There’s a familiar pattern many Black communities have learned to recognize—even if we don’t always call it out by name. A Black personality brings culture, humor, and authenticity. The audience follows. The energy is electric. And then, quietly, the benefits flow elsewhere.
That’s why the recent spotlight around Walter Johnson, widely known online as “Mr. Tendernism,” and his association with Destination Smokehouse deserves a harder look—not as gossip, but as a case study in how Black visibility is still leveraged to drive dollars into white-owned establishments with little accountability or reciprocity.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t about whether a restaurant’s food is good or whether collaboration across race is inherently wrong. It’s about power, profit, and patterns.
Walter Johnson didn’t just show up with a few followers. He brought attention capital—the hardest currency to earn in a saturated digital economy. His persona, rooted in Black Southern vernacular, humor, and cultural shorthand, didn’t simply promote a menu item. It activated a demographic. Black audiences showed up, shared clips, traveled, and spent money because someone they recognized and trusted made the space feel like ours.
That’s not accidental. That’s strategy.
And yet, too often, the exchange stops there. The white-owned business gets the spike in traffic, the social proof, the viral glow. The Black figure becomes a temporary mascot—useful while trending, disposable once the algorithm moves on. Ownership doesn’t shift. Decision-making doesn’t diversify. Investment in Black staff, Black suppliers, or Black community initiatives remains cosmetic at best.
This is the modern version of an old playbook.
Historically, Black culture has functioned as America’s most renewable marketing resource—music, slang, fashion, foodways—extracted, repackaged, and monetized by people who rarely share the upside. What’s changed is the speed. Social media compresses exploitation into weeks instead of decades.
What makes this moment especially uncomfortable is the framing. These collaborations are often sold as “love,” “unity,” or “just good vibes.” Criticism gets dismissed as bitterness or divisiveness. But asking who profits is not hate—it’s literacy.
If a Black personality is central to a brand’s visibility:
Where is the equity?
Where is the long-term partnership, not just the photo op?
Where is the reinvestment into the very community being courted?
Without those answers, what you have isn’t collaboration. It’s extraction with a smile.
Black audiences are not just foot traffic. We are not just content fuel. And Black personalities—especially those whose appeal is inseparable from Black culture—deserve more than applause and free plates.
If white-owned establishments want Black attention and Black dollars, the bar has to be higher than vibes and virality. Respect looks like shared power. Anything less is just the same old story, dressed up for Instagram.
And many of us are tired of pretending we don’t recognize the plot.
