I hate thug culture.
But I think that ex-thugs might actually help save our inner-city communities in America.
Specifically, I am talking about the seemingly untapped brilliance of otherwise corrupt drug dealers and gang leaders here in our American inner-cities.
At the recent Clinton Global Initiatives America meeting (CGI America), I spoke about my vision for the re-winning of America, and it centers around our newest innovation with HOPE Business In a Box, Powered by the Gallup-HOPE Index. The example I gave while on stage at CGI America was not a traditional one. It was one of an inner city drug dealer.
As we were talking about the power of the American idea, small business, entrepreneurship and the thing we all need now -- job creation -- the simple question I posed to the audience of more than 1,000 assembled dignitaries and leaders from across the nation was "what do you think a drug dealer is, if not an unethical American entrepreneur?" I went on to make it clear that the whole idea of drug dealers and the gangs I grew up around in Compton, California and South Central Los Angeles actually turn my stomach. That I believe drug dealing to be immoral and unethical, and that "there is a special place in hell reserved for anyone who sells death to their own people, in their own community and in our schools." That said, they may be immoral and unethical, but if someone is a so-called successful drug dealer, one thing they are not is dumb.
They understand import, export, wholesale, retail, markup, marketing, geography and territory, financing, and of course 'security.' They understand how to take something from an idea and with very few natural resources available to them, they then make that idea real (maybe a bit too real) in people's lives.
In doing all of this, and yes, again, unethical and illegal at its core, they did succeed in creating a job for themselves and several others around them. None of this is sustainable, none of it should happen, and given that they are not paying their fair share of taxes on their ill-gotten gains to the IRS, it will not even continue for very long (remember, the government did not finally convict Al Capone for murder and mayhem, but tax evasion). At its core, the drug dealers and gang organizers in my inner-city neighborhood growing up were brilliant organizers, strategists and enterprise builders. To be blunt, these inner city drug dealers are natural hustlers and entrepreneurs, just with bad role models and a corrupt business model, built on a form of 'bad capitalism.' All this is true, but they are not dumb.
As I look for real and sustainable solutions to the poverty and lack of opportunity I see everyday in my work at Operation HOPE in our inner-city communities in America, I am coming to a strange conclusion. We have locked up and thrown away the key to, in all probability, some of the very character traits that are required to stand up a community, create an emerging market and jobs, and grow local GDP growth. In order to be a successful entrepreneur you have to be a contrarian, an out of the box thinker and doer, someone who takes risks, is innovative, hard working and someone with a vision. All these are the traits of drug dealers and gang organizers. They are also single-handledly helping to destroy the very community and family structure that I am trying to grow and sustain, but the point is still not lost.
What if we have actually tossed away the 20% of society we actually need to save it, leaving the elderly, the infirmed, the young, broken families, or the traditional job striver to save a faltering community? What would have happened if all of the otherwise brilliant young people who want to become drug dealers, rap stars and athletes (because those are the only symbols of success and role models they see in their communities), had a proper business role model or business internship growing up? Maybe it would have changed everything.
It did for me.
John Hope Bryant is a thought leader, founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE and Bryant Group Companies, Inc. Magazine/CEO READ bestselling business author of LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass), the only African-American bestselling business author in America, and is chairman of the Subcommittee for the Under-Served and Community Empowerment for the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability, for President Barack Obama. Mr. Bryant is the co-founder of the Gallup-HOPE Index, the only national research poll on youth financial dignity and youth economic energy in the U.S. He is also a co-founder of Global Dignity with HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway and Professor Pekka Himanen of Finland. Global Dignity is affiliated with the Forum of Young Global Leaders and the World Economic Forum. Mr. Bryant serves on the board of directors of Ares Commercial Real Estate Corporation, an NYSE Euronext publicly traded company, and a division of $54 billion Ares Capital.
Follow John Hope Bryant on Twitter: www.twitter.com/johnhopebryant
What we need is a paradigm shift in our high school education system - which right now goes with the theory that every kid is going to graduate and go to college. Meanwhile, we have jobs for blue collar workers like Welders, truck drivers, mechanics, plumbers, electricians, machinists, etc... that can't be filled for lack of qualified applicants. Welders here in South TX at the Eagle Ford Shale development make (I'm hearing) $100K a year. Welding. I think a lot of minority youth drop out of HS because they know they aren't going to college, and have no interest in going to college, so why bust your butt trying to pass Algebra, Chemistry, Geometry?
Create a Vocational path in HS, for kids who WANT that path (not forcing them to it) - and teach them needed math and science relevant to bluecollar work, with work internships and access to trade school training -- now you've got HS graduates who can get a JOB (and often a well paying job), without going to college for 4 years and $80K+ in loans.
Lets also get the mass murderers out of prison and put them in charge of homicide, simply because they know how to do it well.......
I would you suggest you stop smoking, and sniffing it! It causes brain damage!
1. They grow ideas into enterprises (ethical or not is not the issue or point I am making here).
2. They take enormous risks to pursue that which they believe, in order to make it real.
These traits are the essence of entrepreneurship.
On your other points. Beyond you making an obvious humor point, and me respecting you as a hard working man, let me state this:
* Their start up costs typically include a consignment of their lives.
* They get a loan, it is just not called on. That consignment you reference, includes the worst repayment terms on the planet. Repay with worst that payday loan terms, or your dead in 24 hours.
* They often work 12-15 hour days, and when you calculate it, it comes out to less than minimum wage. Which means they need a financial literacy lesson too.
And yes -- your life expectancy rocks. :)
Drug gang leaders might not be dumb but some of the communities they "serve" sure are. Not simply dumb but also utterly deluded as to the negative impact of such gangs on their communities. Add to that an unhealthy pinch of the "stop snitchin" mantra and you have a recipe for disaster. Throw in a 70% illegitimacy rate and the financial impediments that result from such unstable familial arrangements and you have an apocalypse.
It's going to take more than harnessing entrepreneurship. It's going to require an entire cultural, philosophical, and moral change starting with people taking far more responsibility for bringing children into the world and providing them with the educational, financial, and social resources needed to succeed in legitimate economic spheres.
But agreed, we need to end the war on drugs, it a crime against humanity, and provide a great citizens safety net with free education,. health care, needed room and board, like Sweden and the other civilized people do.
The solution for the African-American community is not complicated. Stop having children when you don't have the financial or social resources to ensure (as well as one ever can) that they get the best possible start in life when it comes to health and education. Of course whites have these problems as well but the simple fact is that, in terms of proportions, it is no way near the same degree as blacks. Most of the white parents at my school are well into their late 40s and even 50s. The black parents are in their 20s or 30s. The white kids parents have a 20 year advantage in building wealth and equity because they can do things that parents with children cannot, especially if the parents did not have a good financial situation to begin with.
Free health care, education and room and board if needed.
Sweden does it. Why can't we?
to have minimal safe room and board. a watched apartment
building, with a single room, bed and a cheap notebook computer.
access to the shower, and toilet, towels. We could do it
as paid in full vouchers that YMCA or other groups can accept, but
there has to be a public option to set the standard.
For
families they get roughly the same per person but a combined unit.
As you say, kids need stability. They should not live in fear
of having to move, of going homeless.
What
we can do is offer free birth control everywhere anyone wants it.
condoms, the pill, whatever. With stability, access to free
education, room and board they will not want to have kids, that
what's happened all over the world when you raise the minimum
standards of living and open access to education.
Trying
to punish, penalize or starve the poor away doesn't work.
Care
does.