Much as black-owned businesses are holding their grounds across the globe, there are several challenges militating against their growth.
One major challenge is the comparison of black-owned businesses to others that have been in business for decades, according to United States-based Nigerian entrepreneur, Bolaji Adeola Ajike.
“These huge corporations have millions to spend on marketing experts, for ads, consultants, customer service employees, and shipping facilities. Let’s focus on using our available resources and stop comparing our businesses to others,” says Ajike, who founded the GoddessTalk brands.
She is unapologetic about her obsession with everything black and her unshakable resolution to promote only black-owned businesses. Whether anyone perceives her as racist or not doesn’t take any hair off her skin.
“It’s not racist. I haven’t told anyone they can’t support black-owned businesses. Everyone can download the app, everyone can shop the marketplace. Businesses that are owned in part or whole by a melanated individual are who I choose to highlight to address an economic disparity,” Ajike says.
“An Asian supporting another Asian, white with white, etc has been touted as them practicing group economics. Why is it when a black person wants to support another black person it’s considered racist? People don’t realize that everyone of all ethnic backgrounds & walks of life are supporting the businesses & creatives on my app, show, & network. Supporting our own is as organic as breathing,” she says.
She says she wanted to change the narrative of “black folk don’t support their own”.
“How can we rationalize spending trillions of dollars per year with everyone but we don’t spend that much with ourselves to change the circumstances we have found ourselves across the globe? We have the ability to help ourselves. I’ve been schooled by some amazing people who put up on Kwame Nkrumah, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Fela Kuti, Dr. Ben Jochannan, Dr. John Henrik Clark, Dr. Claude Anderson, Anthony Browder, Professor James Small, & so many more,” she says.
Ajike operates four concerns with the general idea to promote all that concerns black people, namely; AfroGanix, GoddessTalk Show, GoddessTalk App and GoddessTalk Network.
She founded AfroGanix, LLC in 2012 to align businesses with Distribution, Manufacturing, and Fulfillment globally. According to her, she developed a passion for service and a passion for the economic success of the African Diaspora.
GoddessTalk Show on the other hand which premiered in June 2019 was to expose the world to black businesses, activists, and game changers causing economic seismic shifts across the globe. To further those efforts, in July 2020 she launched the GoddessTalk App. And much later she launched the GoddessTalk Network.
Bolaji Adeola Ajike, a Nigerian by birth, was born in Lagos and raised in Surulere, Lagos, until her family moved to the United States in 1995 when she was seven. The oldest of four children, she grew up in Willingboro, NJ (Boro).
An entrepreneur with businesses in different fields, Ajike holds a B.A. in Communications Studies and a Masters in Public Administration from Mount St. Mary’s University, Enmitsburg, Maryland and Capella University, Minneapolis, Minnesota, respectively.
