I ain’t no snitch, but my latest trip to the nail salon had me seriously reconsidering my stance on no snitching. The receptionist was welcoming, the decor was cute, and the playlist was on point, but that’s where the positives ended.
I asked for a specific nail technician off the strength of a friend’s recommendation. The nail tech didn’t do my nails, not because she had another client or was leaving for the day. She just didn’t. She sat in the salon, chatting with her co-workers and texting. No big deal, right? Wrong! There were plenty of other available nail techs, but none of them knew how to do the particular design I requested. And they didn’t share that pertinent information until I was an hour into a manicure that ultimately made me want to wear mittens in the middle of May in Atlanta, Georgia.
The entire process took nearly three hours and cost entirely too much based on the quality of the service and comparing the price of other nail salons in the area. The only thing that stopped me from creating a Yelp account and writing a five paragraph expose’ was this nail salon was Black owned, and potentially negatively affecting another Black woman’s livelihood felt like the eighth deadly sin.
On an intellectual level, I know that Black people have been denied equal access to capital, training, and physical space. But does that inequitable treatment excuse bad service?
For decades, Black people have been denied access to small business loans even when they have the same credentials, business plans, and clothes. Yes, I said clothes. A Washington Post report found that when Black and white would-be business owners approach a financial institution for a loan, loan officers offered less application assistance and provided less information about loan requirements to the Black candidate. Black candidates were hard pressed to even receive a business card from loan officers, let alone an actual loan. Instead, Black loan seekers were met with a myriad of questions about their personal finances.
As a result, Black business owners tend to rely more on personal wealth than on lenders and investors, putting Black businesses at a disadvantage from the onset. Black families’ wealth is a fraction of that of white families, and Black people are twice as likely as whites to have no wealth or negative wealth. As the saying goes “It takes money to make money.” Combining the lack of personal wealth with the lack of access to capital through third-party lenders, it’s not hard to imagine why many Black businesses struggle to scale.
The number of small, largely online-based businesses has ballooned in recent years and Black people have taken advantage of the lower barriers to entry and accessibility of new customers via social media. More than 95% of Black-owned businesses are sole proprietorship or partnerships which have no paid employees (Looking at you, Instagram Boutiques). The proliferation of Black people getting their side and main hustle on has come with calls from far and wide to support Black businesses. However, very few of these think pieces and listicles explore what to do when a Black business leaves you with a manicure that begs the question, “Who did it and what for?”
Supporting Black-owned businesses isn’t a zero sum game. One cringe-worthy manicure (I’m still traumatized, y’all) shouldn’t stop you from supporting all Black-owned businesses. Say what you want about capitalism, but competition is real. Take your money to another Black owned business that you vibe better with. And if you want to give the offending business another chance, that’s cool too. Maybe you caught them on an off day. Whatever you decide, I think we can all agree that creating a Yelp account for the sole purpose of snitching is not the way to go.
Photo: Giphy
