Bring the Black Community out of Poverty
When growing up in a Jamaica household, there is a definite chance the phrase, “tek up yuh book” was said. The motive behind this phrase is good performance school is connoted with success in life, especially financial success. This ideology that schooling will bring Jamaican children out of poverty is misleading because many Jamaicans have successfully completed higher education and things have only gotten worse.
This generation of Jamaicans are plausibly the most educated in Jamaica’s history. This generation of black people across the world are plausibly the most educated. However, the racial wealth gap is just increasing. Black people are getting poorer while White people and Asian people are getting richer. This is not happening because we are not educated, it’s happening because we do not have our own institutions. We do not have our own businesses.
Jamaica lacks self-sustainability. As a developing country that is expected, but it should be getting better, not worse. If the Jamaican government keeps selling resources to the Chinese, borrowing money from them, and allowing them into our country, financial independence will never be achieved. Foreigners will come to Jamaica, open their corporations, and create jobs. Except they will fill the lower positions with Jamaicans, and fill the higher positions with their own people. This leaves educated Jamaicans with the choice to settle for less with low career mobility or to move to a different country with their talent. In an already classist society, the influx of foreigners with their racism would make financial security hard for even educated Jamaicans.
As these Jamaicans migrate, they take their talents and skills with them. Yes, they make money, but it doesn’t feel the same since they couldn’t achieve a similar lifestyle at home. They achieve individual success, but that does not help the Jamaican community as whole. They might send money to their families in Jamaica, but they are spending most of it in foreign countries. This takes resources away from Jamaica in the form of people, but in Jamaica this resource remains untapped.
If we keep selling resources to foreigners, buying from foreign companies, and spending money in foreign countries, the money Jamaicans make will be helping a foreign economy rather than our own. There will be a negative cash flow. Jamaica will have to build their own institutions, companies, and businesses free of foreign influence. Without this borrowing continues with no way of paying it back, and the Jamaican dollar continues to lose value. By creating Jamaican-owned entities, there will be more opportunities which will further allow schooling to be a valuable investment in Jamaica.
Ownership and entrepreneurship are very important in modern times. Learn financial independence, and then practice financial interdependence.