What if one of the greatest obstacles to Black American prosperity is not simply a shortage of money, opportunity, or talent, but our failure to protect the environments in which those assets can flourish?
Black Americans have produced extraordinary achievements despite centuries of enslavement, exclusion, discrimination, and economic exploitation. Our creativity influences global culture, our labor contributes to entire industries, and our economic participation helps sustain one of the world’s largest economies. Yet many of our own neighborhoods, businesses, and institutions struggle to retain the resources needed to achieve lasting prosperity.
According to Newbeings 1619’s economic model, Black Americans possess approximately $1.7 trillion in annual buying power, while estimates based on federal consumer expenditure data indicate approximately $1.057 trillion in annual spending. These are different measures, but both reveal enormous economic capacity.
However, an often-overlooked expense raises a particularly uncomfortable question: How much of our money leaves our communities simply because we do not want to deal with the behavior we might encounter within them?
Newbeings 1619 estimates that this phenomenon, which we call Truculence Avoidance, redirects approximately $49 million every day away from potential Black American community commerce.
We developed Decorum+ because we believe our prosperity deserves something better than a permanent choice between supporting our communities and protecting our peace.
The $49 Million A Day We Spend to Avoid Truculence
Truculence refers to aggressive, hostile, confrontational, or unnecessarily combative behavior. Within the Newbeings 1619 framework, Truculence Avoidance describes spending decisions influenced by the desire to avoid such encounters.
Consider how often Black Americans make decisions about where to live, shop, dine, or enjoy themselves based partly on the behavior they expect to experience.
We purchase homes in neighborhoods where we may feel socially unwelcome because we believe the environment will offer greater peace, order, or security. We travel outside our communities to visit restaurants, movie theaters, shopping centers, and entertainment venues because we anticipate a more comfortable experience. We may even accept the indignity of being treated as outsiders elsewhere rather than risk unpleasant encounters closer to home.
These choices are not universal, and affordability, location, convenience, and many other factors also influence them. Nevertheless, the economic consequences of avoiding unpleasant social environments deserve serious examination.
According to the latest Newbeings 1619 PS&U model, approximately 1.06% of estimated Black American buying power is associated with what we call Avoidance of Truculence. This produces a modeled economic flow of approximately $49 million per day, not a count of independently verified transactions.
Explore the live Avoidance of Truculence tracker on our Prosperity, Security & Unity Metrics page.
Imagine what even a substantial portion of that money could accomplish if redirected toward Black American-owned restaurants, theaters, hotels, retailers, residential developments, recreational facilities, and cultural institutions.
The economic benefits would extend beyond the initial transaction. More local customers could support additional employment, business expansion, new investment, property improvements, and opportunities for the next generation.
But there is a condition.
We cannot expect people to patronize businesses or frequent environments where their dignity, comfort, and safety are repeatedly compromised. Appeals to racial solidarity alone cannot overcome consistently poor experiences.
If we want our money to return, we must create environments worth returning to.
That is the economic purpose of Decorum+.
The Paradox of Tolerance: When Compassion Becomes Self-Destruction
In his 1945 book The Open Society and Its Enemies, philosopher Karl Popper introduced the concept known as the paradox of tolerance. He argued that unlimited tolerance could eventually destroy the conditions necessary for tolerance itself.
Popper was not demanding the suppression of every unpopular opinion. He recognized the importance of discussion, criticism, and reasoned disagreement. His warning concerned what happens when intolerant or destructive forces are allowed to undermine the very society that accommodates them.
Read about Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance.
This paradox has serious implications for institutions attempting to build prosperity.
Imagine a community organization whose members agree to practice dignity, respect, cooperation, and accountability. Most members honor their commitments, but a few repeatedly create conflict, intimidate others, disregard rules, or undermine constructive efforts.
Instead of enforcing its standards, leadership urges the responsible members to be understanding. They are asked to tolerate another confrontation, excuse another violation, and postpone another opportunity for progress.
Eventually, the most productive members begin leaving. The institution loses talent, credibility, resources, and momentum. Its leadership becomes so preoccupied with managing destructive behavior that its original mission receives whatever energy remains.
In attempting to accommodate everyone, the organization may destroy the environment that attracted its most constructive participants.
An institution that refuses to protect its standards eventually teaches its members that those standards are meaningless.
The lesson is not that difficult people should be abandoned. It is that compassion without accountability can become destructive to everyone involved.
Meeting People Where They Are: The Meeting That Never Happened
For generations, community leaders, educators, clergy, and social organizations have embraced the principle of meeting people where they are. The philosophy sounds compassionate because, in many circumstances, it is.
People encounter genuine barriers involving poverty, trauma, inadequate education, discrimination, and limited opportunity. Understanding these conditions is essential when developing effective assistance.
But meeting people where they are was supposed to be the beginning of a journey, not a permanent destination.
What happens when someone does not want the meeting that would require them to move beyond their present circumstances?
What happens when people welcome the accommodation but reject the responsibility, appreciate the assistance but resist the expectations, or demand inclusion while refusing to respect the institution extending the invitation?
Too often, the response has been to lower standards rather than establish boundaries. Organizations repeatedly modify their expectations to accommodate behavior that contradicts their mission. Responsible participants are told to exercise more patience, give another chance, and make another sacrifice.
Eventually, instead of helping the unwilling rise, the institution begins descending to meet them.
The tragedy is that the people sincerely seeking advancement are now required to bear the cost of everyone else’s refusal to cooperate.
Research on workplace behavior illustrates this danger. In The Price of Incivility, published by Harvard Business Review, researchers Christine Porath and Christine Pearson documented how disrespectful behavior damages productivity, employee morale, customer relationships, and organizational performance.
What happens in a workplace can also occur within a business network, social organization, or community institution.
This does not mean that someone struggling should be mistaken for someone unwilling to improve. Nor should criticism, disagreement, or unconventional thinking be confused with misconduct. The distinction must be based on actual behavior and responsibility, not personal preferences or social status.
A community must remain willing to help people grow while recognizing that its collective future cannot depend upon the willingness of every individual to change.
Nations That Proved Money Alone Is Not the Answer
Perhaps the strongest challenge to the belief that Black American prosperity must await significantly greater wealth comes from nations that transformed themselves under far more difficult economic circumstances.
Their histories show that capital matters, but so do institutions, long-term planning, education, infrastructure, social cooperation, and the consistent execution of a shared vision.
Singapore: From Urban Slums to a World-Class City
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Singapore confronted severe overcrowding, poverty, unemployment, and inadequate housing. Large numbers of families lived in unhealthy slums and squatter settlements with limited sanitation.
When Singapore established its Housing & Development Board in 1960, it prioritized practical solutions instead of waiting for the country to become wealthy. Within three years, the agency had constructed more than 21,000 apartments, providing homes with improved sanitation for thousands of families.
By 1976, more than half the population lived in public housing. Over subsequent decades, Singapore developed modern infrastructure, effective transportation systems, educational institutions, industrial capacity, and a globally competitive economy.
Today, Singapore is internationally recognized for its urban planning, infrastructure, public administration, and commercial importance.
According to the World Bank, Singapore’s entire national GDP was approximately $604 billion in 2025, substantially below Newbeings 1619’s estimated $1.7 trillion in annual Black American buying power.
The two figures measure different things and should not be treated as equivalent spending budgets. Nevertheless, their scale challenges the assumption that massive aggregate wealth must come before meaningful institutional development.
Singapore’s transformation required substantial public investment, international commerce, effective administration, and long-term planning. Its example demonstrates how resources become more productive when connected to a coordinated development strategy.
Sources: Singapore Housing & Development Board | Centre for Liveable Cities | World Bank Economic Data
South Korea: From War-Torn Poverty to the Technological Future
In 1953, South Korea emerged from a devastating war with ruined infrastructure, widespread poverty, and an economy heavily dependent on foreign assistance. Seoul had suffered extraordinary destruction.
According to the World Bank, South Korea’s gross national income per person was approximately $67 in the early 1950s. By 2024, it had risen to $36,624.
Over several decades, the country invested heavily in education, manufacturing, infrastructure, technology, and export-oriented industries. Companies such as Samsung and Hyundai became global industrial powers, while Seoul evolved into one of the world’s most technologically advanced metropolitan areas.
Foreign assistance, access to international markets, government policy, and private investment all played important roles. South Korea also endured authoritarian rule and serious labor struggles during its development, costs that should not be romanticized.
Nevertheless, the transformation remains extraordinary. A country with very limited wealth at the beginning of its recovery built advanced industries, modern cities, and internationally competitive institutions.
The lesson for Black Americans is not to imitate every South Korean policy. It is to recognize how disciplined, sustained investment in human capability and productive institutions can change a society’s economic future.
Sources: World Bank, Republic of Korea | Seoul Metropolitan Government History
Estonia: Building the Future Without Waiting for Wealth
When Estonia regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it faced profound economic uncertainty and possessed limited modern technological infrastructure.
Rather than attempting to rebuild every institution using outdated systems, Estonia made a strategic decision to develop modern digital infrastructure.
Beginning in the 1990s, the country invested in computer education, electronic government services, digital identity, and secure information systems. These investments eventually helped create one of the world’s most advanced digital public-service environments.
Today, Tallinn combines its historic architecture with an internationally recognized technology ecosystem, while Estonia provides a striking example of what deliberate institutional innovation can achieve.
The country’s GDP was approximately $43 billion in 2024, a fraction of the annual economic capacity represented by Black American buying power.
Estonia’s progress was also supported by integration with European institutions, outside investment, and access to broader markets. Its success was not simply a matter of positive attitudes. It involved carefully designed systems, education, public policy, and sustained implementation.
Sources: e-Estonia Development Timeline | World Bank Study of Estonian Information Governance | World Bank GDP Data
What These Nations Teach Us
Singapore, South Korea, and Estonia differ enormously in history, size, culture, political structure, and economic circumstances. They did not develop through identical methods, and none offers a perfect blueprint for Black American advancement.
But their experiences share an important principle: They made sustained decisions to build institutions capable of producing a future better than their circumstances suggested was possible.
They organized resources, developed infrastructure, invested in education, and maintained long-term strategies across decades.
Their accomplishments demonstrate that financial limitations do not automatically prevent extraordinary development. Access to capital still matters, as do laws, land, political authority, and structural barriers. But money without institutions capable of organizing and protecting it cannot deliver its full potential.
We must stop treating the lack of additional money as the only explanation for why so much of our existing economic capacity fails to produce the collective prosperity we envision.
Decorum+: Turning Standards Into Economic Opportunity
The Decorum+ QR code introduces a practical way to connect responsible social conduct with participation in the Newbeings 1619 ecosystem.
Every member of the Newbeings 1619 social media platform can download their personal Decorum+ QR code from their profile page.
When a business owner, event promoter, or other participating organization scans the code, it confirms that the individual is a Newbeings 1619 member and is in good social standing according to the platform’s recorded conduct information up to that point.
The QR code is not a guarantee that someone will always behave appropriately. It is a current membership and standing credential, designed to make shared expectations more visible and meaningful.
Imagine a Black American-owned restaurant advertising a Decorum+ member experience. Customers understand the standards expected in that environment, and the owner has a practical method of checking membership standing for applicable events or benefits.
Imagine movie screenings, conferences, business networking sessions, cultural gatherings, and community events designed around the expectation that participants will treat one another with dignity and respect.
Imagine families choosing Black American-owned entertainment venues because they have confidence in the experience, entrepreneurs selecting community business partners because there are shared expectations of professional conduct, and event promoters developing experiences where peace, courtesy, and cooperation are understood before anyone enters.
The possibilities extend beyond avoiding conflict. Decorum+ could help participating institutions develop something invaluable: a reputation for trustworthiness.
Research by Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom helps explain why this matters. Her work on successful institutions managing shared resources identified recurring features such as clearly understood boundaries, collective rulemaking, monitoring, graduated consequences, and accessible conflict resolution.
Source: Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel Prize Lecture
Decorum+ brings a related philosophy into the digital age. Rather than relying entirely on verbal promises of respectable conduct, participating members agree to identifiable standards within a shared institutional framework.
For the system to earn confidence, standards must apply equally to everyone, including its administrators. Members must have reasonable procedures for correcting errors, challenging adverse decisions, and restoring good standing. Privacy must be protected, and membership credentials must not become instruments of discrimination or punishment for legitimate disagreement.
Participation arrangements must also respect applicable laws protecting access to public accommodations and services.
The objective is not to establish a hierarchy of human worth. It is to create a reliable framework for responsible conduct and meaningful cooperation.
From Truculence Avoidance to Community Patronage
This is where Decorum+ has the potential to become a genuine economic instrument.
If Black American consumers can increasingly find the peaceful, dignified, professionally managed experiences they desire within Black American-owned institutions, the motivation to spend elsewhere for those experiences may diminish.
Instead of driving away from our communities to enjoy a restaurant, we can help make our own restaurants desirable destinations. Instead of leaving our neighborhoods to find comfortable entertainment venues, we can help create environments that attract responsible customers and encourage repeat visits.
Instead of allowing recurring conflict to drive away entrepreneurs, investors, families, and talented professionals, we can develop a reputation for institutions that protect the time, dignity, and resources of everyone who participates.
Decorum+ has the potential to help recapture the $49 million per day that Newbeings 1619’s model associates with Truculence Avoidance. The entire amount is an aspirational economic opportunity, not a guaranteed return. Actual gains will depend on customer behavior, business quality, adoption, enforcement, and measurable changes in spending.
Even recovering a portion of that estimated economic flow could support meaningful new commerce.
There is nothing revolutionary about wanting to enjoy a peaceful evening, conduct business without hostility, or raise children in environments that encourage responsible behavior.
What is revolutionary is connecting those expectations to a community-wide system capable of strengthening our own economic institutions.
Stop Waiting for Everyone. Lead by Example.
For too long, collective advancement has been approached as though everyone must first agree to participate, share the vision, and accept the responsibilities that come with it.
That expectation places the future at the mercy of the least willing participants.
There is a more productive way forward.
Gather the people who are prepared to build. Establish standards that protect their efforts. Create businesses worth patronizing, institutions worth supporting, neighborhoods worth investing in, and environments where dignity and excellence are everyday expectations.
Then let the results become the invitation.
A person who has resisted accountability may reconsider when they see thriving businesses, enjoyable social experiences, professional opportunities, and an improved quality of life emerging around them.
The desire to participate in something successful can be a powerful motivation for personal change. And if that desire never develops, the people committed to progress can continue creating the future they envisioned.
This is not about humiliating those who have not yet embraced the standards. It is about refusing to make their participation a requirement for everyone else’s advancement.
Our responsibility is to demonstrate a better way of life, not indefinitely postpone that life while attempting to convince everyone to accept it.
Success should become the evidence. Excellence should become the invitation. Responsible participation should become the pathway.
Provisional Exclusion: Protecting Progress While Leaving the Door to Evolution Open
This philosophy introduces a necessary principle within the Decorum+ framework: Provisional Exclusion.
Provisional Exclusion is a temporary restriction on participation in a defined community activity or institution when documented conduct violates established standards sufficiently to warrant that restriction. Its purpose is to protect people, shared resources, and institutional progress while allowing a fair opportunity for correction and restoration.
It is not permanent rejection, a declaration of superiority, or punishment for having a different perspective. It is the recognition that belonging to a cooperative institution carries responsibilities that cannot be ignored without consequences.
A person who violates the standards should have access to fair review, proportionate consequences, and a clear process for restoring eligibility when appropriate.
We must remain compassionate without becoming captive to repeated misconduct. We can recognize the humanity and potential of every individual without permitting anyone to continually undermine the rights, safety, or aspirations of others.
Provisional Exclusion is not the abandonment of people. It is the refusal to abandon progress.
It means those who sincerely want to improve can still find a pathway forward, while those who refuse are not permitted to indefinitely obstruct everyone else’s ambitions.
Most importantly, it allows leadership by example to replace leadership through perpetual accommodation.
The Future We Will No Longer Postpone
Imagine what Black Americans could accomplish if we stopped spending so much of our collective energy managing preventable conflict and began investing that energy in building the civilization we deserve. Imagine the businesses we could create, the industries we could own, the technological breakthroughs we could pioneer, the neighborhoods we could transform, and the extraordinary quality of life we could establish for generations not yet born. Provisional Exclusion offers visionary Newbeings the freedom to pursue these ambitions without requiring the approval or participation of those unwilling to uphold the standards that make them possible. It allows us to protect the peace necessary for creativity, the trust necessary for commerce, the discipline necessary for innovation, and the cooperation necessary for lasting prosperity. Through Decorum+, we can begin transforming economic potential into functioning institutions, redirecting resources toward our communities, and demonstrating a way of life so compelling that others may choose to evolve in order to participate. And for those who never make that choice, our future will no longer be delayed, slowed, or eroded out of existence. We will build the evidence of what is possible, not merely argue for it. We will create prosperity that can be seen, experienced, inherited, and expanded. We have the people. We have the imagination. We possess extraordinary economic potential. Now we must develop and protect the standards that allow it to flourish. The future belongs to those willing to build it. Newbeings 1619: We innovate, or we dissipate.