... We Got to Get Over Before We Go Under ... Fragments for a History of Black Vernacular Neoliberalism

Through a discussion of Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad books, the motivational primers of Robert Greene and other similar material produced in the UK by a legion black nationalists turned consultants, trainers, mentors and motivators, this paper asks some difficult questions about the relationship between black and migrant communities and the neoliberal thematics of uplift, self-responsibility and self-improvement. These topics have a long history that spans the interest of nineteenth-century African Americans in Samuel Smiles and the hustling ethic affirmed in several generations of Hip hop.