Worldstaaarrrrrrrrr!!!!
That’s what Black youth traditionally scream out when live recording a street fight. WorldStar Hip Hop is the site that popularizes urban brawls and is reportedly worth upwards of 90 million dollars leveraged from millions of views from people across the globe. Once the video goes viral the police have NO PROBLEM figuring out who they should arrest. The criminal justice system gets another free slave while someone continues to get paid “per click” on the video with a shelf life that lasts forever.
An outrageous percentage of Black on Black homicides actually start on social media. In the words of rap artist Drake, Twitter fingers are literally turning into trigger fingers. We’ve witnessed several young brothers shot dead while on Facebook Live which often times reveals the whereabouts of its users. For all the good being done for social justice via social media too many of us are being used as “digital crash dummies” while youth in other communities are creating commerce, building businesses and using their smartphones to do for self.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many brothers and sisters using modern technology to promote industrious ideas and build businesses in the process. However, the gap between ours and other communities is too wide. It is estimated that less than 1% of the employees at Google, Facebook and other major outfits in Silicone Valley are Black. Black people make up 12% of the population yet account for less than 7% of the computer science industry.
While we were programming our children to go to college and get a degree, Mark Zuckerberg was dropping out of Harvard to focus full-time on Facebook.
Let’s face it. The future is based in digitizing and monetizing ideas while building business models around those ideas. Computer coding is fast becoming the “new literacy.” Computer science is probably the fast growing career path in this country. In a recent speech, presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton admitted that by 2020 more “good job” requirements will include computer coding and less will include college degrees. Our community is already behind, but it’s never too late to catch up.
Before Prince passed away he started “Yes We Code” (www.yeswecode.org) a program created to teach computer coding to low income children. Other programs like Black Girls Code (www.blackgirlscode.com) are focused on empowering the Black female in particular. We must launch a movement that prepares every one of our youth as well as adults for the future. There must be a greater focus on digital entrepreneurship, coding, digital marketing sales and branding and most important…OWNERSHIP. At some point we have to shut down our Facebook accounts and take our content somewhere Black owned. Yeah I said it.
We must first program our community to see every smartphone as a little bank. Every time you upload content you are making a deposit that Facebook, Instagram and others get paid from. But most of us get no return; except the emotional gratification of a “like” or a follow.
NEW RULE: Everyone who has a cell phone should be using it to build some kind of business or promote some kind of progressive idea. As parents, we must reinforce this in our children. Start threatening to take away these phones if, within a reasonable amount of time, your child can’t show where they’re being productive with it. Too much is at stake.
What’s interesting is that police departments across America are spending just as much time solving murders on Facebook and Twitter than on the street. If a beef started on social media, the digital imprint is there forever. Once it spills over into the streets, the shooter often times has already snitched on self via social media.
Our community must use modern technology to make money; not mischief. Join us August 27th at 1pm for a Digital Entrepreneurship Workshop at the Shrine of the Black Madonna.