Entrepreneurship in the Black community in the U.S.
Becoming self-employed is the guarantee for every African immigrant to engage in productive activities without the need to fear job loss or pay cut as the grim of economic crises bow to the vicissitudes of time in the U.S.
While I am not unmindful of the challenges of going into business, available evidence show that an entrepreneurial inclined African immigrant would overcome both short term and long term job crises that plague most active Africans in search of better means of livelihood.
Blacks who have summoned the courage to go into business are consistently reaping the benefits of their investment. American blacks have for centuries taken the path of entrepreneurship to guarantee their economic survival. Today, we hear of such a thriving community enterprise like the Black Wall Street of Tulsa in Oklahoma. By considering the entrepreneurial option to employment, African migrants will be unleashing their potential economic power and resilience to rise above poverty and cut a niche for themselves in the industrial map of America.
The path of business is a guarantee of wealth and job creation for African migrant communities. A recent report by The Association for Enterprise Opportunity on black-owned businesses in the U.S. put the total number of black businesses at 2.58 million with annual revenue of $150 billion and providing approximately 3.56 million jobs. Although the report didn’t say that path of business is an overnight success, it did acknowledge that most of the business owners are wealthier, putting the median net worth of black entrepreneurs at 12 times more than their fellow blacks who are not business owners.
A Cue from the Chinese Immigrant Communities Around the World
Back home in Nigeria, I once had the opportunity to work as a foreign exchange facilitator for the Chinese business community. What I found out is the enormous connection the Chinese have with their local economy serving as a marketing outpost for the Chinese industries in China. The Chinese strategy of creating Chinatown is a way to guarantee jobs for Chinese immigrants and sustain their local economies.
The Chinese do not come to Nigeria to look for employment, they come to Nigeria to take up the jobs they have created and even employ Nigerians to work for them. In the Chinatowns in Ojota and Ikoyi in Lagos, the community provides more than 1000 jobs for the local people and has more than 500 China nationals working directly in the Chinatowns.
