40 ACRES, A MULE, AND A MANUAL
(Silverback’s Note: This piece was published as a guest column in the March 29th issue of NY Cannabis Insider magazine here.)
OPEN UP THE DOOR I’LL GET IT MYSELF
We were packed tightly into the rush-hour train heading toward Manhattan when I overheard two men talking discreetly about cannabis legislation five years ago.
Their bespoke suits, the styling of their slicked-back hair, and the topic of their conversation piqued my interest.
I lowered the headphone volume in my pocket to deepen my reconnaissance and listen in on their conversation more intently. I increased the pace of my head bop to create a false sense of privacy for the two gentlemen.
“New York is not getting any cannabis laws passed until the State Assembly gets certain guarantees for social equity license holders included in the bill,” one man quietly explained to the other.
The iconic MTA train sound chimed, ‘bing bong,’ and I stepped onto the subway platform filled with ideas to grow the Soulful Silverback into a New York State cannabis brand.
Last year, just as the two men had professed, New York passed the Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act (MRTA), one of the most progressive cannabis laws in the country for minority-owned and social equity businesses.
The Big Cannabis industrial behemoth is strategically positioned to deploy large amounts of capital to enable wide-scale operations across multiple states that can squelch opportunities for thousands of small business owners. Black Americans have seen this before.
Whether we’re reflecting on the technology boom of the ‘90s or Major League Baseball in the ‘40s or the Reconstruction era of the late 19th century; Black Americans and minority communities have continuously succumbed to Big Industry suffocating opportunities and creating scarcity.
Since George Floyd’s public lynching two summers ago, we have seen the rise of corporate social responsibility departments and the expansion of diversity and inclusion mandates across the private sector in the spirit of developing Black enterprise.
America’s historic embrace of free-market capitalism and its recent canoodling with corporate social responsibility ideologies puts American businesses on a collision course of opposing values. To circumvent these dueling theories, small businesses will need to partner with Big Cannabis, the private sector, and the State to deploy long-term training, technology, and capital to enable sustainable profits.
This alliance of small businesses, large private enterprises and public funds are what minority-owned and social equity New Yorkers will need to usher thousands of business owners successfully into the ‘Gilded Age’ of cannabis.
This collaboration and sharing of institutional knowledge has the opportunity to begin correcting a historical wrong and fortify minority communities all over the state.
To lead the way, I’ve begun working to correct this wrong in my local Brooklyn community. I’ve positioned the Silverback to nurture the growth of minority-owned retail cannabis dispensary license holders by leveraging my 16-years of experience working for blue-chip companies like American Express, Salesforce, and Microsoft.
New Yorkers have witnessed the generational wealth that this collaboration of powers can create in nearby Levittown, Long Island, albeit for a select few:
In post World War II New York, local, state and federal housing authorities designed a system to provide low-cost housing to white, middle-class, and lower-middle-class families — while Black Americans and minorities were legally redlined out and intentionally excluded from these wealth-generating policies.
The New York cannabis industry has the opportunity to be a shining city on one of America’s cannabis hills if we have the courage to enable ALL of our long-term success through collaborative partnerships.
Elevate your dispensary to new heights with Soulful Silverback here.