African American Businesses And Our Community Are On Life Support.
By Betty Jean Grant
Betty Jean Grant
First all, I am not a hater. Nor am I envious of the success of others. However, I am not going to apologize for pointing out the fact that Black businesses never had the financial support that other businesses have gotten from the city of Buffalo and Erie County. It seems as if everyone, including our Black elected officials, break their necks, running to assist recently located businesses such as Braymiller Market while they allow long established Black businesses to wither on the vine. And, it seems that Braymiller is in line for another chunk of what the late, but still beloved, Councilmember Beverly A Gray called "the people's money."
If Buffalo's African American business community wants to see how to become self sufficient and independent of political influenc, all they have to do is observe how the Bangladeshi community is vastly developing the entire Eastside. They are turning old, abandoned churches into schools, community centers and mosques. They are buying Black folks' homes and are living in them or renting them out instead of using their resources to pay rent to live in one of those big, boxed, prison looking, apartment complexes they are calling Affordable Housing. Every since 2012, I have been preaching to myself and the walls that African Americans needed to start investing in their future by not selling their homes or by selling them to a family member or relative. This was also about the same time I started talking about a word that Black residents in Omaha, Baltimore, Chicago and almost every urban area in the country. That word was Gentrification. Now everyone knows what the word is and how it has affected Buffalo and its citizens, especially those of us who live on Buffalo's Eastside.
I am not 'throwing shade' on other ethnic groups that saw the Eastside and saw Opportunities. They saw an opportunity to move here and opened businesses in places that had been closed or abandoned for years. And they did this transformation without asking the city for a building full of money. They do not run to the politicians; the elected officials come to them. I know most of us have heard the adage: "One man's trash is another man's treasure." We African Americans had a chance to untify, organize, pool our resources and to redevelop the east side of Buffalo. But as always, distrust, disunity and disinterest got in the way.
Once upon a time, Black people could depend on their elected officials to assist them in any issues they needed help with. Now, most of the time, they don't return a phone call, an email or a message and they Receive and File ( throw in the trash can) one's request to address an issue in their common council committee meetings.
Another once upon a time, Buffalo had 7 of the then 12 legislative seats on the common council. That 7 member, minority-majority was able to bring the Tops Supermarket, Apollo Communication Bldg and the Merriweather Library to Jefferson Ave. We were a powerful bunch of community elected officials and we kicked a..! We had so much potential of finally addressing the problems in the black community, the Mayor and the white, city fathers initiated a downsizing movement that was successful. And like the uniformed voters in the recent election, black people in the city voted against their best interest and voted to eliminate the 3 city wide council members and council president.
One year ago, today, we had a Mayor in place who had conducted a controversial Stamped in campaign for the mayoral seat after losing the Primary, fair and square. We had an excellent council member and council president who was next in line should the mayor leave, early, a seat he had fought so hard for. Right now, our community is in a lurch because both of these gentlemen and elected leaders have vacated their respective positions as mayor and council president.
The coveted positions of Mayor and Council President carry a lot of prestige and power. For our community to lose both of these positions in the same year that we have a change in the seats of two council members as well as two new members in the County Legislature leave the African American community with leaders we are still getting to know.