Blacks Will Be Blacks

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It is difficult for people to accept harsh realities after exposure to the truth, but at some point, one must embrace the facts of life. Early in life, I was taught by discerning adults that blacks have a different psychology from other races. Though such arguments were intriguing, I viewed them as sweeping generalizations. As a youngster, I thought it was strange for people to attribute the success of Chinese entrepreneurs in Jamaica to culture.

Adults often told me that blacks suffered from conspicuous consumption, and as result, many black entrepreneurs would expend resources on luxury goods rather than reinvest the profit. Now, I knew black small business owners who went to hotels frequently, but as a young and naïve person, I dismissed those examples as anecdotes. Thinking that cultural explanations were simplistic, I assumed that the failure of black Jamaicans relative to the Chinese and other minorities had to be rooted in structural causes.

Yet educated adults would inform me that the Chinese had longer time planning horizons, saved more, and lived below their means before buying larger properties. I remained stubborn, however; after all, all people are essentially the same. It was just too challenging to accept that not all groups were equally oriented to being productive.

I thought that blacks were more impulsive and less likely to save because they were poor. The problems afflicting blacks had to be structural, since I could not fathom the explanatory power of culture. But I would not remain naïve forever, because eventually, I started to read academic books and quantitative studies on a regular basis. Admittedly, the findings confirmed the sweeping generalizations of older colleagues.

I found several studies ^[2] arguing that conspicuous consumption ^[3] was not only popular in black communities, but was also an expression of cultural identity ^[4]. The most recent research shows ^[5] that despite constituting less than 14% of the American population, blacks are the second-largest consumer group. Moreover, studies revealed that in Africa, culture served as a barrier to entrepreneurship because kinship networks influence entrepreneurs to spend resources ^[6] on family expenses rather than capital formation.

Some describe conspicuous consumption as a legacy of slavery by arguing that blacks spend to combat notions of inferiority. This is inaccurate, however, because the big-man ^[7] culture was prevalent in pre-colonial Africa, and as such wealthy men were required to lavish their followers with gifts. Although not unique to Africans, interestingly the big-man culture has persisted in Africa and the black diaspora.

A possible explanation for this is that historically, Africans ^[8] have been behind the institution ^[9] and technology curve, so they have yet to feel the full force of modernization. Hence, they are more likely to uphold the vestiges of the pre-modern era. On the other hand, considering that large-scale ^[10] studies indicate that cultural norms and beliefs are persistent across generations and are a consequence of long-term cultural and evolutionary ^[11] selections, we should expect the behavior of blacks in the diaspora to be similar to Africans.

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Indeed, blacks in the diaspora are under greater modernization pressure than Africans, and modernization alters human psychology ^[14]. However, the dilemma is that evolutionary selections impact culture, and culture leads to advancements in civilization. Before the Industrial Revolution, there was a revolution ^[15] in European business practices and signs that Europeans were becoming increasingly rational and market-oriented.

Modernization is an outcome of cultural change, and blacks have never independently built a modern society, because their evolutionary patterns failed to conduce traits that could foster modernity. Barbados and Botswana are two fascinating examples of successful black countries, but they both appropriated British culture and institutions to a great degree.

So, although blacks in the West and rich Africans are exposed to modern thinking, due to their history it is harder for blacks in general to respond to the tests of modernity. The average black will always be ill-equipped to grapple with the tasks of an individualistic and post-industrial capitalist society. Unlike blacks, it’s easier for East Asians to compete in capitalist societies because of their long-term orientation ^[16] culture and due to the difficulties imposed by cold winters ^[17], East Asians have been oriented to plan for the long term and save. Appreciating the impact of cultural and genetic evolution helps us to understand its adverse impact on black entrepreneurship and capital formation.

Considering this history, one can conclude that, on average, blacks are at a lower stage of psycho-social development, and this is manifested in anti-social expressions. Only this explains why black ^[18] celebrities feel compelled ^[19] to defend their gangster credibility. The incessant desire to project aggression is really a feature of pre-modern societies; hence, people at a lower stage of psycho-social development are more likely to value the violence represented by gansgterism’s honor culture.

Likewise, pre-modern people are also likely to exhibit a scarcity mindset rather than an affluent mindset. Thus, even when they are successful blacks will constantly complain and remind people that they are fighting in a struggle. Suffering is the hallmark of black authenticity, and those refusing to embrace victimhood are expelled as race traitors.

Blacks have shown their values to the world, so people should believe them instead of expecting them to endorse the norms of white bourgeois society. They are products of a different evolutionary pattern, and no evidence suggests that they prefer an alternative. White Nationalists lament the ills caused by blacks, conservatives think that blacks should uplift themselves, and progressives recommend eliminating structural barriers to black achievement. But these constituencies must stop complaining and accept that blacks will be blacks — because they can’t be anything else.

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