“Patronize Your Own.”
The doctrine of “Race First,” although utilized largely by the Negro business men of Harlem, has never received any large general support from them. If we remember rightly, it was the direct product of the out-door and indoor lecturers who flourished in Harlem between 1914 and 1916. Not all who were radical shared this sentiment. For instance, we remember the debate between Mr. Hubert Harrison, then president of the Liberty League, and Mr. Chandler Owen, at Palace Casino in December, 1918, in which the “radical” Owen fiercely maintained “that the doctrine of race first was an indefensible doctrine”; Mr. Harrison maintaining that it was the source of salvation for the race. Both these gentlemen have run true to form ever since.
But to return to our thesis. The secondary principle of “patronize your own,” flowing as it does from the main doctrine of “race first,” is subject to the risk of being exploited dishonestly—particularly by business men. And business men in Harlem have shown themselves capable of doing this all the time. They seem to forget that “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is a part of the honest application of this doctrine. Many of these men seem to want other black people to pay them for being black. They seem to think that a dirty place and imperfect service and 3 cents more a pound should be rewarded with racial patronage regardless of these demerits.
On the other hand, there have grown up in Harlem Negro businesses, groceries, ice cream parlors, etc., in which the application of prices, courtesy and selling efficiency are maintained. This is the New Negro business man, and we say “more power to him.” If this method of applying the principle should continue to increase in popularity we are sure to have in Harlem and elsewhere a full and flowing tide of Negro business enterprises gladly and loyally supported by the mass of Negro purchasers to their mutual benefit.
The Negro business man who is unintelligently selfish, makes a hash of racial welfare in the attempt to achieve individual success. A case in point is that of the brown-skinned dolls. Twenty years ago the Negro child’s only choice was between a white Caucasian doll and the “nigger doll.” On the lower levels the one was as cheap as the other. Then, a step at a time came the picturesque poupee, variously described as the “Negro doll,” the “colored doll” and the “brown-skinned doll.” This was sold by white stores at an almost prohibitive price. It was made three times as easy for the Negro child to idolize a white doll as to idolize one with the features of its own race. When the principle of “Race First” began to be proclaimed from scores of platforms and pulpits, certain Negro business men saw a chance to benefit the race and, incidently to reap a wonderful harvest of profits, by appealing to a principle for whose support and maintenance, here and elsewhere, they had never paid a cent. “Factories” for the production of brown-skinned dolls began to spring up—most of the factoring consisting of receiving these dolls from white factories and either stuffing them with saw dust, excelsior or other filling, or merely changing them from one wrapper to another. Bear in mind that the proclaimed object was to make it easier for the Negro mother to teach race patriotism to her Negro child. Yet it was soon notorious that these leeches were charging $3, $4 and $5 for Negro dolls which could sell at prices ranging from 75 cents to $1.25, and yet leave a handsome margin of profit.
The result is that today even in Negro Harlem nine out of ten Negro children are forced to play with white dolls, because rapacious scoundrels have been capitalizing the principle of “patronize your own” in a one-sided way. By lowering their prices to a reasonable level, they could extend their business tremendously. Failing to do this, they are playing into the hands of the vendors of white dolls and making it much easier for the Negro mother to select a white doll for her child; limiting at once their own market and restricting the development of a larger racial ideal.