All right, we appreciate you'all. This is Native Lampid.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Thanks again to doctor Key Helmet, Reverend doctor Jamal Bryant,
Andrew Gilliam, Tiffany Christ. I'm angela rober Native Lampid.
Speaker 6 (49:08):
Welcome to all, ride y'all, oh the last morning plea.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Thank you for joining the Natives. Attentional with the info
and all of the latest roy Gilum and cross connected
to the statements that you leave on our sociows. Thank
you sincerely for the patients reason for your choice is cleared.
So grateful it took the execute rolls. Thank you for serve,
defend and protect the truth. Even in paint.
Speaker 6 (49:31):
We walkome home to all.
Speaker 4 (49:32):
Of the natives, We thank you. Welcome y'all, Welcome.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Native Lampid is the production of iHeart Radio in partnership
with Reason Choice Media. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Natively and pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
with Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome home.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Y'all all right, we got some fans and the Bill
and I heard a distant welcome home. We are thrilled
to be in the ATM shoty. We got a couple
of guests coming up that we're absolutely thrilled to have
joining us today.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Some of you all know.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Him from some viral videos where he's preaching the word
every single Sunday. Others of you may know him from
the latest action around Target the Target Fast. It is
none other than Reverend doctor Jamal Bryant in the building.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Jamal, come on and also joining us.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Oh he got and last, but certainly not least, we
have doctor Lakeisha key Helman from Village Market, Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
I know y'all have been that way.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Okay, yes, okay, So again you all. We are the
Native Land Pod where we shoot with iHeart every single week.
Our podcast drop on Thursday, and today we're having a
(01:25):
really important conversation. We are at invest Fest, so we
want to have a conversation about the black dollar turning
over in our own community. So I'm gonna start with you,
doctor Bryant. We saw a really big development this week
in the Target fast.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Can you talk to the people.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
A little bit about what happened and where black folks
should go from here?
Speaker 5 (01:46):
Before he answers that, can we just do a quick survey.
How many of y'all have stopped shopping at Target in
the wake of their boycott? Very good? How many of
y'all snuck off once or twice? I think get Ain't
nobody gonna see you?
Speaker 6 (02:03):
We see you.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Come on down to the halter.
Speaker 7 (02:07):
Let me first say thank you to the community for
making this happen. This is a significant moment for this generation.
You have officially taken the torch from the civil rights
era to this movement. It's the most effective economic boycott
for black people in seventy years, which you give yourselves
(02:28):
a big hand for doing it. This week it was
announced that the president of Target was stepping down. It's
not true. He's stepping aside. The COO is now the
CEO and he is now the chairman of the board.
So Target is rewarding bad behavior. But I want to
(02:50):
thank you in spite of all of that, because you
have not gone to Target. For the last four months,
Target has lost twelve billion.
Speaker 6 (02:59):
Dollars because of you.
Speaker 7 (03:01):
The stock has dropped from one hundred and forty five
dollars a share to ninety three.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
Dollars a share because of you.
Speaker 7 (03:09):
I want you to know the CEO's salary has been
slashed by forty two percent. But what we want to
talk about today, if we could do all of that
directing money away from a big box corporation. What could
we do if we put all of that energy and
all of that economy into black businesses.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
And I'm believing that we're going to do it in
this generation and in this year.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Well, we were talking backstage because a lot of black
brands Key are in Target and they're directly impacted by this.
Our really good friend friend of the show, a Rattler,
a FAM You grad like our brother Andrew Gilliam here. Yeah, exactly,
always represent Fam You. I hear some tears for Fam
You in the back, gorelous. But she, Melissa Butler, owns
(03:56):
the lip bar and she's impacted not only by these
tear from the Trump administration but also by the boycott.
So she's getting it from both ends. What is the
impact on black brands when we boycott, or the stories
like Target and how can we continue to support them?
So they are not a casualty of what we see
(04:18):
happening with Target.
Speaker 8 (04:20):
So first, I'm so excited to be here. Can I
say welcome home? I've been wanting to say it.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
So welcome home, y'all.
Speaker 8 (04:27):
But one of the things that makes Melissa Lipbar so
special is that while she's in a massive retailer such
as Target, she also has direct to consumer, so she
has a way that you can directly buy from her.
When we think about the impact of boycotts, it's more
so the impact of the infrastructure that our businesses do
not have. I think that we always have to position ourselves.
(04:50):
While we may get in mass retail, do we have
our own enterprises just in case the tithes change. And
one thing that has helped Melissa is that. So what
I want to empower all of you all to have.
You can have aspirations to be in big retail, that's fine,
but you shall also have your own infrastructure that if
something happens in corporate America that we're seeing now, that
you could still self sustain.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
True, you know, So we were talking a backstage, how
you balance with a boycott where we hold corporations responsible
to be responsive to the people who are keeping them
Afloat the black dollar, I don't even know if we
should call it the black dollar. I mean, it's a
green dollar bill, and we're not spending it the way
we should within the black community in and of itself.
(05:35):
Black folks, we are ingenious, We are creators, We are inventors.
We are folks who own businesses even when we don't
have storefronts to speak of. And unfortunately, the corporations that
currently run the landscape in this country in the world
don't always do right by us by respecting us and
(05:57):
the way in which we spend our dollar. That's how
it was so we easy when Trump threatened corporations for
them to walk away and say, look, we don't have
a emphasis on black people anymore. They dropped it like
it was a hot iron, right, And so I guess
the question for me becomes when we walk away from
the corporation, at least, whether it's for a period.
Speaker 6 (06:17):
Of time or we make that break permanently.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
My guess is, or at least my suspicion is, is
that we are still taking our black slash green dollar
and spending it yet with another large, largely white, multinational corporation.
How do we get into the hands of consumers people
like us, the information that we need to make smart
(06:41):
decisions around. Okay, if I'm not going to target, I'm
not going to continue to cause offense by just moving
that dollar over the Walmart. I'm gonna take that dollar
and I'm gonna put it toward a business that is
black owned or majority shareholder black owned, or forty percent
black owned. That gets us closer to recycling that dollar
(07:01):
right back into our community.
Speaker 8 (07:03):
Andrew, you speak of something that has always historically worked
in our communities for us, by us, we spend with us.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
So it's less about.
Speaker 8 (07:11):
The respect of Corporate America, but the respect that we
have for ourselves. It's the respect that how we are
intentional with how we spend our money. I think what
we have to make sure that we're not chasing behind
Corporate America to make a shift when the power lies
and our ability that every time that we hit pay
we can direct where that spending is. So there's a
(07:34):
notion of voting with your dollars. We can wield our
power to spend with our own communities.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
That has always.
Speaker 8 (07:40):
Sustained us and it will always sustain us.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
I want to go to this point really quick. I
want to do a little bit of a focus group
in here. If you all own a business, can you
raise your hands?
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Look at this room?
Speaker 6 (07:54):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
So let me ask you all this.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Do you only want want the money to come to
you when we're boycotting another entity?
Speaker 4 (08:04):
Say yes or no?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Okay, you want the money to come to you regardless.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Right, So, hopefully what we can do today, and.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Y'all we kind of pre potted already, but we talked
about this idea of what it means to not just.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Operate for our good when we're punishing the white entity.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
It's also about how we build in this room with
all you black, brilliant business owners, how we support you,
whether that's with investments, whether it's with buying a product
or purchasing some type of a service, contracting with.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
You for a service. That's the work of this panel. Now.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
This needs to be a strategy session almost where we
can figure out how we best support y'all. I don't
know if we have mikes. If we have mikes, it
would be great to open that up.
Speaker 7 (08:48):
But yeah, I think that it's mindful that one of
the largest real estate holders on the planet is the
Catholic Church. The second global aid is McDonald. They're not
selling Hamburgers, that flipping real estate. There are twenty six
thousand Black churches across the country kid as registered. It's
(09:11):
probably about fifty thousand, but it's twenty six thousand Black
churches that registered. They got paperwork, and most of those
Black churches are only open two to three days a week.
One of the things that we piloted through this Target
Fast is we turned the megachurches into black malls.
Speaker 6 (09:28):
So during Juneteenth.
Speaker 7 (09:29):
Weekend and then Resurrection weekend, we took one hundred vendors
and took them into Black churches in five different cities.
I think that the Black church has a role to
play that is central because of what I keep touting.
If the Black church only talks about black economics during
the offering, then it's a Ponzi scheme. But there's got
(09:50):
to be an economic development strategy of how it is
that we incubate these businesses so that they don't have
to go to a share space, but they can go
right to the fellowship hall. Black churches are in all
of our communities, and if they're not talking about economic development,
then they are a part of gentrification because they've got
(10:10):
to reverse the cycle of what is taking place. And
if the black preacher is only talking about tithing and
not talking about investing and saving and entrepreneurship, then we're
doing a disservice. I'll close by saying Desmond Tutu said,
at the end of every year, the poor people in
the community should vote to see whether the church is
(10:32):
open the next year. If that vote happened, I wonder
how many of our churches will be able to stay open.
And so I think that we've got to bring the
Black denominations together in settings like this to say how
can we do a partnership with my sister Key has
been doing all over Georgia and all over the country.
I think that the Black church has got to take a.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
Page from it.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I want to struck by you talking about the Black
church at this moment right now, Reverend Bryant, because the
twin spirit of economic development is really community development, and
we are at a very dangerous time right now where
we're seeing our civil rights being rolled back. And so
while people are building, you know, individual empires and brands.
(11:17):
We want to invest in our safety and our community.
And I will tell you while I'm here from Washington,
d C. Where there has been a federal takeover, thank you,
I see you, DC. Uh, there's been a federal takeover
of a black city, and I'm here.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
There might have been a siren sound tiff and not
a woo like a holler like at this point, it's
a siren.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, it's And he's already declared that he is coming
to Baltimore, Chicago, and Oakland. So this terror, this tyranny,
this authoritarianism is coming soon to a city near you.
So something that we've talked about on Native lamdpod, which
by the way, is the number one downloaded podcast at
our across all platforms on Apple. So if you don't subscribe,
(12:04):
please subscribe because we talk about this every week. One
thing that I want to know that we've talked about
is what price are you willing to pay? Because you
all have shut down kind of targets. I'm sure the
air Board of Directors is not happy with what's going on.
If we can do that to target, how can we
reclaim our power in this moment for a generation that
(12:26):
we are only used to gaining rights. We are not
used to losing rights, and that's what's happening. And I'm
concerned that we're not paying enough attention. So I want
to know from an economic perspective, key, how we can
make an impact on our civil rights, how else we
can hold the private sector accountable? And I want to
know from a Black church perspective, what role does the
(12:46):
Black church play at this very dangerous moment we're in
right now, Tiffining.
Speaker 8 (12:52):
What you're talking about is coalition building at this particular
time that we end individualism would be catastrophic for us.
It always has been the collective, the community model, the
village model is our way to solve the ills of
this time and the times to come. But when we
think about concentrated economics, it is what happens when we
(13:16):
spend our money on our communities. And I think Angela
just spoke on this. We can't decide to choose us
when we're mad at white people. We can't choose to
spend with us because we're protesting, of boycotting or fasting.
The choice of love has to be consistent. We have
to choose each other because we love each other, not
(13:38):
as a response out of anger.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Now, now let me say this.
Speaker 8 (13:43):
If target is what brought you to the movement, it
can't be what keeps you in the movement. We have
to have a sustained effort to patronize our businesses in
Since over one hundred and fifty years, the wealth gap
for the black community has actually widened. In the time
(14:03):
of enslavement, we own zero point five percent of the
economic wealth in this country. One hundred and fifty one
hundred and sixty years later, we at one point five
percent in this country. So we know that this is
economic warfare. So we have to choose to spend our
money responsibly and diligently on our community.
Speaker 7 (14:24):
I would say from the faith based in is look
at what happened. The Montgomery bus boycott was a year
and a day and every night for a year and
the day they went back to the church. What nobody
talks about out of the Montgomery bus boycott is three
mechanic shops were opened from those who used to work
(14:45):
for the bus company and lost their job.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
But say, let's figure out a way that we can
do it.
Speaker 7 (14:49):
Secondly, what nobody gives credit to is out of the
Montgomery bus boycott was the first ubers.
Speaker 6 (14:56):
They started their own.
Speaker 7 (14:59):
At high taxi services, driving people around. And so I
think in this moment, you can't fight well when you're angry.
You have to fight when you're sober of mind. Is
we have to think about the fact that Angel and
I talked about it.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
This the first time.
Speaker 7 (15:14):
In the history of black people that while in a boycott,
we push people to go to another white owned store.
Speaker 6 (15:22):
We've never done that ever.
Speaker 7 (15:23):
So we high five and about Costco and not realizing
that seventy years past Montgomery Bus boycott, we have no
nationally franchised business. So we've got to think about how
do we franchise and scale not just for individual wealth,
but we also have to have a pregnant pause. That
brought us to Target is that we spend twelve million
(15:44):
dollars a day in Target and I can't find a
black business where we spend that amount of money in commerce.
So we've got to figure out how do we employ ourselves,
how do we strengthen ourselves, and how do we incubate
The Patel family say in family here in the country,
they owned forty seven percent of all Moltil lodges.
Speaker 6 (16:06):
They did it by.
Speaker 7 (16:07):
Doing cooperative economics within their families. They lived in the hotel,
somebody else was the chef, somebody else was the maid,
somebody else worked at the front desk. If you are
lonely at the top, it's only because you took nobody
with you. So try to figure out how do we
build each other up and strengthen somebody else's business.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
So I want to pick pick up a thread from
where you left, uf Bishop. There's something happening in our
mentality that causes us to say white is right. There's
a brand that we're continuing to chase when we choose
to boycott this store and frankly make a gent on
(17:01):
that one institution. But as a whole, white people are
still getting the betters at the end of the day
and are still not having to do service to us
in exchange for that sacrifice that we're making.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
So I'd love for you all to address.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
What you think it is that might be, and frankly,
for our audience, I want to applaud you because y'all
are all choosing to be in the right place today.
Y'all chose building Black wealth and economic strategy for.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
Your Saturday conversation.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
When a lot of others chose to do something a
hell of a lot less constructive. So this isn't an
attack on the people in this room. They've made the
right step in the right direction. But by and large,
as a community, I am sick and moreover terrified that
(17:51):
with all of the oppression that we are experiencing, that's
happening in fast paced, quick order. In fact, it's happening
so fast y'all our heads are on a swivel every day.
It's another attack, and that's intentional. But when it comes
to the economy, our economy, we got to assess the
fact that there is something mentally emotionally, maybe it's part
(18:13):
of the remnants of segregation, maybe part of the remnants
of slavery that are still causing us to choose white institutions,
white products, white name brands, white local stores, and not
making the conclusion that we can do money within ourselves.
And I'm not talking about going to an exclusively segregated
(18:33):
economic environment and system, even though that's what some might advocate.
I'm talking about just with our everyday dollar, seeing that
dollar recycle more frequently in our community before it exits.
Where do you pin that on?
Speaker 7 (18:47):
I'm gonna push back, and then I'll yield to my sister,
who's really more policy in the area than I. This
is the most entrepreneurial era for black people in our
history on the planet. Is the largest number of entrepreneurs
in this country are black women, and we're proving it
to be so and necessary. Tiffany help school me behind
(19:10):
this stage of three hundred thousand have lost jobs since
the rollback of d have left the workforce. George Fraser
taught me something very important is that when we're going
into entrepreneurship, don't pursue your passion, pursue your profit. And
a lot of us have been trained to go after
our passion and doing the business. When your passion is
(19:32):
your hobby, your profit is your solution. And so this
is the era where you're really gonna have to do
autopsy of your community.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
What is needed and necessary?
Speaker 7 (19:42):
Does your community need another chicken wing stand, if somebody
else in your community need to sell hair bundles, or
do you need to really figure out when this big
beautiful bill goes into effect, it will be the largest
amount of black senior citizens who are going to be homeless.
What are you doing in terms of senior care. Every day,
(20:04):
every day, a million people are turning sixty five. There
are more sixty year olds than there are sixteen year olds.
What are you doing around senior services? When SNAP goes
into effect next school year and there's no public free
lunch for our kids, how in the world are you
going to be able to pull your food truck up
(20:25):
to that school and offer hot lunch to our children.
You got to figure out is there a profit in
the solution. Whenever it is that you find that solution,
you'll be able to do well. And you can do
well by doing well.
Speaker 8 (20:43):
Two points on this there's three point one million black
businesses who are single operators.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
So raise your hand right now. If it's just you
and your.
Speaker 8 (20:51):
Company and it's cool, that is it's three point one million,
it's just you, and there is little chide two hundred
thousand black businesses in this country tree who are employers.
Those two hundred thousand black businesses employ about one point
four million people, and it has about a two hundred
and sixty billion dollar economic impact. So a solution, a
(21:13):
tangible solution, is how do we grow that two hundred thousand,
How do we lessen that three point one million, meaning
how do we help you scale? That is what I
do for entrepreneurs every single day. I've been on this
journey now for ten years, striving to empower entrepreneurs to scale,
because if we do not scale, we will not have
(21:33):
the economic power to elect our elected officials, to decide
what opens in our community, to actually have an active
voice with what is being built in our communities.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
So we have to grow that two hundred thousand.
Speaker 8 (21:48):
But I want to address Andrew's question around psyche, why
don't we choose us? Well, I'm going to speak very plainly.
White supremacy is working. When you look in the mirror
and you have been trained to love everybody, then the
person that you're looking back at you that something far
different is better than you, the business is better than you,
(22:10):
the brand is better than you. Then you want to
subconsciously become the robot that they have programmed many of
us to be.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
So we have to get free in our minds.
Speaker 8 (22:21):
We have to know that we are the algorithm that
people are responding to, and so we have to psychologically
get free and know that if the impulse is to
go somewhere else other than our own, they are effectively
controlling us. So we have to take our control back.
And again I'm going to keep saying it. The greatest
(22:41):
way that we can wield our power is how we
spend our dollars. But we have to address the mindset
of how we see ourselves individually and how and how
we operate collectively as a community.
Speaker 6 (22:53):
I know Carter G.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
Woodson, the writer author many of us know, put it
this way in The Miseducation of the Negro that when
you tell a black man to go to the back
door and there is no back door, he will build
one for its special purpose because this education makes it necessary.
Speaker 6 (23:14):
So your point.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Around the power of white supremacy in its lasting legacy
is that we don't even have to consciously think about
it for it to dictate our actions. And I guess
if there was an ask for the audience and for ourselves,
is that we become a lot more conscious about why
we are doing a thing that way.
Speaker 6 (23:37):
Simply asking ourselves, is this the thing that we ought
to be we ought to be doing?
Speaker 5 (23:40):
And I appreciate it, but I think it is going
to require a wholesale solution. All of us pushing in
this direction of it doesn't have a thing may be
this way, but it doesn't have to be.
Speaker 8 (23:52):
It's called collective consciousness. That's what we have to tap
into as a community, the collective consciousness and.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
The way that we get deprogrammed.
Speaker 8 (24:01):
We have to make a choice that being controlled by
something stops with me. If every single person here chooses
that I would no longer be controlled, then collectively we
will move different as a people. But we can't get
the collective to move if the individual choice doesn't change.
So we have to shift the way that we see ourselves,
and we have to know that they have programmed us
(24:23):
to choose everybody else, to be proud to wear everything else,
so happy to live on the other side of town,
so glad that your baby got into that school, and
then when it's our own things, he was like, yeah,
I went to a black business today, Clap for me,
and where we should be proud of the businesses in
(24:43):
our community and wear them boldly as we do these
other brands who could care less about our legacy, about
our future, and could care less if this wealth gap
never changes.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
I think.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
I'd absolutely agree on the collective conscience business. It's necessary,
but we also have to take a step beyond consciousness
and thought leadership to action, especially in this moment. So
I want to just as a case study because my
brother Jamal brought this up. He talked about that big,
terrible bill, and in every piece of legislation, there is
(25:19):
always several business opportunities, even when the legislation seeks to destroy.
Something's seeking to destroy our reliance on a government that
we know never properly served us anyway. But what we
have to do in our collective consciousness is come together
and figure out where the gaps are. I'm actually really
excited today because one person who I know has been
(25:43):
working on a gap. And it's when you look at
Maslow's hierarchy of needs. One of the most basic things
on the hierarchy of needs is water. Black people are
still in this moment right now fighting for clean drinking water.
And I met this young man on our state of
the people who are my embarrassment and make them stand up,
King Bradford. Stand up, King Bradford. He's working on clean
(26:05):
drinking water in North Carolina, right on alkaline water.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
And why am I doing this?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
This isn't just a shout out, King Bradford. He's like,
I'm gonna get a social clip out of this.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
I love you, sit down, but this.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Is the point, y'all. There are other people in here
who are working on bottled water. Y'all, go find him
so you can build capacity, so you can scale for
the folks in here who are taking care of our seniors.
If you have a business where you take care of seniors,
can you stand up nobody or we got something.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
About Oh we gotta feel Look at y'all.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
If you know you need to scale, look around, see
each other and make sure that our seniors are good.
How many of y'all have restaurants or food trucks?
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Anybody? They all working, They all working right now, but.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
In some of them we need them to come together
to make sure that our kids are eating school lunch,
they can eat breakfast. We had a free breakfast pro
program with the Black Panthers, right we need to be
turning around and doing all of that right now. That
consciousness has to move to action to.
Speaker 5 (27:11):
Follow upon your brilliant point is how many of us
work for local government. Any folks work for local government, city, county.
Speaker 6 (27:19):
Any of those and you may know.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Some are related because local government was often in the
black community a way in which we were able to
move into the middle class by working government jobs.
Speaker 6 (27:29):
And it's also the place it.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
Is also the place where the government has turned to
basically eliminate the black middle class.
Speaker 6 (27:38):
That's how black women have fallen.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
So precipitously out of work is because of the job
firings of Donald Trump. But this was the point I
wanted to make around local government. If you work for
local government and you have a pension, there are guidelines
around those pensions that are set by the elected officials
for whom the government is run. They should be taking
those dollars, and we should be advocating for our dollars
(28:04):
because they're yours, that those dollars, when they are invested,
are invested a certain percentage back in black businesses in
the communities by which those dollars were created. Because right
now those dollars largely are being taken, and because we
have an affordability crisis in housing in Atlanta and in
so many other cities, that money is being spent with
(28:25):
venture capitalists who are buying up apartment complexes and wholesale
neighborhoods and then pricing us out of them. And when
we go then for rent, we're one day late and
they put us on eviction and all the fees that
come with it, and they build wealth for themselves and
we're paying for it. The local pension dollars are the
(28:47):
ones that are going into the investment firms or then
buying up the real estate and pricing us out.
Speaker 6 (28:53):
So if you're in.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
The local government, we ought to be advocating for the
policies that say I want ten percent of our retirement
investments to be invested right back here in this community.
Speaker 7 (29:02):
I take I want to take the pole in a
different direction. Most of you, at least eighty percent of you,
are entrepreneurs or emerging entrepreneurs. The million dollar question I
want to ask is how many of you have accounts
at a black bank? Yeah, because we're asking target to
(29:23):
do it, but if our own business people are not
doing it, then we're in hypocrisy. And the reason why
black banking is so important is with all of the ideas,
with all of the plans, with all of the studies,
one of the things that we need desperately is access
to capital.
Speaker 6 (29:39):
And if we don't have.
Speaker 7 (29:40):
Access to capital for entrepreneurship and homer ownership, we're always
going to be had in hand, and so I want
to challenge you, we now have at least three black
banks that you can do online that are not necessarily
in your community, but are global or national as it were,
that we strengthen it or at least do a poor
of it in black banks. Secondly, and Key would have
(30:03):
the data better than I. Over eighty two percent of
black businesses are only one generation. They are only one
generation because the children are not involved or they are
not interested. You're going to have to bring up that
next generation behind you and tutor and train and mentor
them to take on that business so that they'll be
(30:25):
able to flash and we can have sustainability over and
over and over again. You can't pass down a job,
but you can pass down a business.
Speaker 8 (30:40):
One thing I want to pick on that Andre Andrews
that talked about was local procurement.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
As entrepreneurs, we.
Speaker 8 (30:48):
Are naturally leaders, and I do not want us to
be afraid to engage in civics and politics. We can't
sit this out. We can't be voiceless. We can't be
afraid that if I say something going to hurt my business,
if you don't say something, it's going to hurt your business.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
It already has.
Speaker 8 (31:07):
So in order to get these procurement dollars allocated to
black businesses, then we have to hold our elected officials accountable.
We have to make sure that city council members understand
that this is a want that you have.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
So when they come knocking.
Speaker 8 (31:21):
And I hope everybody's engaged, in two years we have
a critical election coming up. When they come knocking, they're
asking for your vote, and in City of Atlanta we
have an election coming up this fall. When they ask
you for your vote, I think you need to be
very clear on the demands that you want for black businesses,
and you ask them what their plan is and what
is their follow through Because we will not get the
(31:42):
change we want from procurement or the allocation of dollars
flowing back to black businesses unless we fight for it
and advocate for it. We cannot expect that they're just
going to do it. They expect us to be afraid
to be politically engaged.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
One of our good friends, y'all know Joy Read, don't you?
Who we should be supporting by the way, on her
new platform, her new venture to let her previous bosses
know that we love her, we support her and we
trusted her, which is why we're following her to this
new platform. But Joy Alsen often says when we confront
(32:17):
our community and young people and older people alike who
say I don't do politics, and.
Speaker 6 (32:23):
Her response is, well, politics is going to do you.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
And that's a statement that really resonates with me, having
been in local government and run for some of the
higher offices in my state. Is that they water the
plants that are growing in their backyard, and then yours
can die or anything can happen to it because they
don't have to esthetically.
Speaker 6 (32:47):
Look at it. They don't have to appreciate them have
to value it.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
And so for those of us who think that government
isn't in service to us, that you elect people and
they don't do anything for you, we have to reflect
on that quote that power sees nothing without a demand,
and a demand means nothing unless you can hold me
accountable for not following it, and the only way you
(33:10):
do that is throwing me out of office or putting
me in.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
That's true, But we also go ahead to I always
bring this up if y'all listen to the podcast, you know,
but I would just say that accompanying this point about
politics is where you get your information, and they traffic
intentionally and misinformation and disinformation. So I would just beg
the audience share responsibly. Everybody on Instagram and everybody with
(33:39):
a podcast. Mike does not a journalist make everybody's information
is not equal, So please if you can monitor your
news diet and where you're getting.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
Your information from.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I think a part of the reason why we're in
this situation right now is because people were being fed
on truths and there was a lack of curiosity because
we were so addicted to our phones, and the news
media summarily ignored a lot of our issues.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
And this is why we have this.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Landscape now with the media landscape that's capitulating to this administration.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
So that's my own personal plea.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
But I had a question for the panel and before
this audience that's a little more philosophical. We're talking about entrepreneurship,
and you touched on this so beautifully, Reverend Bryant when
you talked about chase your purpose and not your profit.
And I'm just sitting here wondering because so many people
(34:37):
in entrepreneurship, a lot of people want to become Their
goal is to, you know, make millions, And I just
wonder the system of capitalism originated on the plantation and
if we're trying to build empires and not community, does
this system of capitalism serve us. We may not be
(34:59):
able to answer that on the but I just want
to throw that out to the audience to think about
it as we're building businesses and hopefully building community, and
if y'all have thoughts on it, I would love to
hear it.
Speaker 7 (35:11):
Thank you, that's a lot toffery. You done lived up
to your last name. But I think that we have
to drive and again this is from pastoral perspective, is
drive to make impact. When our number one goal and
aspiration is just to make money, I think that we
(35:34):
lose our real raison detra why are we here on
the earth? And I think that you have to figure
out what is the legacy that you're going to leave
behind and what will really be said of you at
the end of the day. Ain't nobody gonna remember the
shoes you had on or the bag that you had.
They really wanted to know how did you make an impact?
And America is really in a puberty's state right now.
(35:58):
In the words of my late grandma, America smelling itself.
It's smell like outside and really, somebody got to come
up with deodorant. So we got to figure out, with
all that is taking place in society and in the world,
how do we really make this kind of impact. And
let me go so far to say is we have
(36:20):
to start thinking diasporically. There's no way we will be
in this room with twenty thousand Jews in a room
and we didn't discuss Israel. There's no way as entrepreneurs,
y'all can be here for three days and we don't
talk about Haiti, we don't talk about the Sudan, we
don't talk about Jamaica or Congo. We don't talk about
(36:43):
Ghana now being on the red list.
Speaker 6 (36:46):
And so we got to think.
Speaker 7 (36:46):
About how do we do global business, how do we
do diasporic business.
Speaker 6 (36:51):
And there's a.
Speaker 7 (36:52):
Large open palette for us that has been unexplored. China
sees the value in Africa, Are y'all awake? Yeah, they
see the value in Africa in India. So I think
that we've got to look larger than our own borders
and our own parameters to hitch awag and on what
(37:14):
Anne said is that we've got to figure out how
do we monetize on where the issue is. America operates
in cycles. And let me say to you, go to
your own chat, GPT, Google search. Most of America's millionaires
are built during economic crisis.
Speaker 6 (37:33):
And so because we are in the middle.
Speaker 7 (37:35):
Of a crisis, figure out how you're gonna emerge financially
and how we're gonna emerge as a community.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
And it has to be communally.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
And I think that is the part, like we keep
trying to beat the white man at his own game.
That ain't our game. It's not our game. They got
trust funds, you know what. Let me do another poll.
How many of y'all got trust funds?
Speaker 6 (38:00):
I want to be your friends. It's a whole lot
of y'all. I want to be your friend.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Maybe, Okay, y'all stand up, because Jamal said, it's a
whole lot of y'all.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Stand up. If you got a trust fund.
Speaker 6 (38:09):
They all members of Pastor Bryant Church. If they were,
I wouldn't be on here many.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
But my point is this, and I'm not shaming you
for having a trust fund.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
That's a great thing.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
But there's not enough of us that come into money
and can try and error on our parents' dime. And
so what we have to do is build differently, build
more strategically, build more intentionally. I'm telling y'all we are
in a crisis. Just because the crisis hasn't knocked on
your front door yet, does it mean that somebody in
your family, somebody in your neighborhood, somebody at.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
Your church is not being impacted by these things? It
is time for us.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Y'all know all the stuff that we're telling you right now,
You know all the stuff you've heard all day. You
all are here by divine appointment.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
Do not leave without talking to.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Your neighbor about not only how you can spend with
their business, but how you can send that business and
how y'all can scale together.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
That is what time it.
Speaker 8 (39:04):
Is and what I add to that, and Angel's one
thousand percent correct. You would miss the purpose of this
divine assignment if you don't leave here renew relationships that
you can strategically build with. And we have to be
(39:25):
careful because sometimes we come to these conferences we think
the purpose is the picture with the person that we
always wanted to meet, and so then we missed the
person that's sitting left and Right of us could be
our strategic partner to help us scale and grow our communities.
So I will tell you all about my own entrepreneur journey.
(39:46):
I've been an entrepreneur for ten years and my goal
of launching the Village Market I wanted to free as
many black businesses as possible. Since starting ten years ago,
I've opened retail stores is a Village retail.
Speaker 4 (39:59):
One is at pun City Market. We'll have one.
Speaker 8 (40:01):
Opening at the airport in March twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
We have a location in California.
Speaker 8 (40:06):
All black businesses are in my retail stores.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
But not shy that in less.
Speaker 8 (40:12):
Than three or four years, we deployed over a million
dollars in grants and have given endless amount of technical
assistance mentorship services to black businesses across the country.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
So what I am sharing that.
Speaker 8 (40:25):
If you have a solution, I need you to build
your solution.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
I did not come into this as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 8 (40:32):
I'm a farmer but forever educator. I was teaching and
then I worked for the Georgia Department of Education. But
purpose and calling fell upon me and I had to
move and do something. So if there's anyone in here
that feel compelled to move. Doctor Bryan talks about operating
in your lane. I need you to have the confidence
(40:54):
in this season to occupy your lane fully. We need
people who are going to draw our community to solutions.
So don't just open businesses just to say you have one.
We don't have time for that. I want you to
open businesses to economically disrupt and build and model our
(41:15):
communities for the generations to come. But in order to
do that, when Angela said, you cannot and should not
do it alone, the lie of individualism was a lie
of division that if we if I get them to
operate as an individual, then I would disenchant the collective
consciousness of the village mindset. If I disrupt the collective
(41:36):
consciousness of a village mindset, then I disrupt the unity
with It's the compass in the efficenter of black existence.
Speaker 5 (41:47):
You know, I appreciate you calling out the big lie
that is often said in America, which is we got
there because we pulled ourselves into DIVIDI Julie up by
the bootstraps. It's a lie. It's always been a lie.
It's never been the truth. If that's the case, Donald
Trump got alan from his daddy, and that's bootstraps, that's
(42:09):
and failed in every business. So I guess what I
would say is is I think it's time out for
just wanting to see a new black business open up
that replicates the same attitude, traditions, and practices of white supremacy,
because that's death to our community. I would much prefer Angela.
You said that we won't win at their You know,
(42:32):
UH won't win this game playing the way.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
We're not gonna win the white man's game.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
So put another way, you'll never ever destroy Master's house
using Master's tools because his house was not built to
be destroyed, which means we have to pilot some new tools,
some new thinking and do this thing differently.
Speaker 6 (42:53):
And the collective.
Speaker 5 (42:54):
You're not gonna hear a lot of communities talk about
the collective when they're talking about building strong buildings, businesses, families.
But it's been so essential back to the Motherland of
how it is we as a community have held each
other and where prosperity comes from and comes through, and
it's been through our collective.
Speaker 6 (43:14):
And don't let anybody a lot of us to say that.
Speaker 5 (43:16):
We can't get there together, that there's only room enough
for only one of us in this room because there
are too many generations passer where we believe that lie
in the black community, that there's room at the top,
but the space is limited for the few of us
that are here. Yet yet their community never limits their
(43:37):
children and their children's children and their children's children's children
from being at the boardroom table.
Speaker 6 (43:44):
So we have to dismiss that lot.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I just want to echo that really quickly because I
think that's so important since there are so many business
owners in the room, and Angela has pointed this out
and called you all out, I truly have a testimony
about that. When it comes to sharing and information sharing opportunity,
we have a collective, a girlfriend group.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
We're all in media. We share.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
If somebody books Angela to speak somewhere, she gonna tell
us how much they paying her what she asked for.
We share that information. We're not competitors. And the reason
why I will tell you because I want everyone in
my life around me to be doing something dope. And
the reason why is because when I fall, they gonna
(44:28):
be in a position to catch me. So it's never
looking at somebody like why they get what I wanted
or what they didn't do And there came a time
in my life when I did fall and Angela caught me,
Joy Reid caught me, Sunny Howson on the View caught me.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
Who else?
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Brittany Pagnett Cunningham called me Latasha Brown right here in
Atlanta with black voters matter caught me. And so I
just want to encourage you, share information, share opportunity, position
every one in your life around you to do something
dope so they can catch you. But also that is
that collective consciousness that we collectively.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
Build, which really quick.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
I do want to make a distinction that I think
is important to if the community that Tiff is talking about.
We will talk about transactions as a part of being
in community and as a part of being in that
collective consciousness. But we also really genuinely love each other.
We actually really are connected. Too many of us have
(45:27):
been trained, again by the white Man, to go into
spaces you're looking at somebody's name tag before you're even
making eye contact. You're looking to see where they work
and what they can do for you, before you even
ask them how their day is going. That is not
how we are wired as a people. We love one
another when we normally go into our grandmother's house. The
first thing our grandmother asks us is baby, are you hungry?
(45:49):
Those are the kinds of communities in my line, Oh okay,
These are the kind of communities that we build. We
don't come up to people asking what we can extract
from you? Again, that is it to all white man.
I don't want us to move that way.
Speaker 8 (46:03):
Yeah, this relationship that you all just describe, it only
functions properly because you're not operating in the mindset of scarcity.
This relationship that we're talking about and that they're talking about,
and I can name some in my own life. The
only reason why it's okay for Angela to see TIF
(46:24):
win is because Angela understand if tif wind, she won also.
Speaker 4 (46:28):
And that is a mindset shift with.
Speaker 8 (46:31):
How we're going to be in community, in community with
each other. There is a notion that there is not
enough for all of us.
Speaker 4 (46:41):
Another lie.
Speaker 8 (46:43):
There is abundance that that overflow with me, all of
us if we assimilate and move ourselves in a position.
Speaker 4 (46:51):
Of that abundance.
Speaker 6 (46:53):
But it is.
Speaker 8 (46:53):
Highly contingent upon us divorcing the mindset of scarcity. You
can't be afraid just because your friend got put on
and you didn't that that was the last opportunity. It's
only making room for two, three, four more. It depends
on your mindset when you get there. So we and
when Andrews talked about the mindset, and I think Tim
(47:14):
talked about this as well, we cannot adopt or adapt
any harmful practices that have harmed our community. So if
you're that leader now, and this is just a level
of love and accountability self assessment that we all have
to do. If there is something inside of your spirit
(47:34):
now that you're only thinking about your own survival, and
even if you're thinking about hiring people but you don't
want to pay them a livable age. You want to
hire people, but you don't want to have mental health
days so they can have something to give to your company.
Speaker 4 (47:49):
When they come back.
Speaker 8 (47:50):
Then we're adopting the practices that have disenfranchised our communities.
So we have to be different operators, different leaders. But
it's going to take a resurrection of a spirit of
being communal to get there.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
We are we gonna treat this like church.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Since it's tomorrow, I think you might gonna walk, You
might gonna walk out of here with a few more members,
so he have jam clothes and then we got a
little plug. But we appreciate you all.
Speaker 6 (48:16):
Go ahead, no, I'm grateful real quick. Would everybody just
lift up that hand.
Speaker 7 (48:20):
I would just want to speak a blessing over your business.
Speaker 6 (48:23):
Come on, lift that hand up high.
Speaker 7 (48:26):
I pray that the Lord will bless you so you
are never empty handed. I pray that God will get
everything in your hand that you need to build to
the next level. I pray that your hand will always
be open to receive instruction and correction. I pray that
God will give strength to your hand so you can
pull somebody up. And I pray that God will use
(48:46):
your hand where you'll never have to close your fists
because somebody else will fight for you.
Speaker 6 (48:51):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
But also if you put that fist stuff because you're
using some different tools, that's all right too.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
All right, we appreciate you'all. This is Native Lampid.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Thanks again to doctor Key Helmet, Reverend doctor Jamal Bryant,
Andrew Gilliam, Tiffany Christ. I'm angela rober Native Lampid.
Speaker 6 (49:08):
Welcome to all, ride y'all, oh the last morning plea.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Thank you for joining the Natives. Attentional with the info
and all of the latest roy Gilum and cross connected
to the statements that you leave on our sociows. Thank
you sincerely for the patients reason for your choice is cleared.
So grateful it took the execute rolls. Thank you for serve,
defend and protect the truth. Even in paint.
Speaker 6 (49:31):
We walkome home to all.
Speaker 4 (49:32):
Of the natives, We thank you. Welcome y'all, Welcome.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Native Lampid is the production of iHeart Radio in partnership
with Reason Choice Media. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Tiffany Cross
Andrew Gillum
Angela Rye
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.