>true, but i don't think the stereotypical images we see would
>exist in the black marketplace (at all). you're right about
>the initial backlash, but the thing that would be the most
>interesting would be the backlash from the white community if
>blacks thrived in such an environment (they burnt the "black
>market" in tulsa to the ground in tulsa. the initial backlash
>isn't from a fear of blacks doing poorly, and money being
>wasted - it's from blacks doing well, and profiting off of
>white taxes.

Hmmm...

>true. and it goes back to nettrice's conversation. people
>either don't, or refuse to, recognize predatory marketing
>practices. and nettrice - if you read this, marlboro was
>originally marketed as a "woman's" brand. they couldn't get
>into the market - so they gradually shifted 180 degrees to the
>marlboro man.

I did not know this and it does not surprise me in the least.

>i hear you. in other words, we have black folks in the
>boardroom willing to present the images, but we're not filling
>those critical decision making positions on the other side of
>the table. from what i've seen with my parents, it usually
>takes a black hand on the other side of the door in order for
>us to get in to present a proposal, but once we're in - we're
>pretty much on our own.

This is what people fail to acknowledge. I am reading Nelson George's article in "And It Don't Stop" about Russell Simmons, a guy from a middle-class Queens neighborhood who promoted (pimped) rap music to white companies. George admits that, being from Brownsville, he knew the ghetto was "nothing to romanticize" but there were people like Simmons who "grew up in their own houses, with access to cars, furnished basements, both parents, and more cash than my friends ever knew", who packaged and sold the street image to white folks. It worked, eventually, and Russell lost his hair in the process.

<--- Blame this lady for Nutty.