Several Blacks are loyal to name-brand clothing. We have to look fresh to impress other Blacks as well as other races in our peer age group. If our outfit and shoes are more expensive and prestigious in name, we feel we’re out-shining and defeating our peers in this imaginary competition. If our car is fancier and more high-end than our peers,’ we feel we are winning. We’ll even work a high paying, pressure job we don’t like just to finance an expensive lifestyle above our means.
The Problem with Detrimental Habits
Now let’s look at the problem with these detrimental habits. Most of the companies that own these clothing lines and automobiles are white or foreign-owned. The companies that work you to death to increase their bottom line on a larger scale, but pays you decent to finance your lifestyle to merely look rich on a lower scale are usually white-owned. So even if you look fresher than the next man, the only winner is the business owner of the fancy clothes and cars you spend money on. Those corporate owners of clothes companies, meanwhile dress modestly as jeans-and-t-shirt guys while investing and saving their money. That company you slave away for and make richer on a broader scale, while you get decent pay to keep up with the joneses on a lower scale, are also the winners. Sounds like highway buck dancing to me – or at least by the standards of the hard-charging pro-Black folks. But I know. You didn’t know, so you’re not a sellout.
Even if you’re not overly materialistic but still innocently spend money on basic necessities like food, clothing, and cosmetics without looking for Black-owned versions, you are also a coon or Sambo by the standards of the pro-Black snobs. Most of us do this as well as spend money on gadgets, entertainment, and electronics. If you get gas from Arab-owned gas stations or buy Chinese food, I guess you’re also a sellout. Black women who spend money at Korean nail shops and beauty supply stores are also coons I guess. None of these non-Black companies do anything for the community.
