2) But let’s not pretend that only white people have imaginations! Everyone needs a greater sense of what’s possible. This came up in the stuff above about marriage; now let’s apply it to entrepreneurship. This is why stories like the Pizza-Ria! kids (“It’s fresh! It’s good! It’s from the ‘hood”) are so important–they spark the imagination. While we’re on the subject of kids’ books, can I recommend The Toothpaste Millionaire? TTM tells the story of two friends who realize that they can make a better and cheaper toothpaste. It’s such a fun book, light and adventurous–and it’ll even teach you how many are in a gross!

The lesson? Entrepreneurship is in large part an act of imagination.

It’s a journalistic kind of imagination: Just as journalists seek the unexplored angle on a story, so entrepreneurs seek the unfilled niche in an economy. But if people believe that there are no unfilled niches, if they don’t believe they have the resources to fill them, if they’re not connected to other people who have taken the leap of imagination in the past, if they’re ridiculed for even trying to find the entrepreneurial angle… then imagination, and the economy of their community, is stifled.

(Keep in mind that “entrepreneurship,” here, is not just about opening businesses. It’s about finding jobs in already-existing businesses, finding innovative ways to use one’s skills, figuring out where you want to be in five years and how to get there. And this kind of imagination operates in the non-profit sector, too: I think some of the stuff I’m trying to do now at the pregnancy center is the result of looking through an entrepreneurial lens, seeing the places where the center could be filling some niches but currently doesn’t–for example, we don’t really have a lot to offer women with negative pregnancy tests who nonetheless need mentoring and support. I’m trying to start a program–more on this later, if it gets off the ground–to fill that niche.)

How to foster this kind of imagination? I can think of a couple of things off the bat: Have business owners come to schools, speak with kids, mentor kids. If you’re a teacher: Are there any students who have business leanings or skills? Do they want to start a club? A friend from college spent some time homeless, went to community college (I think–hope I’m remembering the trajectory right here), spent time poor, ultimately transferred to and graduated from Yale. He was on fire with belief that people could do more than we think we can. He spoke with local high-school students, showed them how to budget, how many things they could do even with a very low cash flow.

Obviously not every school will be able to find a guy like him. But schools can be places where students are able to find–if they’re willing–inspiration, practical advice, and, crucially, networking. Community centers are the other obvious place to do this–start a group of business leaders, place ads in the neighborhood papers, connect people with ideas to people with experience.

Then there’s money. Elmseed, a product of my own alma mater, is working to make microlending successful in the US. Of course, licensing and other regulations make opening a small business prohibitively expensive or difficult for a lot of people. Large businesses don’t care so much about regulation–medium-large ones can eat the cost, supersized ones can finagle the regs so that the rules actually favor them–but small-timers have neither money nor pull. So cutting red tape, making it easier and cheaper to start a business, should be a major priority for city governments–instead of trying to lure big outside investors with huge tax incentives.

And, obviously, to return to race-specific matters, the black entrepreneurial imagination is up against pressures not to “act white.” This is the element of the problem that gets the most discussion, although (because?) it’s the aspect that outsiders can affect the least. There have been heartbreaking reports from John McWhorter (scroll down) and many others about the damage done by peer pressure to stupidize oneself. There’s not a lot I can do about pressure not to “act white”–who would listen to me? Nobody outside thug culture, or oppositional culture, can effectively criticize it: All condemnation, even from black adults, just reinforces the cool of the pose.

Thus the only strategy that I can see directly attacking pressure not to “act white” is the “hard facts” approach: Look, you can do whatever you want with your life, but realize that you’re playing right into the hands of the people who want you to fail. If you’re OK with that, then sure, don’t learn to speak standard English. Wear gang clothes. Get bad grades. But know that you’re doing just what They want you to do.

In other words, point out that the seemingly oppositional stance is just a kind of reverse flattery. It still takes its cues from the mainstream white world, it still emphasizes conformity over individuality, it’s just that it’s a photo-negative of the mainstream’s values. (Those who have done their time in the punk scene will readily see that this is not a phenomenon unique to black city kids.)

D-Squared Digest argues that pressure not to “act white” occurs “Because culture is history, and the history of black people in America is one which has given them no reason at all to trust white people.” Maybe–but you know, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is how to get rid of the stifling pressure. The biggest thing people who neither attend nor work in elementary and secondary schools can do is provide hope that there’s a point to all the hard work it takes to do what’s right. Make it easier for kids to realistically imagine success–not wild financial success, which is okay but whatever, but the success of building a good life, providing for a family, making a good marriage. (I think this can be done without demonizing people who don’t make it.)

Did I mention that this is something we should do anyway?

So that’s my plan. That’s where I place my hopes.