Addressing the Balance - Chairman 2008
How does the business community address the issues faced by the African community in the United Kingdom today? What are the solutions to the recurring tragedies striking down our youth and eating away at the proverbial fabric of our society? There is no single solution to the various faults and flaws in our society. Instead, we could amalgamate the various proposals and through small victories we could begin to realize the community’s success story. Teenage pregnancy and teenage binge drinking all bear the same burden on our society as teenage gangsters and knife and gun crime. The real question posed to all of us in the business community is whether or not these issues affect our businesses. The answer to that is quite simply YES. The effects are at varying degrees depending on one’s particular area of business but we should all share the same degree of concern. It is through our combined effort that we can begin to turn things around. As my rugby coach used to say, “A team is only as good as the worst player”. Combating the decay of our community will ultimately be achieved by pulling together as a community and as a team, pulling all our resources and making a combined and equal effort to make even the smallest of changes.
I was watching Sky News one day after a spate of youth shootings and stabbings within the African community and the panel of commentators came to a mutual conclusion that to solve the problems would take healing from within the community rather than from outside of the community. Lee Jasper, adviser on policing to London's former mayor, said: “For years we have said this is an issue the black community has to deal with.” Listening to several youth living in the community, the recurring message we hear is that the police and the government do not understand the real problem. This leads to prove that it would be useless to try provide solutions to problems the government or the police do not understand. So we now hear that various initiatives have been set up to try and learn the “real problem”. And good luck to these initiatives.
Having grown up in Africa, I can testify that growing up we had a completely different mentor structure. We looked up to politicians, business men and professionals as role models. My ambitions in life consequently rested in trying to achieve “big business”. Traditional African culture glorified business men and deal makers. We were groomed to be entrepreneurial and innovative. I had never heard of any of my peer group aspire to win a cup trophy or break a world record. Don’t get me wrong, there were keen sportsmen around me growing up. But they generally strived for success at that time rather than dedicating their whole lives to sport. I grew up with both white friends and black friends. Even the white kids aspired to running their family farms or other business ventures. We did not have a society that exclusively glorified sports and entertainment careers. Entertainment as a career was not particularly high on the list of goals, primarily because the biggest entertainers were poor. The footballers were poor. The musicians all lived in the ghettos. There was no logical reason why a 15 year old boy growing up in Zimbabwe would want to have a hit record because that did not equate to success in our community nor in our culture. There was no “bling-bling” associated with music or sport.
Today’s youth however have footballers and musicians as the primary individuals they know as successful. They have their impressions of success defined by the things they see in the media. Rappers are glorified to the point that some of our youth do not even know about any other career options. Footballers are the alternative and of course actors. The psychology of today’s music industry is to glorify the lifestyle. I mean, who drinks Champaign for breakfast. The idea sounds great but the impracticalities far outweigh the “bling” factor. And yet our youth hear and aspire to this. Various types of music promote a hard lifestyle that the artist experienced growing up. The artists usually have left the hardships behind but in order to sell records and merchandise they promote gangs and violence as a glamorous aspiration. Examples include 50 Cent and his G-Unit or the So Solid Crew. Looking at the program choice of today’s youth you realize that their only exposure is to hip hop and sports success stories. The reality shows and diary programs seem to only show the lifestyles these stars live. But we need to stop and smell the roses here. For all that success and all the money and all the “cribs”, how many failures are there? For all the hit records and goals scored, how many hours of sweat and toil went into it? For every 90 minutes of a football match, how many hours are spent in preparation and practise? For all the movie stars, how many failed the auditions. The amounts of failures far outweigh the successful and yet these industries have the widest promotion and glorification.
One could argue that we live in a capitalist state. Let the youth investigate the industries. Let the youth choose different programs on TV like national Geographic or The God Channel. Last week, to prove my point, I Skipped through all the channels on Sky and I did not find any station that was appealing to the modern African youth that had a positive image or that portrayed anything other than pop culture or sports. My question is this: WHERE IS THE BALANCE?
For every football success story, where are the programs showing that guy who didn’t make it? What career did he choose? The statistics show that there will be more failures that success stories even though the success stories will be so great. So let’s focus on the majority for a moment. What do all those failures eventually do with their lives? Do they get paid by the industries for dedicating their lives and failing at the last hurdle? NO! Because the competition is so high, the successful ones are the ones with the most talent combined with commitment and training. Yet the TV programs hardly focus on the work aspect it takes to be successful. All they show us are the results of the success. If the TV stations at least included a show per day to showcase what it takes to reach the top, we would begin to achieve a balance.
I believe that the youth gangs see and glorify the success of the commercial stars to the point of only wanting to achieve that lifestyle at any cost. As 50 Cent titled his album “Get Rich or Die Trying” many youth get deluded into thinking this is how they ought to live. Our youth can achieve the “bling” but because not all of them can be rappers and footballers, they need to realise that they can work and earn their “bling”. They can be accountants and earn their bling. They can be sales consultants and earn their bling. They can choose from a wide array of career options and earn their bling. So if they can do this and not end up in jail by these routes, why don’t they? Why do they choose to be in gangs and live a life of crime? Why is there so much youth alienation and disaffection in our community? Why is there a growing phenomenon of gun and gang crime in deprived black communities today?
We need to start by addressing the fundamentals of our culture and our society. We are a people of different culture living in a foreign society - a society which glorifies things that our cultures traditionally used to leave for the underdogs. Having grown up in Africa, the thought of a society where the third page of a daily tabloid has a naked woman is a distinct deviation from the cultural basis I grew up on. We grew up in a culture of hard work and respect for elders and peers. We grew up in a culture of capitalism and entrepreneurialism. Yes there was serious crime in Africa. Crime is everywhere but not amongst the youth as we see today. Teenagers were not killing each other. A fist fight was a big deal. We would talk about it for weeks. And many guys who fought would end up very close friends after the fight. Why does this society inspire so much terminal violence?
We live in a society that tries to curb our culture through glorifying impossible ambitions for commercial purposes and they try to ensure control through fear and punishment. The prison sentences for carrying weapons were increased and they say they will now be strict to impose jail sentences for those found breaking the law instead of cautioning the offenders, and yet they clearly advertise that their jails are full and they are releasing convicts to make space in their jails. So they are brandishing empty threats with the hope of imposing fear into the young offenders. If one tells a child “Don’t”, the child will. If you apply laws, they will be broken.
Instead of creating a society of one law passed after another and glorifying impossible targets, our society needs to create an equal and opposing alternative to achieve a balance. For all the negatives in mainstream media we need to showcase the positives of the same communities. The only time we ever see various communities is when something has gone horribly wrong within these communities. My question is, “does nothing good ever happen in these communities?” There is a continuing tendency for the media to only report Africans and blacks in general after a crime or in an appeal against gun crime. The BBC often showcases businesses and initiatives around the country but none of these PR opportunities are in African community. Are none of our initiatives news worthy? If we are non existent in the media and there are only two current publications targeting our community, where do the young African youths find role models they can relate to from a cultural perspective? Should all our African youth only try to be either Didier Drogba or Michael Essien? Where can they learn, through exposure, of alternatives to choose from with their careers? Where is the rich list of Africans in the UK for our youth to adore and emulate their successes? When can we watch a TV program that shows the importance of keeping your options open? Or a program that shows the stars telling the youth about the work that goes into being successful. Where can an African youth draw confidence in being from Africa and have pin up stars to boast of. Entertainment and sport are great but when do these industries actually take time to show the failures and promote keeping career options open. You can be the most gifted young footballer with the best character but a serious injury could rule out your sports ambitions. Where do these industries highlight these inherent risks?
To the rappers, you sing of bling and money being so plenteous. That is great. But do you realize that when you do, many of our youth get so obsessed that they want to emulate your lifestyles. Do you realize that because they do not afford your jewellery so they happily buy fake “bling”? To afford even the most fake of bling they need money. They don’t have regular jobs - rappers do not glorify regular jobs. Since they have no income, they end up resorting to crime to be able to “party like a rock star”. It used to be that when crime is committed, the proceeds were used to buy drugs by addicts. Today’s addicts are not necessarily addicted to drugs. Instead they are addicted to trying to live up to this lifestyle glorified on TV and buy Champaign for the ladies in the night clubs. The gang turf wars are all an attempt to make more money to finance these lifestyles.
But when you are in London’s top clubs, yes there are celebrities and footballers. But there are also accountants, engineers, PR executives, sales executives, advertising consultants and various other professionals. They are buying Champaign and rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous but they don’t have to worry about going to jail. We can promote a different lifestyle in this society. We can be responsible and showcase an alternative. The Association for African Owned Enterprises is committed to showing this alternative. We are committed to achieving the balance. We can not correct all the problems in our society but we can make an effort to affecting change. We can do something.
We propose to bring the African business community together. Amalgamate our resources and work coherently to promote our businesses and our business leaders in the African community. We propose creating role models from success stories within our society. We may not solve social issues such as fatherless households, but we can give those children from broken families positive mentors to look up to. We can never replace a parent but we can provide an alternative influence to the gang and peer group influence. Growing up in deprived communities may lead a youth to believe that he has no hope of achieving any success but if we showcase the several successful Africans out there who came out of these same communities and are now successful entrepreneurs, we will provide light at the end of the tunnel. We are products of our environment to some degree but I believe we can be products of the positive aspects rather than the negative aspects. We can begin to showcase the positive aspects of our most deprived communities. If every cloud has a silver lining, then surely we can find positive news to report out of our communities. We can push more companies to pursue PR opportunities and get onto television and showcase their businesses. We can do this by lobbying for grants to allow our businesses to work with PR firms. It is through the culmination of single steps that one completes a journey, despite how small each step may be. Let us take a step today to make a change in our society and our community.
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