In Poor Margins of Paris, New Recipe for Success Is Local

Here at Garvey's Ghost we've made the repeated point that the largest contributor to black unemployment is the lack of local black owned businesses in black neighborhoods.  Every group in America has an enclave that they control that serves as a "home base" for it's people. In reference to economics, these 'bases" usually provide initial employment where young people get their feet wet in the world of employment. The larger and more successful the business the more people it can hire. A side benefit of this is that those communities are not generally dependent upon outsiders for goods, services AND basic employment.

So over in France we find that one Maurad Benamer has figured this particular thing out. France, like the US has a large unemployment rate among it's African immigrants. I've already expressed my opinion in regards to African immigrants in France versus those Africans who were taken and shipped to the US via the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. While Africans in America were part and parcel of the developing nation and were denied their rightful place at the table African immigrants to France do not have such a legacy. Therefore I don't think the French have any obligation to do anything for them. It's their country, their land and therefore their choice. If you land in France you should be prepared to make your own way. Maurad Benamer apparently understands this.

“We came from a place where there was injustice and a lack of opportunity,” Mr. Benamer, 36, recalled of his banlieue, Bondy. But there he was in the heart of tourist Paris, on a winter afternoon in 2007, with his mother pointing incredulously to truffle-and-foie-gras maki being rolled out to patrons at Eat Sushi, which since then has expanded into a chain of 38 restaurants across France.

“How did you manage to do all this?” she asked.

His answer was simple: he did it on his own.

       

As he should.

a new generation of people like Mr. Benamer are trying to turn the suburbs into incubators for entrepreneurs, who see using their own initiative as the only way up and out of the banlieues,

Better late than never.

“If we wait for the government to do something, people will just remain stuck,” Mr. Benamer said. “If we want things to improve, we have to do it ourselves.”

Just as Mr. Garvey said you should.

As part of the self-help effort, banlieue-based organizations that promote ethnic diversity have been aggressive about placing minorities into mentoring and jobs programs at French companies that as little as a decade ago routinely rejected applicants with non-French names.

Please do not spend too much time (preferably none) on this. You build enough business and corner enough of the market and those businesses will come

looking for you.

Bottom line: Nobody respects a person or people who constantly has their hand out. Nobody respects anyone who complains and blames everyone else all the time. Everybody respects (even if they do not LIKE) a person who gets shit done.