Embracing Black Agency Models...
I challenge any agency that is new and black led to trust the nexus of ”your model." especially if it involves an anti universal “cultural approach ” to providing services , products, and or programs to marginalized communities.
A recent social media post that I published stated that …When it comes to black led agency, it is almost expected that we should follow a “traditional model”, in order for us to be eligible for funding and or be eligible to receive any validation as a real business and or service.
We should not be supported just because we are “black”, and we have been marginalized , we should be supported because we are “black “ and ingenious in our “intellectual “ approach to business and or services. We know how to get things done differently…. Look at our models, ask us about them… they work…
Think back over the pantheon of 20thcentury corporate leaders and thinkers you learned about in business school and you’ll likely conjure up figures like Frederick Winslow Taylor, Peter Drucker, Jack Welch, or Clayton Christensen. It’s hardly a surprise that these canonical giants are largely male and white. What’s less well known is that the same century in the U.S. saw a golden age of Black business and Black business thinkers. Deeply rooted systemic prejudices meant that these individuals and their thinking were omitted from most textbooks, leadership workshops, and from public consciousness.i
So now let's introduce Demetrius McDowell, a former drug dealer turned socialpreneur. Mr. McDowell has entered this “game”, with his own brand of “community work,” with the establishment of his non profit, Boss Not Bangers in 2022. His agency was inspired by the loss of his beloved mother; as well as by the need to tend to his own mental health; as he found himself plunging into the depths of emotional anguish; once he experienced this grievous loss.
The “emotional state of black youth” became a top priority for McDowell, and he adopted it as his number one mission. He soon realized that a lot of lethargy and anguish was connected to a lack of opportunity for local black youth who were struggling to be aspirational in a city that is wrought with stark racial segregation and poverty.
Boss Not Bangers, "Who's Next? sports mentorship program at the Louisville Chestnut Street YMCA
i/How 20th-Century Black Business Leaders Envisioned a More Just Capitalism
