• Lifestyle

by agboolaa

February 12, 2018

Petition Calls For Portion of ‘Black Panther’ Revenues To Be Invested Into Black Community

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With the much anticipated Black Panther movie projected to earn Marvel Studios an estimated $150-plus million on its opening weekend, some fans are calling for a portion of the movie’s profits to be invested in the black community.

An online petition created by a Chaz Gormley is urging Marvel’s parent company, the Walt Disney Co. to “set aside 25 percent of their worldwide profit to be allocated for investment in black communities, and in programs within these communities that focus on S.T.E.M.”

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Gormley’s Change.org petition said that the movie studios have intentionally targeted African American communities around the country with its marketing campaigns for the upcoming film.

“As marginalized groups have become more vocal, corporations and their savvy public relations departments have turned to catering to these groups—to turn a profit—and this film by Marvel Studios is no different,” the petition reads.

Black Panther is expected to smash February’s box office opening record, previously held by Marvel’s Deadpool at $152.1 million over four days. When the film’s advance tickets were released in late January, Fandango reported that sales were beating Captain America: Civil War in its first 24 hours, topping Marvel’s all-time record for first-day advance ticket sales. It was also surpassing the previous record-holder, Batman v Superman, which went on to amass a $166 million in its domestic opening weekend in March 2016.

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Gormley said although he expects people of all races to the theatres to see the film—which has a predominantly black cast and director— Gormley said Marvel is targeting the black community because of its spending power.

A part of the tactic used by the film studio is the use of Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” playing in the background of the film’s trailer, which Gormley said is insulting as a marketing ploy as it speaks to the monetization of “wokeness.”

“You have the ability to not only be entertained but to leave the theater in February knowing that a portion of your money will be coming back into your community,” Gormley said. “To not only go see a film about a fictitious country in Africa with advanced technology but the opportunity to invest in programs which focus on the fields—Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics—that make such advancements possible, in real life.”

The petition has amassed just over 3,000 signatures of its required 5,000

The 21st Annual Wall Street Project Economic Summit kicked off a two-day event, held at the Sheraton Hotel in New York on Thursday with Rev. Jesse Jackson, organizer of the Wall Street Project declaring African Americans to be in the fourth stage of the civil rights movement when it comes to diversity and inclusion on corporate boards.

“The struggle continues. Blacks are still in need of achieving true economic parity and inclusion,” said Jackson. “We need greater access to capital, credit, formal education and higher wages because many blacks are the working poor.”

With panels on education to sports and investing, one of the standout panels was on how African American business owners and budding entrepreneurs can find varying ways to raise early-stage capital investments. From the panelists:

3 Ways to Raise Seed Capital

Start Within Your Own Network

Michael Lythcott of Uplift Equity Partners, who is a serial entrepreneur, said to start as small as possible within one’s own network of family and friends.

Lythcott said when he first became an entrepreneur he was looking to raise $1 million. An investor who he had a meeting with asked him how much he had raised so far. Lythcott had raised nothing. He said the investor told him to come back when he’d raised $10,000.

“You have to start within your own personal circle of friends,” Lythcott said. “I had to go back to my friends and family members and beg them for the money.”

Lythcott said it was the capital he raised within his own inner circle that kept him going on days when he wanted to quit the business.

“There were days when everything [wasn’t] going according to plan and I wanted to throw in the towel,” Lythcott said. “My investor, who is wealthy was going to be fine but I just couldn’t go back to my friends to tell them that I’d lost their money.”

Lythcott said African American business owners might not have family members or friends they can raise capital from but that “having some skin in the game” gives investors confidence about the dedication and reliability of an entrepreneur.

Expand Those Networks

Ita Ekpoudom, the founder and CEO of Tigress Ventures said it is important for women founders to network with other women for support and advice.

“Other women investors want to invest in other women,” Ekpoudom said.

She told the story of Amanda Johnson and KJ Miller, founders of Mented Cosmetics.

Johnson and Miller, both Harvard University graduates had pitched Mented Cosmetics, their cosmetics startup at a competition. They didn’t win.

A friend, Ekpoudom said, called to tell her about how the two female founder’s business was misunderstood by the investor-judges. Ekpoudom, who graduated from Princeton University, connected with Johnson and Miller.

While the business wasn’t at the level Ekpoudom could invest yet, she said she was able to connect the founders with another friend who advised and helped them weigh the decision of applying to Y-Combinator, a seed accelerator that has funded companies like Airbnb, Dropbox, and Stripe.

Build A Relationship With Your Bank

Another way that entrepreneurs can raise capital is to start building a long-lasting relationship with a bank, preferably a black-owned one, Ron Busby, president of the U.S. Black Chambers of Commerce said.

Busby said although it is less difficult for African American businesses to get a loan from black-owned banks, “many people of color still don’t bank there.”

In 1994, there were 54 African American-owned banks according to the FDIC. Now, there are only 21, according to Busby.

“These banks were created to serve you,” he said. “You need to start thinking about a way for the bank to serve you,” he said. “Go to a black-owned bank in your region and open an account there.”

Busby said black-owned banks not only need the support of the community it intends to serve, they can also be a catalyst for African American businesses who are looking to raise capital.

The 21 African American-owned banks have assets totaling approximately $4.7 billion or approximately 0.43% of black America’s $1.1 trillion in buying power, according to the U.S. Black Chambers of Commerce.

Matt Prestbury is on a mission to change the negative stereotypes of black fathers.

Almost a decade ago, he was separated from his wife and was in the process of getting a divorce. Beyond his immediate family, he said he had no one to reach out to for support, so he started Black Fathers, a Facebook group for fathers of color to connect, share, and inspire each other.

He said he created the space to bond with other fathers “regardless of what situation they were coming from.”

“I started the group because I wanted to have a connection with other fathers who were in the same boat,” Prestbury said. “Black men from all walks of life who are fathers, husbands, married, divorced, raising children alone or fighting to be in their children’s lives.”

Gary Scott, a member of the group, said he leaned on the group for support while he was going through a bitter custody battle.

“I reached out to Black Fathers, and I told them it wasn’t a good day for me, and the level of support I got from those guys, I thank every one of you brothers for being there for me,” Scott told ABC News. “The friendships that I have developed within that time, it’s been a godsend.”

Prestbury said sometimes he doesn’t understand the impact the group has in the men’s lives until he hears testimonies like Scott’s.

“It just feels good to have something so positive,” he said. “There is no disrespect. Even if it’s anything in the news, we work hard not to be negative. We are open to different perspectives and we don’t have to agree but we won’t allow anybody to come into the group with any negativity.”

The group also offers workshops on literacy and provides legal advice for members pursuing child custody or visitation rights in family court and different aspects of fathering from knowing your rights as a parent to doing your daughter’s hair, Prestbury said.

The group, which was created in 2009, now has over 30,000 members from more than 90 U.S. cities, including Prestbury’s hometown of Baltimore.

“I looked in magazines and commercials and in the mainstream media and there were no black men who looked like me,” he said. “Even if I did find any, they were almost never shown in a positive light. I thought, ‘I can either sit and complain or I could do something to shift the perceptions about who we are and to understand our own values.'”

To create a space for the men to share their thoughts, opinions, photos, and sometimes struggles, Prestbury said he made the page private and strictly for men. However, he created another page called Black Men and Co. that is also private but permits both men and women to contribute about husbands and fatherhood.

Prestbury has also started hosting Black Father’s Night in Baltimore. And to mark the page’s nine-year anniversary, he is encouraging all black men to meet offline on the third Saturday in March.

“I encourage everybody to do it,” he said. “The goal is to celebrate the day that the group started, but it’s also a day that should draw us closer, and that is part of the plan on that particular day.”

Prestbury is an educator and a father of three teenage boys and an 11-year-old girl.

Ed. Note: Know a great father? Nominate him as a Black Enterprise “BE Modern Man” and he may be featured by Black Enterprise! 

At closing bell on Monday, the Dow was down more than 1,500 points, making it the single worst day for a stock market plunge since August 2011.

Throughout 2017, the Dow went up 25% higher, getting closer to 25,000 and making it the best year since 2013. It had taken the Dow 14 years to move from 10,000 to 15,000, but in just three and half years, it went up to 20,000, according to MarketWatch.

In short, 2017 was really good to the investors—and President Donald Trump took credit for it.

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David Jones, Chief Executive at CastleOak Securities LP,  listed on the BE 100s list of the nation’s largest black-owned investment banks, said although policy changes may have created a shift in investor behavior, he doesn’t agree with the president’s point of view regarding the stock market’s gains.

“I do think tax reform and less regulation help fuel the trends and psyche in the marketplace,” Jones said. “He (President Trump) took credit for the rise in the markets, which most presidents don’t take credit for and I don’t give him credit for that.”

So What Happened?

The Dow is now down 1,800 points over the past two days and experts say the downturn was always expected in what is called a stock market correction. A correction is a 10% decline in stocks from a recent high, CNN explains. The stock market’s last correction began in the summer of 2015 and ended in February 2016.

“Our business is not affected, meaning there is volatility in the market as it goes up and down, but I think this is a little exaggerated, because this is normal,” said Jones.

Kemberley Washington, co-founder of Washington CPA Services, LLC and Black Enterprise contributor, said because of the healthy economy, the Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates. When interest rates increase, the cost of borrowing increases as well. As rates rise, stock prices begin to fall.

Bond yields have also risen, which could be disturbing news for stocks, and the Federal Reserve has just sworn in the new chairman. Investors are uncertain what his plans for the markets are.

However, Jones said swings in the market are common and what is happening is “nothing too extraordinary.”

How Does This Affect You?

John Rogers of Ariel Investments, No. 1 on the BE 100s list of the top minority-owned asset management firms, said there’s no need to panic.

“They need to stop worrying about the market because the dip was inevitable anyway, but I do feel the market is very strong,” Rogers told Black Enterprise. “Individual investors need to take a long-term view on their investments and not worry about it. Overtime, the market will correct itself.”

“Markets go up and down all the time,” Jones said. “If you like the market before the selloff and you thought the market was good, and you’re an institutional investor, you stay in it for the long-term.”

Hanif Johnson knows the trials and tribulations young people face. As a teenager, Johnson ran afoul of the law on different occasions and was imprisoned three times. Even as a student at Penn State University, Johnson, then the president of Omega Psi Phi was charged with assault in connection with a hazing allegation that earned him three weeks in jail. Although he wasn’t found guilty of the most serious charges, a judge still handed him two summary harassment charges.

“It’s crazy because I know how it feels sitting across from that judge and that jury when you’re innocent,” Johnson told the Huffington Post. “I went to jail for two weeks, then I went to trial. Thank God I won. That was one of the happiest days; I just felt like my life was going to be taken from me.”

He did turn his life around, though. Now, 27, he is the youngest elected judge in the State of Pennsylvania winning the magisterial seat over Republican Claude Phipps by a 73% margin in Dauphin County. The Harrisburg native, who began his six-year term in January said he decided to run for office because he knew if he wanted things to change, he had to get up and do something.

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“When you sit back, and you see Donald Trump become president, and you hear about all of these things we are being affected by, it seems like everything happens through the court system,” Johnson told HuffPost, explaining why he decided to run for the seat. “Everybody always says, well, we complain about stuff, but we never get up and do anything. This is me getting up and doing something.”

Johnson, who currently coaches track and field at Harrisburg High School, said he wasn’t taken seriously when he announced his candidacy.

“They laughed at me in my face,” he said. They said, ‘Boy, if you don’t get away from my house saying you want to be a judge. You are too young!’ But after the fourth or fifth conversation, I would ask them who they are voting for, and they would say me.”

Magisterial District Judges are elected by the residents of the magisterial district in which they serve. They don’t have to be lawyers but do receive training that equips them to handle legal issues they will encounter on the bench.

“I guess I’m not a joke anymore,” he said.