Battle Creek Black Men's Economics
Education Interviews
shown here is a 27-year-old man early in his adult years who shares his experience and views on the challenges that he has faced in battle creek, reflecting the impact of socioeconomic structure when comparing the battle creek today, to the battle creek 60 years ago.
personal experiences reflect issues occurring in a society that make it harder for a person to survive as society evolves.
“Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light” – Norman B. Rice
I’ve lived in Battle Creek all of my life, about 68 years. I’m a family man and I try to be a role model to my children and grandchildren. The Bible says, “A good man leaves an inheritance for his kids’ kids.” I believe that not just financially but spiritually as well. I try to be present for them and remind them that as a family, God has blessed us. I want to be there for my kids like my mother was there for me. I learned about financial literacy from my mother, and she taught me the best she could, but up against discrimination and addiction, I still made mistakes. Getting back to what she taught me was a journey.
I thank God for my mother. She taught me to work hard, to fight poverty with everything I’ve got. Black families did not have it easy during my childhood. Poverty and discrimination were major factors in our lives. My mother instilled in me that if I wanted to have anything in life, I had to work for it. I remember my mother and grandmother counting every nickel and dime for things that our family needed. I remember cooking and eating at home and going to the Department of Human Services for SPAM and eggs. Even a meal at Kentucky Fried Chicken was a privilege. My first financial lesson was to do whatever I needed to do to buy food, pay bills, and take care of my family. My mom used to hold poker games. When we were old enough, me and my sister would sell pop, coffee, polish sausages, and pork chops to the players. We got paid for our work, and I could spend the money on whatever I wanted.
When I started looking for careers, it was hard to find a good-paying job. Battle Creek is a good place to raise kids and have a family, but Black families have to fight harder to stay afloat. When I was a teenager, it was almost impossible for a Black person to get work in the field of construction or get hired at Kellogg. I’ve had multiple interviews but never got a callback. The discrimination was obvious. Look on the factory floor, you see 50 white people and maybe 2 Black people. It’s still happening. I just saw a Consumers Energy crew with 12 white workers and 1 Black worker. We’ve never had the same chances as white entrepreneurs. Black people have been here for centuries but don’t get the same opportunities and tax breaks as immigrants from other countries. There is not one Black-owned gas station or grocery store in Battle Creek. Forty years ago, we were getting turned down for jobs we were qualified for and honestly, it was discouraging. We were left with lower-paying jobs in restaurants, and that made us not even want to work. It got to me. I remember not even wanting to go look for a job.
As young people, we began gambling and playing numbers to make money. It felt better than getting passed over for jobs, but it wouldn’t last. About that time I think a lot of us began to try to take the easy way out by selling weed and selling dope. So yes, there were some work opportunities in Battle Creek, but I chose what I thought was an easier route. That led to using drugs, alcohol, and all of the wrong things. That’s the effect that poverty can have on a person’s mind. It can make you feel like you can’t do any better or like you can’t be anything. Staying in poverty means that deep down inside you think of yourself as nothing. Those choices led me to jail, then prison, and eventually away from my family. My mother was my rock. She kept trying to teach me. When my family asked her why she would come to see me in prison and why she supported me, she told them, “If I leave him alone, I’m leaving other people to teach him.” She prayed for me. She’d take me out to dinner and remind me of how she raised me. She knew I would take her $20 and get high as soon as she dropped me off, but she reminded me that I had a family to fight for.
My mother has passed away but I still thank her for that. Her wish for me before she died was for me to stay clean and stop using drugs. It took a few tries. I went back to jail, messed up, and relapsed, but I was finally able to overcome my addiction. There is an African proverb saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.” I didn’t understand this as a child. I didn’t figure out until it was almost too late that people were looking up to me. With age comes wisdom. I had a good mother who instilled in me the need to have a job and to take care of myself. That was a necessity. I’m somebody’s role model, too. You are who and what you see. You see people who are working, who have some grit and respect to them, then that’s what you follow. You see people overcoming poverty, you know that it’s possible. So that’s a financial literacy lesson, too, that people who are fighting addiction and poverty need their family, friends, or members of their communities. They need to see a life beyond drug addiction, drug dealing, and selfishness.
- Tyrone Watson
fathers and sons in the urban black community share the same socioeconomic challenges at root, fathers seem to pass along a "struggle" just to "get by", just less intense when comparing eras.
credit building courses, classes that teach about money, money management, and all subjects relative, these stories reflect what challenges to survive were experienced 60 years prior right up to today.
“When we lose wealth in our inner-city communities it is not a conspiracy, it’s often a lack of financial literacy.” John Hope Bryant
My earliest lessons about money came from my family. My parents weren’t together, so first there were lessons from my mom and then there were other lessons from my dad. My mom managed a lot by herself, as a single parent. I mainly relied on her for food, clothes, shelter, and the basics. She was a hard worker and provided for our family. I knew the value of hard work. My associate's degree in business administration is hanging at her house today. Because of my mom’s work schedule, my father would pick me up from kindergarten. One of my first financial lessons took place in his car, I remember it like it was yesterday. My father sometimes wore a rubber band around his wrist. One day, my older brother asked him for money, and my father replied, “When you see this rubber band around my wrist do not ask me for any money because if I had some money, it would be around my knot and not my wrist”. The rubber band was his money clip. If I ever saw that rubber band, I didn’t ask him for money because I already knew how he would react. My parents taught me to work hard and have goals about how much I want to be comfortable.
From my parents, it wasn’t a planned or strategic message about money. They gave me what they had though. They encouraged having your own. My first job was actually at the Battle Creek Gun Club in the seventh grade. We would go about three times a week. Work was first come first serve, and we would help them set up and load the targets. They paid nice, and they paid us by the day. I worked a few jobs before I went to prison but that money wasn’t coming in fast enough. As I grew into a young adult, it wasn’t enough to keep up with the pressure of what it meant to be a man. If my goal was to be a man like my father, it meant my goal was to keep a rubber band off my wrist. I decided to hustle. I started flipping whatever came my way, I would trade food, clothes, candy, whatever. Eventually and unfortunately, drugs ended up being my main product. The risk was high but the profit margin was also high. Living in a high state of risk like that can’t last long. I made negative decisions, I found myself in and out of prison twice. My second and last time I spent 22 years in prison and it was during that time I realized that my perspective on money had to change.
In prison, I started to piece some things together. The education route started to make a lot more sense. I decided to change my priorities. At the same time, some economic priorities were changing at the national level, too. The Pell Grant program was opened to the incarcerated, and a college was able to start Associate's Degree programs for those who were eligible. Going to college after being out of school for a very long time wasn’t that difficult for me. I loved school, if I get the opportunity to do my Bachelor’s I would take it. I developed better job skills such as the fundamental skills needed for success in the food service industry by working in the kitchen. I learned operational management skills including day-to-day restaurant operations, inventory, and leadership. But most of all, I learned that I am good at cooking. And also cooking for a great number of people at once. I'm in prison baking and cooking for 1000 people, 1200 people, a couple of meals at a time sometimes. But I know I need my independence, my autonomy, as a business owner. I want to live off my work.
One major struggle is just feeling behind and obsolete. Business and money are different than they were in 1999. Everything was moving too fast for me at first. I wasn't familiar with technology, laptop operations, or how to maneuver through online networks. I recall going to the DHS Office to get what I needed and they would advise and direct me to links and websites. Then, I would have to search for people who would be willing to help me find the information that was recently given to me. It was a lot of back and forth, jumping through loops, so to speak, but I was determined to learn.
Another major struggle is the economy in general. Inflation is high. Wages aren’t competitive enough. I get it, inflation stretches everybody thin. Prices are going up for everyone. Business owners might not be in a position to give you a raise or give bonuses. If a job’s not working for me, I have to get another one. My family is from here, so they have connections and references. I have a cousin who owned a restaurant, and other than that people put me up on who's hiring. There is a lot of word-of-mouth information. I haven’t struggled to find a job. I just have to find the rate and work that makes sense to me given what else I’m trying to do.
So that’s the other major struggle right now is finding a good-paying job related to my degree. Finding a job is not a problem, but finding a job that lets me use my degree has been an issue. I have a vision for myself, five years from now I want to have a couple of food trucks out by the mall. It’s not hard to find a job, but I’m in one of the worst positions in the job market. I have no real work history. If they wanted to look past that, my criminal record has violent offenses. The employers who offer me work don’t even ask about my degree. My cousin has been mentoring me to write my business plan. I want to administer a business. I don’t want to cook for somebody. For example, a local woman owns food trucks but doesn’t have the bodies to staff them. She's looking for somebody to run them. But again, I will be running her business for her. I know that I can work with her first and then gather the know-how of the food truck business and operations before I invest in my food truck. I can take notes and gather as much information and game as possible, and then branch out with my own thing. But even still, with me running her food truck, maybe it'd be me running it my way, but it'd still be her food truck.
From both my parents and other adults in my life it was instilled in me that money was important. The idea of economics was first mentioned to me as a child in school. I was taught what the word meant, but I was not taught all of the things that it stood for. Finances beyond just getting money were a mystery to me. No one talked about how to save or invest money. I think back today and wonder if I had known these things then that I know now, how would life be different not only for myself but for my family and community? Had there been more disciplined information instead of the game that I was getting from my uncles or older cousins, if they had told me to get out there and get a job, would I have felt different about money? You know what I'm saying? If they have said ten years from now, you'll be established with things like savings and credit and so on. Looking back, I feel like if I was taught and it was instilled in me the aspect to save I think I would have been much more responsible. It’s hard to learn later on that your worth is determined by what you save. I feel like that would have made a difference for me.
This topic of economics makes me think about the missed opportunities in my childhood to learn the kinds of things I need to know as an adult, as a husband, and father. I’m more than happy with what I’ve learned and gained the positive tools that I know now. I’ve worked hard. However, I do wish that my uncles instead of giving me the street game had chosen to prioritize or impress on me the information I needed to stay out of prison and prosper, like working a job, credit, saving, and investing. But maybe they taught me exactly what they knew then. As of now, I’m home with my family and as a more advanced person and educated Black man with an Associate’s degree, still I struggle. So my priorities have changed and my knowledge has changed, but my situation hasn’t changed in terms of finding work that allows me to build the life I want for my family.
Over 450 years of family values, work ethic, principle, and morale. Black men handing down (5) centuries of wisdom in words, compared to having a long, cultured tangible framework of capitalism to bestow to offspring as is with most affluent families in society as their family finance is based on the generational wealth established (5) centuries ago when it was unlawful in America for black families to engage in business practices. Research was conducted on over 300 black men living in the "hood" which is also referred to as the inner city urban black community in Battle Creek, Michigan. Represented in the interviews featured are (5) centuries of labor in the inner city and what that looks the effects look like from such a long period of labor while attempting to deal with many other intense socioeconomic challenges, making it difficult for black men to be able just to get by in society.
black men feel that black men die and are incarcerated at such a high rate because society is structured through law and politics to have that specific effect on black men.
based on the high number of black men in battle creek who have either died of unnatural causes or have been mandated to serve long periods incarcerated, this fact raises the issue of battle creek not being structured socioeconomically to support the survival and longevity of black men living in inner-city urban battle creek.
black men in battle creek have to settle to work the jobs that are offered locally, with low wages, and rendering them in a position to attempt to survive off resource scraps in opposed to having more opportunities to work jobs and occupy career fields of choice, without having a format of employment options that is compatible with the natural skill sets, talents, thought capacity they possess.
black men wonder if a black man can truly capitalize and prosper when the laws, rules, policies, etc. that continuously shape our society currently, were written by men who wanted black folks as nothing but slaves in the u.s. society associated with a deep hatred for black folks shared by those in power (5) centuries ago. Undoubtedly the spirit of hatred and counterproductivity cultured for black folks over (5) centuries is still alive within the united states Constitution, which can very likely have a serious effect on the survival of the black race in battle creek forever depending on the people who recognize this and care enough to take appropriate measures to address these issues in the local and non-local communities.
black men are clueless regarding answers to impactful questions about making a living as a black man in battle creek. black men wonder why in areas that black men occupy in battle creek, is it so much more difficult to survive the closer a black man lives in the inner city, compared to the outer city limits and rural areas where it has been proven that there is less poverty and less of a struggle to survive the further one travels away from inner city battle creek.
black men are clueless regarding answers to impactful questions about making a living as a black man in battle creek. black men wonder why in areas that black men occupy in battle creek, is it so much more difficult to survive the closer a black man lives in the inner city, compared to the outer city limits and rural areas where it has been proven that there is less poverty and less of a struggle to survive the further one travels away from inner city battle creek.
