Under the headlines "Missing persons" and "Colonise cyberspace" two key figures of the black community sought to tell the world at large that there are no successful black-owned 'dot coms' in the UK. How can both Trevor Phillips and Tony Sewell be so wrong and completely out-of -touch with their own community?

Mr Phillips writing for the Guardian's News Unlimited and Mr Sewell writing for The Voice was influenced directly or indirectly by the recent Observer Young Rich List. In it there were apparently no young black e-millionaires in a list that featured many newcomers from the world of the Internet.

Both writers failed to see that most of the listed e-millionaires were so called not because they had actually made vast amounts of money from the Internet. Firstly, their listing relies on the hefty sums of money pumped into their ventures by rich relatives, venture capitalists or other investors; secondly, it relies on their presumed market capitalisation or worth. Given the lack of vertical performance from some dot coms, to the point that a well known dot com is rumoured to be heading for liquidation, some of these e-millionaires are destined to end up where they started from - back to their old day jobs, if they are lucky.

Casting his eye over the dot coms, Mr Phillips - writer, broadcaster, and would-be-deputy mayor tells us:

"The list of young British money-makers silently shouts the truth - that in spite of the warmer climate of race relations in Britain, we [Black people, excluding Asians] are not making it."

As if to concur, Mr Sewell, assuming he had all the answers and knew more about the Internet than the ordinary man on the Clapham Omnibus wrote: "Why aren't we succeeding as Internet entrepreneurs?"

Anyone who did not know better would take the views of these pillars - to some - of the community as gospel. After all, they have their fingers on the pulse of what's happening within the black community. So they must be right.

Both writers explained it away with the usual excuses of racism, lack of role models, upbringing and kingship, and surprise surprise our on-going history as victims of society.

Mr Phillips concluded:

"It may be that, at heart, we are people too hidebound by our past, to take risks involved in making large amounts of money. Pile on top of that inclination the mountain of prejudice that any black entrepreneur has to face and ask yourself - is it worth taking the chance? For most of us, the answer has got to be no."

While I accept that finance, racism and other external factors et al prove a stumbling block for us in business, we cannot always cite them as excuses for not venturing out or doing well in spite of. Many too often, we also fail to see that support and encouragement from within one's own community is crucial. Take the e-millionaires. Not a day goes by in the last 18 months that you'll not see in any of the mainstream press a feature on a would-be e-millionaire. They are supporting their own. How many such features has one seen during the same period in the black press?

Mr Sewell notes, in the supreme way he has become known:

"We have the same wrong approach to cyberspace. We think that white people own it and we are just guests."

Actually, some of us don't think that at all. Mr Sewell is certainly alone in thinking that which is reflected in an article titled “Why the Internet is virtually Dead” (The Voice, Issue No. 778, 27/10/97). In it, he advised his readers to steer clear of the Internet. Had any of the current e-millionaires taken him at his words then, there would be no e-millionaires for him to shout about today.

Such thinking illustrates the very chip we must seek to let off our shoulders. We tend to take our time to get to grips with new developments until it's too late. As part of our human nature, we then make excuses or blame others for our own lack of vision and failure to keep up.

One thread permeating both writers' views is that they have lost touch with the community they are meant to represent, and through their lofty positions, meant to serve. Many people I know within the community who have businesses - dot coms and non-dot coms - are successful or on their way to success but will rather not have the glare of the world on their achievements. On the other hand, if they are not in the public domain - even though they might want to be - it could be that they are not getting the support they deserve from their own community leaders and publications.

So, are there no successful - discount successful - e-businesses and e-millionaires within the community? My answer would be a resounding: YES THERE ARE!

A casual trawl through the search engines - try any of the top 20 - should show up a list of black-owned sites on the Internet. Certain to be within that list are at least four successful black-owned sites:

i. The Colourful Network - the group that owns blackbritain.co.uk and produces AOL's African Caribbean area, amongst other portals, is said to have market worth of between £40 and £50 million. The group now has a network of four sites and is Europe's biggest black-owned Internet venture.

ii. Darkerthanblue.com - their e-commerce site is said to be worth at least £6m.

iii. BlackNet - the oldest of the black-owned sites - has the teen market sowed-up and could be worth at least £6m.

iv. Restaurant Guides - at restaurantguides.co.uk - has market worth of at least £10m.

To cap all this, has anyone head of the black-owned Internet Consultancy that would be five years old this summer?

So, you see cyberspace is not so colonised by whites after all. And anyone who says that black people are missing on the Internet would be totally wrong. We are not just users and we do not just have access. We actually own some of the infrastructure and we are succeeding at it.