(The Southern African Times) – Promoting excellence in black businesses, is now needed more than ever before in a year that being black and Male spoke volumes when the death of George Floyd hit headlines globally and this sparked an awakening within the black community to promote each other and support black businesses this was also triggered by ill treatment of black people in China, when Africans were treated badly and many African countries hit back by chasing Chinese out of their own countries and boycotting Chinese goods.
Some might say this has been a blessing in disguise as statues and memorabilia connecting us to slavery were pulled down and black curriculum introduced in schools.
Some disagree with some of changes such as renaming streets and replacing slave master statues with statues of those black people who have contributed to British society.
It seems the narrative of black history month celebrating those black people who have put a mark on shaping history is no longer restricted to one month of acknowledging black history makers and trend setter.
It has therefore become more important and a necessity to celebrate our own even the likes of Netflix has embraced this by having the Mobo Awards on its platform.
Award ceremonies such as the Gab Awards (Gathering if Africa’s Best) which celebrates Africa’s best took the difficult decision to still go ahead and hold its prestigious event online amongst the winners, were Lieutenant Patrick Passley LVO, for Life Time Achievement and Alexandre Moussinga for his event African Village Festival, which seeks to bring together the community and promote cultural unity.
Other awards that recognise the black community includes the black power-listwhich recognised people such as Lewis Hamilton who really made his voice heard on issues pertaining to black lives matter. These recognitions have helped raise the profile of black men in the black community where as a community black men are not celebrated as much as their female counterparts. In a generation where the media’s portrayal of black men is negative rewarding and identifying black achievers is much needed and these pictures needs to be seen by the younger generations so we can help shape and change future generations and negative images and connotations of our black men and women.
There has also been a rise in more black people receiving awards in the Queens honours, the question we ask ourselves is this enough or does more needs to be done in celebrating champions as we come to the end of this year that saw “black lives matter” message give the world a clear message and message to the black community that their communities matter and started a movement of black communities and businesses working together for the better good.
As the announcement of Brexit is finally done and as we start a new era to trade with other nations we watch this space for a better tomorrow post African summit that took place earlier this year for the black community.
Article was written and reported by Mercy Gilbert
