The title of this brilliant article is too long to put on Nairaland subject line, but here it is:
Please Black people, let us help ourselves by paying attention to this message. I have copied the article link and forwarded to my Whatsapp network. Please consider doing same, and sending to other Africans/Black people. We have been in the wilderness for too long. Messages from this type of article will help all of us Africans/Black people.

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THE WHITE MAN'S ICE CREAM IS BETTER THAN THE BLACK MAN'S ICE CREAM: A PREFERENCE FOR ALL THINGS FOREIGN
By Ndidi Uwechue
26th September 2019

This is a worldwide phenomenon. Black people seem happiest when we give over our money to someone who is not from our own community. I will give an illustration from an article by an African American that I came across about ten years ago but which I can no longer find, so as to give the originator due credit. It is, The White Man's Ice Cream Is Better than The Black Man's Ice Cream, and the tale goes like this: A White man and A Black man bought the very same vanilla ice cream from the very same factory and both men set up separate shops in the Black community. Now, Black people KNOW that anything from a non-Black person is always better, so automatically Black people bought ice cream from the White man. But very very few Black people bought ice cream from the Black man. The White man now had profits from all the money that the Black customers were giving him so he was able to decorate his shop nicely, he could buy more ice cream flavours, plus he could improve his ice cream by adding different toppings. But not so the Black man. Since hardly anybody went to his shop it began to look drab as he did not make enough profit to re-decorate it. Plus he could only offer vanilla ice cream and no toppings. So as time passed and the White man's profits increased, then it did become true that: the White man's ice cream is better than the Black man's ice cream, BECAUSE THE BLACK PEOPLE EMPOWERED THE WHITE MAN BY GIVING HIM THEIR MONEY! And conversely, the Black people impoverished the Black man, a member of their own community by from the start being suspicious of him and deciding that there was something bad about his ice cream. Enough said. We know ourselves and the constant excuses we give for not buying from somebody who looks just like us.

Regularly preferring to buy a product or service from a non-Black person has now become a big part of Black culture, and it is a destructive practice that helps to keep our community handicapped because we use our money to benefit not our own community, but other communities. Each time we buy a pair of shoes made in Italy, we keep the Italian shoemaker in business and at the same time we destroy the chances of our own struggling Nigerian shoemaker surviving. Each time we boast that we own something foreign-made, we are actually boasting that we are handicapping our own Black people, because that is the effect that our love for all things foreign has. When Black people do not buy from Black-owned businesses, our businesses will not survive. Yet, our money keeps foreign businesses sustainable. Is this smart?

In America, one dollar circulates within the Oriental community for about 30 days, in the Jewish community for about 20 days, in the White community for about 17 days, but only for 6 HOURS in the Black community. For us Black people, as soon as we earn money, we tend to quickly spend it buying something foreign. Our sportsmen, actors, singers and musicians do earn a lot of money, but they pour most of it into the laps of makers of foreign luxury cars, foreign luxury homes, foreign luxury goods, and high end foreign clothing and footwear designers.

If we stay with Nigeria, when we make money it is nearly always 100% from Nigerians. Yet, most of it is spent on buying foreign goods, so we make money from Nigerians but give much of it out to foreign manufacturers. Many Nigerians say that they buy foreign products because they are better. However, can we truly say that the imported items found in our markets are of good, or even satisfactory quality?

Let us consider the effect our love for all things foreign is having. Why bother to train your child at a university or polytechnic if you will not buy things made by a Black person - is your child not Black? For example if your child can build cars, since he is Black and not a foreigner, the car must be bad, right? Since you yourself prefer foreign cars, so who do you suppose will buy a car made by your Black son? We Black people have created disrespect for Black-made products, so we should not be surprised that our children are aimless and jobless, and that foreigners will follow our lead and also not want products made by Black you or by your Black child.

If we want to reduce poverty and unemployment, we are going to have to spend our money empowering Black people by buying what our people produce, instead of empowering foreign people by buying what they make. It is not too late to re-orientate our minds. Each one of us can determine to be part of the Intellectual Revolution where growing numbers of Black people are deciding to become smarter, and live intelligent and productive Afrocentric, Black community-focused lives. Wanting our people worldwide to value self-reliance and self-dependence, to become a confident people with things to bring to the global table.


HOW TO STOP THE "FOREIGN IS BEST" ATTITUDE
• Remember that we Black people had great ancient empires and kingdoms when we produced everything that we needed and traded on an equal level with foreign kingdoms, so we can do so again! For example Kemet (Ancient Egypt), Nubia, Ethiopia, Great Zimbabwe, Songhai, Timbuktu and many more.

• Electricity is the foundation of progress and prosperity. We can form pressure groups to insist that we will no longer accept lack of electricity in this, the 21st century: proper and full electrification is our human right.

• We should look for locally made products and if they are not up to standard we can inform the manufacturer using constructive criticism and providing suggestions for product/service improvement.

• Manufacturers and business owners should not forget that continuous improvement is global best practice and so should have quality control processes, and use customer feedback to improve. So having suggestion boxes, plus a functioning and transparent customer complaints process, are essential.

The same way that the Black community together decided that "Black is bad", and began to prefer all things foreign, is the same way that the Black community together should decide that "Buy Black" is the best policy. The late singer Bob Marley said it plainly, "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds." The Black man's ice cream can be as good as the White man's ice cream when we empower the Black man, as we have empowered the White man.


Source:
http://www.africannewstoday.com/magazine/opinion-the-white-mans-ice-cream-is-better-than-the-black-mans-a-preference-for-all-things-foreign/