On Tuesday, Boyce Watkins took time out of his busy schedule of going on Facebook Live to explain how busy he is, and logged into Facebook Live to respond to The Root’s article detailing the uproar over his Black Business School. For the sake of transparency, I must admit that I did not watch the entire thing, but only because I have not yet achieved the financial freedom to watch a YouTube star at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, and I pray to God I never will.
After calling me a “Negro annihilation specialist” (which incensed me, not because it was a slur, but because I just ordered my business cards last week, and I would have included that title), explaining how I would get beat like a 7-year-old who didn’t do his homework, and referring to The Root as the “Caucasian death star,” Watkins logged out without feeling the need to address any of the allegations against him. Apparently, the things I said about him bothered him much more than the things Charles Wu has said about black people, but I digress.
In the video, Watkins explained how he would have gladly spoken with The Root. He confidently said this despite the fact that The Root issued a media request, a Facebook message, an email and a Twitter message, but again, I digress. The financial expert also insinuated that I make $200 per article, which upset me. Even though I am a salaried employee, when I multiply $200 times an average of four pieces per day, five days a week, that’s $16,000 per month—which, I will admit, is slightly higher than my salary, even when I add in health insurance, union membership and that free water bottle I received last year.
A few hours ago, I, along with the editors at The Root, received an email from Lawrence Watkins, the president and chief operating officer of Boyce Watkins Enterprises and the Black Business School. The correspondence contained a list of clarifications that the organization wanted to make:
1. The Black Business School is 100 percent black owned.
The email referenced the fact that I insinuated that the organization is not black-owned. I know that this is a major point of contention because Boyce Watkins and others often point out that The Root is not black-owned. He is correct, although I have an eerie feeling that we may revisit that point later.
2. The Black Business School is credible.
To illustrate this point, Lawrence Watkins pointed to Net Promoter Scores, which are basically surveys of people who have attended the Black Business School, indicating their satisfaction with the product. To be fair, I don’t know what this means. If his point is that people who attend the BBS are happy, I will concede that point.
NPS scores don’t compare the BBS with other educational products. It is not an outside accrediting agency. I will also concede that I know people who like Velveeta macaroni and cheese because they have never tasted a home-cooked, better-quality version.
3. The Digital Underground is fully owned by Boyce Watkins Enterprises.
According to the email:
We have licensing and consulting agreements with Mark Moss and Charles Wu respectively. I can’t get into the deal specifics, but I can assure you that BWE gets the lion’s share of the revenue as it relates to The Digital Underground.
So the white guy and the Asian guy share revenue, but most of it goes to Watkins. Noted.
4. Boyce Watkins does not own JARVIS.
Lawrence Watkins wrote:
As far as JARVIS, BWE did not have an ownership stake in the platform when the partnership idea was brought to us in Q4 of 2017. However, due to the massive success of the DU offering, we are forming a new corporation surrounding the JARVIS product that we hope to take to initial coin offering (ICO) and the mainstream. The founders of that company will be Boyce & Lawrence Watkins, Charles Wu, and Mark Moss. BWE will own about a third of the stock while controlling 2 out of 5 (40%) of the board seats. Due to this controversy regarding Charles, he has conceded 1 board seat (he has 2 total) to Dr. Vaneesha Dutra, a Black woman finance professor out of Denver, CO. Although Charles apologized numerous times on video, we wanted real economic consequences for his words, and he agreed. So now, Black people will have 3 out of 5 board seats (60%) on JARVIS Co.
Wait.
Could you guys hold up for a minute while I switch to all caps?
THAT WAS THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT OF THIS THING!
So Boyce Watkins doesn’t own the one thing that sets his “program” apart from any random thing you can find on the internet? He doesn’t even have a controlling interest? And to fix the problem of the guy laughing at black people who started this whole controversy, his solution is, “I’m still fucking with him ... but not like I used to.”
But you know me. In my capacity of annihilating Negroes, I write for The Root, and we are not 100 percent black-owned. Even though, during my entire tenure at The Root, I have never spoken to a nonblack person about what I could, should or shouldn’t write, the majority of the game-changing product that Boyce Watkins peddles to black people as their “financial Juneteenth” is controlled by nonblacks.
Apparently, the Black Business School’s dictionary doesn’t contain the word “irony.”
5. The Black Business School licenses JARVIS from Block United.
Watkins Lite continued:
BlockUnited is the company that Boyce Watkins Enterprises licenses JARVIS from. When they formed their partnership with us, Block United agreed to put the majority of their efforts to help us build the DU. The link posted by Corey above is an old offer and Block United hasn’t taken many customers in on their side since November 2017.
However, we know that everyone wants to get a good deal, so I asked them to increase the price to $3000, even though the landing page referred to in the article is not very active. With the partnership, all parties (especially customers) seem to be happy with what we are growing.
I’m over here cheesing, y’all. He’s literally proving every single point in the original article. Boyce Watkins is selling an overpriced product to black people that was not created for or by black people. And he’s not doing it to empower anyone other than Boyce Watkins. You can go to Block United’s website right now and buy JARVIS at a cheaper rate. The white-people rate. But Watkins would rather you buy JARVIS from him, because ... empowerment.
Moreover, the men (Wu and Moss) who created and controlled JARVIS, at the very least, publicly showed that they didn’t care about black people or educating anyone. How is this not different from any other white thing that ever existed?
And that, dear friend, was the entire point.
I am ready to end this and go renegotiate my contract with the information I received from my new financial adviser, Boyce Watkins, but there’s more:
6. Charles Wu is sorry.
Lawrence Watkins continued:
Charles’ comments on those webinars were very culturally insensitive and rude. We’ve talked to him internally about his remarks and he apologized externally as well. The economic consequence of his action was relinquishing one of his board seats with the upcoming JARVIS Co. and ICO launch. You can view the entire public apology and conversation here.
I’m sure he is. As a fair and forgiving man, I’m going to suggest that the guy giggling at the idiocy of black people is trustworthy. You can take Boyce Watkins’ word for it. He is an honorable man. I wouldn’t do it, but you know how we “Negro annihilation specialists” do.
I’m sure Boyce Watkins would know.
Read Lawrence Watkins’ entire email below: