Airing-the-Dirty Laundry Issue: VOLUME 21, ISSUE 40
THE STAGNANT HUSTLE
by Jennifer Rosario, A Matrix Correspondent
Amongst the beauty, busyness, and chaos of New York City there is a constant strive amongst New Yorkers to make an extra dollar. Nearly every street corner is a Turkish bazaar with legitimate vendors who sell fruits and vegetables, dirty-water dogs, chips, bagels and coffee, along side other “vendors” hawking bootlegged colognes, purses, belts and movies, and must-go items that have “fallen off a UPS truck.”
I am promoter of social change and advocacy for the liberation of black people. By black liberation, I mean the ability to be culturally, spiritually, financially, and ultimately self-dependent.
As black people are we assisting or further paralyzing brothers and sisters by supporting their stagnant hustles? Should we give the black homeless man money? Would he stand on the same corner each day if he receives a certain amount of money every morning? What about the men and boys roaming the streets and highway exits selling bottled water out of a cooler on those hot summer days? What about the teens on the train selling candy bars “to help raise money for their school basketball uniforms/team”? Or bootleggers selling $5 bags, $10 colognes, $5 pirated dvd movies…they crowd the streets of trendy neighborhoods like SOHO, TriBeca, Greenwich Village running from police officers who request vendor licenses. Would it be wrong to suggest that black people, not support blacks in any of the above stated stagnant hustles?
One of the few times I’ve listened to the radio I heard a host state a message that has refrained my mentality around these hustles. He said something in the lines of:
“I would give money to a white homeless man before I give money to a black homeless man.”
The radio host’s theory was by giving money to the homeless you create a level of comfort and generate stagnation. However, by not supporting a black transient, you create discomfort and generate mobility within that person.
The act of supporting bootleggers, the teens selling candy bars on the train, and water bottles on the streets paralyze our youth and create a level of comfort that will generate a lack of social mobility and a creativity, consciousness.
Stagnant hustlers consider themselves entrepreneurs, giving them a false sense of earning a livable wage from these side-hustle, but these activities are not of an inspired entrepreneurial mind.
It can be argued that these brothers and sisters are making ends meet through the use of a legal/positive/harmless hustle as they themselves, e.g. the teens selling candy on the train would verbalize. Yes harmless, at times legal, but I must argue not positive. The argument that it’s legal is an excuse to attract supporters, however the more support, the more the stagnation.
As long as we continue to support these stagnate hustles we will further hurt our youth. In particular, youth of color tend to be under the impression that we’ve made it that things are all right. It has been a generation and a half since we were exposed to the lynching of black people, segregation, or accepted maltreatment. Black youths’ lack of knowledge and interest of the struggle has developed into laziness of the mind. For that reason, we can not support the uncreative, temporary, stagnant hustle and instead demand from youth to think beyond the quick dollar and exercise their energies into long-term solutions to start a business not a STAGNANT HUSTLE.
THE STAGNANT HUSTLE
by Jennifer Rosario, A Matrix Correspondent
Amongst the beauty, busyness, and chaos of New York City there is a constant strive amongst New Yorkers to make an extra dollar. Nearly every street corner is a Turkish bazaar with legitimate vendors who sell fruits and vegetables, dirty-water dogs, chips, bagels and coffee, along side other “vendors” hawking bootlegged colognes, purses, belts and movies, and must-go items that have “fallen off a UPS truck.”
I am promoter of social change and advocacy for the liberation of black people. By black liberation, I mean the ability to be culturally, spiritually, financially, and ultimately self-dependent.
As black people are we assisting or further paralyzing brothers and sisters by supporting their stagnant hustles? Should we give the black homeless man money? Would he stand on the same corner each day if he receives a certain amount of money every morning? What about the men and boys roaming the streets and highway exits selling bottled water out of a cooler on those hot summer days? What about the teens on the train selling candy bars “to help raise money for their school basketball uniforms/team”? Or bootleggers selling $5 bags, $10 colognes, $5 pirated dvd movies…they crowd the streets of trendy neighborhoods like SOHO, TriBeca, Greenwich Village running from police officers who request vendor licenses. Would it be wrong to suggest that black people, not support blacks in any of the above stated stagnant hustles?
One of the few times I’ve listened to the radio I heard a host state a message that has refrained my mentality around these hustles. He said something in the lines of:
“I would give money to a white homeless man before I give money to a black homeless man.”
The radio host’s theory was by giving money to the homeless you create a level of comfort and generate stagnation. However, by not supporting a black transient, you create discomfort and generate mobility within that person.
The act of supporting bootleggers, the teens selling candy bars on the train, and water bottles on the streets paralyze our youth and create a level of comfort that will generate a lack of social mobility and a creativity, consciousness.
Stagnant hustlers consider themselves entrepreneurs, giving them a false sense of earning a livable wage from these side-hustle, but these activities are not of an inspired entrepreneurial mind.
It can be argued that these brothers and sisters are making ends meet through the use of a legal/positive/harmless hustle as they themselves, e.g. the teens selling candy on the train would verbalize. Yes harmless, at times legal, but I must argue not positive. The argument that it’s legal is an excuse to attract supporters, however the more support, the more the stagnation.
As long as we continue to support these stagnate hustles we will further hurt our youth. In particular, youth of color tend to be under the impression that we’ve made it that things are all right. It has been a generation and a half since we were exposed to the lynching of black people, segregation, or accepted maltreatment. Black youths’ lack of knowledge and interest of the struggle has developed into laziness of the mind. For that reason, we can not support the uncreative, temporary, stagnant hustle and instead demand from youth to think beyond the quick dollar and exercise their energies into long-term solutions to start a business not a STAGNANT HUSTLE.
posted by Malik Isasis at
11:57 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home