The Importance Of Documentation, Naming, And Monetizing

On the Zo What Morning Show, Zo Williams, Bobby Glanton-Smith, and a few others always talk about Black people writing our own narrative. Whatever we touch turns to gold, but for some strange reason, other races of people reap the rewards, and in some cases, are the faces of people who invented the very thing we taught them.

Let's say you have a new invention that allows you to travel forward and backward through time; other black folks are visiting their ancestors from the times of slavery, visiting the kings of Africa, and Black rulers outside of Africa, and etc.; these Black folks don't pay one red cent for going back in time; the inventor isn't making any money off of it at all. Then one day, you have a non-Black person who heard about this invention from their Black "friend", I put quotes for a reason and you'll find out why; he's friendly, he's "down", can relate to the Black struggle, and he has a Black girlfriend; he talks to the inventor, builds rapport, and asks, "So, what do you call this thing?". The inventor says, "I don't have a name for it, but everyone calls it "The Step Machine". The non-Black man asks, "Do you have any buyers for this?" The inventor says, "Buyers? No, I just enjoy the feeling people get when they get to see where they came from and what lies in their future.". The non-Black man says, "Can I "step?" The inventor lets him try it out and the man goes back in time to the time the man created the machine. He takes notes, he asks questions; he says he's from the future and says the machine works, so this is how he gets the man's trust; he even shows evidence he's from the future, and he comes up with a name as well, "The Time Skipper". The non-Black man returns back to modern time and asks the inventor if he can get one more try. The non-Black man goes back three years before the inventor invented the machine and builds the "Time Skipper". He documents everything, draws blueprints, has a team of scientists, non-Black scientists, mind you, and when he returns the Black inventor is not there waiting for him to return; it's the non-Black man himself.

What happened?

Being that he went back in time before the inventor invented the machine, he copied everything that he learned from the inventor and built it for himself. Being that the inventor never invented it, when he did that, the person waiting for him was the new inventor, which was the non-Black man himself. He goes on to monetize the machine, he puts it in all the major amusement parks and Theme parks that give him millions of dollars just to use the name "Time Skipper"

Believe it or not Black folks, but when you don't name something, document something, or even put a dollar amount on it, you'll have a bunch of non-Black folks who will see the value in it and turn it into a gold mine. Hip hop started out as a way for Black folks to get a party started; back when it first came about it wasn't called Hip Hop, it was called "The Jam". It wasn't monetized, the creators didn't document how they created this new genre of music, so this gave the non-Black folks an opportunity to capitalize big!

The problem we have is Black folks don't value anything until other races of people value it. When they monetize it, that's when Black folks want to claim it. At one point, Twerking was considered something whores did, in the mind of Black folks, mostly religious Black folks. Now, you have non-Black women monetizing twerking and they're on talk shows teaching the hostesses how to "pop that ass".

So, what am I saying? When you create something, put your name on it and document it as proof that you're the creator, just in case someone tries to steal your ideas and monetize them. If we do this, we will increase the job market, build generational wealth, and shield ourselves from being exploited by non-Black folks for something we created. –Confidence Magnet, Courtesy of UPA (September 3, 2015)

(Check out Confidence Magnet's website.

Also, check out his twitter.

You can read more UPA posts here.)

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