Watching Greed Murder the Economy

A Workforce Betrayed

Watching Greed Murder the Economy

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The collapse of world socialism, the rise of the high speed Internet, a bought-and-paid-for US government, and a million dollar cap on executive pay that is not performance related are permitting greedy and disloyal corporate executives, Wall Street, and large retailers to dismantle the ladders of upward mobility that made America an “opportunity society.” In the 21st century the US economy has been able to create net new jobs only in nontradable domestic services, such as waitresses, bartenders, government workers, hospital orderlies, and retail clerks. (Nontradable services are “hands on” services that cannot be sold as exports, such as haircuts, waiting a table, fixing a drink.) click here to continue

The Black Godot*

Ending Black Dependency. Well, I think my job is done. The candidacy of Barack Obama has done that for me/us. Which is a good thing. A reason to support this honorary White Man.

Now comes the job of organizing those that get it, and believe that we can be competitive .

There are a lot of Black folks that simply don't believe we can compete. They are angry and going to get angrier as the true impact of "Obama" sets in on Black America. "He's making history and Nigga's gonna be history," as one of my colleagues so pithily puts it.

Our benefactor is in trouble and he has a plan to let our unit go just like so many other under performing business units. And it's not personal. It's just business. After all, even good White folks are getting caught up in the forced downsizing of American hegemony, which is quite evident as my travel and work in the former industrial heartland puts me in direct proximity to all the scattered bodies and rust-belt melancholy, like that of the firefighter with six blond boys and no clue as to what the two graduating seniors are going to do; college isn't on the horizon, not because he hasn't suggested it but because they aren't hopeful about the trade-off between debt and their future prospects in an economy un-buoyed by the generous dispensation generated first by the surplus value from slavery, then global dominance.

And as the sound and vibrations from all those falling bodies reverberates throughout America, a lot of 'good' Negroes are going to tremble right out of their token circumstances like so many grains of salt slowly, steadily, rumbling off the table from the loud, ominous sounds of globalization.

It's hard to say what it'll take to flip the script. You don't just overnight become a genetic mastermind. It takes generations working purposely toward a defined something to achieve anything. Black folks are not independently purposeful, and we haven't defined the "what". Our whole tribe is just floating along hoping that our rudderless ship ends up somewhere, anywhere, and as the saying goes, "if you don't stand for something you'll go for anything."

That anything, right now, is Obama.

*From "Waiting for Godot" a play by Samuel Beckett, in which the characters wait for someone named Godot, who never arrives.

Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism

Runawayslave is on assignment for the next few weeks. Orginal content will be sparse and intermittent during that time. Below, however, is a great article that discusses the enduring power of developing your own power in order to be a player at the table. Enjoy!

Us and Them
The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism
Jerry Z. Muller
From Foreign Affairs, March/April 2008

Our Man in the Middle: Obama and Race

Boy! That was good! This guy is hitting on all cylinders. Barack Obama is a master mediator: he observes and listens to Party A; he observes and listens to Party B; he then eloquently and passionately sums up the contention in ways that gives credence to stories A and B, and in those crucial moments, while each party savors their own recognition in the recap, the good mediator closes on the goodwill that comes from simple recognition, and shifts the burden of reconciliation to each of the parties, neither of whom want to be held responsible for failure. The problem with mediation, however, is that it is incapable of addressing the inequities of power unless the powerful gives it's full consent. In the zero-sum game, the powerful close like a hungry tiger in the woods hunting antelope on a quiet sunny day.

So it was, the "Perfect Union" speech by Obama. The historical and contemporary Black struggle in this country was superbly recounted and acknowledged in personal terms that even the layperson, Black and White, could understand and appreciate. But in the end, it was the Black community with the burden of just getting over its "bitterness" and "anger", because those sentiments are "distortions" that "denigrate" the "greatness and the goodness of our nation", and are counter productive in American public life, causing division and resentment. If we Black folks hold our truths to be self-evident, well, that's just part of the story that has to be whispered in the barbershops and on the street corners out of range of "polite company".

And so goes Black in America with the ascendancy of Barack Obama. The country listened, acknowledged, and is moving on to its post-Black story: land of the deserving with opportunity for all that are willing to forget, forgive and forsake.

Barack Obama, as the Grand Mediator, is proposing a racial settlement agreement, Black folks get acknowledgment of our historical struggles, and recognition of that legacy's impact on our condition; White society, for its willingness to listen, gets a cease and desist of the criticism of America's racial past, and full allegiance to a White ethnocentric version of the future. That's the best deal Black folks can get, which isn't much different than the deal that A. Phillip Randolph and other pioneers in the struggle against White oppression were able to wrest from America during similarly challenging times of war. Here we are 60 or so years later having the same discussion, coming up with the same compromises: Black acquiescence to a relationship of terminal dependency in exchange for White society's sympathetic ear and enlightened largess.

The problem isn't what we think about each other, or the reference point from which we draw our personal conclusions. The problem is Black dependency in a game that most people acknowledge is designed as zero-sum. Barack Obama's candidacy and this speech, should represent to us an opportunity to get serious about breaking the psyche of dependency that is at the heart of the Black community's non-competitiveness, and the struggle to overcome the economic and social vulnerability that makes it impossible for us to ascribe value to our story.

We cannot allow the Black American Narrative to be criminalize or dismissed. We have absolutely earned the right to tell our story in terms and language that expresses the intensity of the ancestral pain, and the urgency with which we need to move beyond dependency. We will not be bullied into changing the substance, tone or tenor of that story.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright's critique of White America is not new, or shocking in the community of Black people that I have been a part of for 40+ years. His "views", even expressed as wolf-tickets (referred to by Barack as "incendiary"), are a part of our story that would've been considered mild and barely worth commenting on back in the day. The ruling elite, however, sees this as an opportunity. America has exhausted its patience with Black dissatisfaction, ingratitude, and Barack Obama represents a rhetorical and moral truce that allows them to keep all the land, all the water, and rights to the air. They are anxious to say that its over with; Barack Obama, his candidacy and his story, has become the symbolic end of the discussion.

You cannot dismiss Rev. Wright's comments as a "profoundly distorted view of this country," without discounting the entire Black narrative in these United States. Barack is trying to discount our narrative but not repudiate our community. Unfortunately, a "community" without a narrative, isn't a community at all. It is simply a collection of "individuals" from which the powers that be can choose a few through which to manage the aspirations of the many. Not a bad business plan; not new, but it works.

There is nothing insane, or distorted or offensive about a Black man in America being suspicious about the sudden appearance of a deadly HIV/AIDS epidemic that is devastating Black communities disproportionately, given the history of the Tuskegee Experiment, and the pervasive availability of mind-altering drugs to a restive population in near total social revolt during the 1960's of J.Edgar Hoover. Certainly the questioning of America's "special" relationship with Israel and the oppressive legacy of America's relationship with authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes, should not be considered distorted but profoundly democratic, and honest.

America is asking the Black community for another pound of flesh for the candidacy of Barack Obama. In order to get along with White America, we must suppress the supremacy of our own narrative and adopt the supremacy of a White narrative that understandably wants to "elevate what is right with America" over what is wrong. The "views" and opinion of the Black street aren't what "denigrates" the "greatness and goodness" of America. It has been the consistent and concerted actions of an American ruling elite that devised and executed a devastatingly effective plan for racial hierarchy that rested on the inferiority and total subjugation of the Black race. Now, if you're Black, where should that story be anchored in the historical narrative of your community? And how does it inform a rational response that will allows us as a people to move forward?

Are the only things that get considered racially "divisive" the things that speak to the essentials of the Black story? Why isn't it considered to be racially divisive to be in a city where 45% of the population is African American but only five percent of the men that get paid to fight fires are Black. Why isn't it considered racially divisive for the Black community to have an unemployment rate that is almost triple that of White America's? Or racially divisive that a super majority of the good, high paying jobs always seem to be over populated with White folks (with over four million Black people with college degrees, there are only 600,000 or so Black people making $92,000+ per year, and that includes the uneducated sports and entertainment money)?

Well, the truth is that these things are racially divisive. The Black community is being asked to be quiet about those things, and keep a stiff upper lip. Keep a stiff upper lip while solid Black families get downsized out of opportunity, and chased out of the Harlem's of the nation by yuppies financed with White dispensation money (came out of our asses directly). Keep a stiff upper lip and waive goodbye not just to those nostalgic manufacturing jobs, but to the Next jobs of the 21st Century as they get outsourced to a smarter, faster and cheaper version of yourself, while the largely White "market makers" get paid-in-full from schemes against public money too big for any one person to go to jail.

Barack is right, it isn't something you talk about in mixed company; it isn't something you would bring up on your job, in front of people that have your livelihood in the palm of their hands. What divides the races is that Black people are in a state of total dependency, but have to conduct ourselves as if we were somehow engaged in a fair game with equal chances at opportunity. Our views are not "distorted"; the source of the distortion is in the images and realities being transmitted into our psyche, our soul, by a superior competitor that keeps trying to hide behind the sheepish clothing of conciliation, while simultaneously continuing to beat us down in every indice of social mobility and community prosperity. We see the distortion quite clearly.

So there we have it. Right back where we started. A stirring, soul searching and frank discussion about the distortions in all of our lives caused by a system of dominance and devaluation. We are suppose to feel better about one another. We should feel good about the possibilities. We do. Despite all the evidence, Black people do feel optimistic about our ability to survive. And like gladiators thrown into a zero-sum arena not of our own choosing, we see and embrace our story not as the end all and be all, but, as prologue to the future story we are preparing ourselves to tell. In the lion's den, there is no mediator.

Black Church to the Rescue?

The new civil rights movement for Black people is the Self Sufficiency Movement. Will the Black Church once again provide the primary leadership in this new civil rights struggle?

I've got to say, I am a little uncomfortable with the idea that an institution whose main purpose and reason for being is to pray and "serve God", would be the focal point for Black economic survival. But that does seem to be the case. The Black Church, once again, is coming to the rescue of the general Black public.

We all know about the church's role in the civil rights movement, and in providing a place of solace and activism during the long march out of slavery. But now, in contemporary America, when so many of us are skeptical about the role of religion in civic life, and who bristle at the thought of an institutional interloper in our spiritual space, is this a model that can do justice to the church and our social survival simultaneously? What about all of the charlatans that gravitate to the church for the purpose of making a living? And what about all of those zealots whose every other phrase is "praise God"? Are we giving them too much power over our secular selves?

These are some of the conundrums that are part and parcel of a movement that depends on the institution of God as its primary impetus. But the evidence doesn't' lie. The Black church remains the only example of Black people working together in large numbers to achieve broad social progress.

Over the last 20 years or so, Black churches of any significant size have built an economic development operation. These ECD's are involved in everything from housing and credit unions to owning supermarkets. If you are a Black person with a penchant for self-sufficiency, these ECD's are pretty much the only game in town with regard to being employed by Black people, working on a Black agenda. That's the good news. The bad news is that these organizations can't employ nearly enough of the Black talent that is ready, willing and able to devote itself to the cause of Black self-sufficiency, or can they?

Another concern I have has to do with where these ECD's get their money. Many of these organizations are getting money from the government, and private corporations run by the usual White suspects. Naturally, there is a price to pay in terms of how far they can go in representing the true interest of Black people when their money is coming from White folks with their own agenda. However, from what I can tell, there seems to be a number of progressive Black congregations and ministers out there that really do understand the survival challenge that Black communities face across the nation, and they are stepping up to provide jobs and opportunities for Black people in response.

It is worth mentioning a few of the efforts that, in my mind, deserve to be highlighted because they are charting their own course and using their own money and talent to get there. In Meridan, Mississippi, Bishop Luke Edwards started off with a small group of members who were all on welfare. By pooling their food stamps they were able to start selling groceries out of the basement of their church. Eventually, they elevated their game and opened more than one restaurant, a bakery, an auto repair shop, a cattle farm and a plant to process the meat. Now that's a vertically integrated business infrastructure!

And then there are people like Rev. Gerald Austin, Sr., of Birmingham, Alabama, who founded the nonprofit ECD, Center for Urban Missions, and is involved in an annual conference called the A.G. Gaston Conference, where the specific discussion is about the Black Church's role in economic development of Black communities. This year's speaker was one of my homeboys, Rev. Floyd Flake of Queens, NY, where he has built a formidable economic infrastructure that employs, houses and develops Black human capital. Rev. Austin published a 12 page report for this year's conference, in it he goes right to the heart of the challenge: "the black community faces a new struggle just as daunting as the civil rights struggle - community and economic revitalization," and he challenges the Black church to step up and meet the challenge head on.

Considering the fact that there are so many churches, from storefronts to grand cathedral-like structures, in Black communities all over this country, I can see an opportunity for churches to extend their type of self-sufficiency into businesses that can provide the foundation for more advanced 21st century type opportunity to the cash starved entrepreneurial class of Black folks. I can tell you from my 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur focused on Black self-sufficiency, that there are a lot of Black folks out here with ideas, skills and in-the-trenches experience competing in the mainstream. We all eventually run up against the same brick wall that stands in the way of our ability to build substantial businesses in the 21st century economy (see my article "Managed Mobility" for stats on the pervasive insolvency of Black businesses): capital with a vision for Black power.

The information/entertainment business is a good example. People that invest in companies like New Line Cinema, and now Lions Gate Entertainment, two companies with a history of producing coon comedies and urban malaise movies, are simply not interested in a Black media company that is focused on "three-dimensional images and stories from the African Diaspora" (the motto of KJM3 Entertainment Group, a Black film distribution company involved in Black film classics like, Daughters of the Dust, Sankofa, The Man By The Shore). Wall Street doesn't have a vision for creating a Black business infrastructure that can provide financing, employment and prosperity for the Black community. In fact, they see such efforts as competition for the power to ascribe value to our goods, services and ideas, which they understand is the kind of influence that could change the whole power dynamic in America and the world. The White investor class is simply not interested in relinquishing that kind of power.

Another Achilles heal in church based development is their tax exempt status. When you talk about changing the power dynamic, you must consider that for every action, there is a reaction. How will Uncle Sam respond to a Black business infrastructure anchored by tax free religious institutions? Well, we are already starting to see some push back by the government in its interest in the finances of the mega churches. Creflo Dollar (a Black minister named "Dollar", LOL), along with a number of big White churches have received supeonas from a congressional committee interested in all that money and influence. Remember Marcus Garvey? They finally got to him on a trumped up mail fraud charge. Can you imagine how hard they will come at a tax-exempt, vertically integrated Black business infrastructure capable of disseminating a parallel narrative that can compete with the New York Times and CBS for the hearts and minds of between 40 and 400 million people camped out in major cities around the country and the world (I've been to Africa where they were so thirsty for Black images they sucked up BET like it was water in the desert)?

In some ways, it all seems like a set up. Why is it that all of this economic activity is being led by institutions that regularly deal in the ephemeral? Sometime ago I came across a document purporting to be a National Security Council memo to Richard Nixon. It talked about the rising radicalism in the Black community and ways in which to blunt the efficacy of the radicals' message. One of the suggestions was to sow division in the Black community by appealing to the business-minded Black people with government contracts to help them get started in business.

The idea was that these people represented the best and brightest and could be separated from the lumpen mediocrity with opportunities to build their own wealth. A classic divide and conquer strategy. One very similar to the colonial strategy of identifying a minority ethnic group within a larger society, prop them up with education and privileges not available to the majority, and then let them fight amongst each other over a vision for the future. Naturally, the favored group needed the colonialist's power and weapons to continue to enjoy their artificial advantage over the majority, thereby creating the "massa, our house is burning" symbiotic relationship that Malcolm X talked about. Is there some element of a colonial set-up in the availability of capital and opportunity to all of these individual religious institutions? Does the parochial nature of each individual church prevent them from having broader efficacy? Will a competition for available resources stymie the movement for self-sufficiency and prosperity as it builds momentum? Will secular resentment make it impossible for these ECD's to get beyond their own congregations? Only time will tell.

Right now, though, I am absolutely applauding all of these Black church ECD's involved in the mundane and practical upon which the Black masses live. However, in order to guarantee Black participation in the next iteration of human existence, we will still have to find a way to put together the venture capital to support our entrepreneurs that are trying to keep pace with the evolution of society. We have to play in the 21st Century and a sandwich shop is not enough sustenance to keep our best and brightest minds focused on our future.
....

Who is Ready to Stop Talking?

Alright! We've heard the statistics, we've read the bad news, now who is ready to get something started?

This is a call to start a Self-Sufficiency Movement. It has to be about the dough-re-us! Which means that we have to begin to put in place an infrastructure that allows us to communicate with each other immediately, and this infrastructure has got to lead to an ability to finance our activism, and eventually put people to work. Information is money. It's called "content", and we've got to begin harvesting the content of our lives for the purpose of ensuring our survival.

I figure that there are about one million Black folks out there that are ready to take action, and another one million that will get on board once the ball is rolling. We are starting with information because without relevant information about how we are living today, we can't build a cohesive effort to ensure our survival. This isn't going to be about selling Avon, or telling people how they should wear their hair. This has to be about increasing our competitiveness and decreasing our dependency.

The first step is to create a consciousness about our conditions around the country and the planet. No, I'm not talking simply about writing smart articles about what ails us; or conducting a high profile "State of the Black Union" talkfest SPONSORED by everybody but us. I'm talking about creating content that breaks down, community by community, how we are really living. What this will do is lift the heavy burden of self-blame from around our individual necks. It will expose the sharecropping relationships, the misinformation about the origins of certain publicly hyped successes, and put the lie to the pervasive idea that Black folks ain't trying. Most importantly, an information infrastructure that disseminates the truth about our real condition will encourage and support the many warriors that are out there on the front line because it will bring all of those individual efforts together in a way that inspires collective action.

This doesn't have to be depressing. There are plenty of folks out here trying hard to do for self. We simply don't hear or know enough about who these people are and how their efforts will contribute to our self-sufficiency. Stories about P.Diddy are useless. The story behind the success of films like Sankofa, or Daughters of the Dust, are much more useful because they talk about the reality of doing business for ourselves and how to plow through the inevitable roadblocks, information that would scare the pants off the advertisers in Black Enterprise.

The kind of information I'm talking about won't be brought to you by Palmolive, or Verizon. It is a different game when you aren't relying on corporate sponsorship; Tavis Smiley, Tom Joyner or Spike Lee aren't going to tell you about that aspect of their success because they've become successful feeding us corporate sponsored Blackness. The system of White supremacy needs them niggas as much as they need Sprint to pay their bills, and Time Warner/Comcast, et al, to carry their broadcast signals. Tavis and company's job is to provide a safe catharsis for the frustrations of the vast Black middle class that toils away in low paying jobs, sending their kids to low performing schools that prepare them to replace their parents in those low paying service and administrative jobs, as well as to encourage the next generation of "Black elite" that see themselves in those panelists that populate the stage, to continue pursuing this corporate soma (the social anesthesia from the book, a Brave New World).

I ain't hate'in. I'm simply putting it out there so that those of you who think you're ready will know what type of efforts are really just part of the problem. Likewise, those of you that think this is a "kill whitey" movement, don't waste your time. We as a people are about life. This movement will simply be about the prosperity of OUR lives. We don't have time for all the misplaced anger. We don't have time to get caught up defending ourselves from the Black and White folks that would love to get us sidetracked with that retrogressive discussion.

In this blog, I've talked about different aspects of the problem, and some of the tactical things we can do to get started. I encourage you to read through the articles, and follow some of the links. The first thing is to simply be counted. Raise your hand and say I'm in! And then let's get busy.

So whose ready?

Treat'em Like a Palestinian

I'm more than a little embarrassed to call myself a "resister" of White supremacy when I consider the concentration camps that the Palestinians are living in. Israel's oppression of the Palestinians is the BIGGEST challenge to Western progressives. If you consider yourself a progressive and you're not talking about this, you're a bullshitter.

Click on the title link to learn the truth about why the Muslim street wants your blood.

Thinking About Resistance

I couldn't help cringing when, in this last debate with Hillary, I listened to Obama genuflecting before the altar of White priorities in his denunciation of Louis Farrahkan. Now we all know that Farrahkan dug his own hole with his comments about Judaism that have widely been perceived by Jews and Gentiles as anti-Semitic. I've heard his explanations about what he was trying to say, but bottom line, he remains a symbol of anti-Jewish sentiment in the minds of America's White political elite.

Black leaders are simply too dependant to resurrect Brotha Farrahkan and his analysis of White supremacy and its impact on the needs of Black people, even though his analysis continues to attract interest from lots of Black folks. Despite the reservations that we too have regarding Farrahkan's admitted role in the assassination of Malcolm X, given the saliency of his analysis, and the actions of the Nation of Islam in recovering brothers that have been economically hounded out of their families and communities (one out of every nine 20-34 year old Brothas - our warrior class -- are locked down in their desparate efforts to make a decent wage committing largely economic crimes, see the new Pew research center report), the Black grassroots does not see Farrahkan as a pariah that must be denounced, rejected and banished from the political discourse. The Million Man March. Need I say more.

As I always tell people, the "system" (of White supremacy) requires from those that want to participate, a pound of flesh in order to demonstrate your complete and utter loyalty to its survival and prosperity. These people are not stupid. The idea that you will get in by acting committed to their system of supremacy and then do some good deeds on behalf of your own people, is simply laughable. White folks aren't stupid. If they didn't invent it, they have surely mastered the art and science of psychological warfare. They know us better than we know ourselves. They know how to use the pressure of the purse to alter behavior. And they know how to use violence in the event that economic isolation doesn't get the results they want.

So there is Obama sitting on stage giving his pound of flesh: 'I denounce and reject and repudiate and spit on Farrakhan, his family, his thoughts, his actions, his statements, and his support.' And then he went further by swearing allegiance to the 20th century's biggest ironies: the Jews going from victims of Western racism and Colonial supremacy, to perpetrators of violence and oppression against the Palestinians. Obama could in fact end up winning the presidency. He certainly is no threat to injustice in the Middle East. This doesn't bode well for those of us hoping that his campaign of Hope really would allow America an opportunity to not only remake it's worldwide image, but to make the case for a more progressive politics that is bold enough to put everything on the table, including old relationships and ways of doing business that have been handed down from wars past.

Obama blew an opportunity to say what is on a lot of American minds when it comes to our unequivocal support for the actions of the state of Israel: Why? You hear it from C-Span callers, you hear in hushed tones from Democratic party activists. People are questioning this so-called "special" relationship with Israel, particularly in light of what most objective observers understand to be a war of unequals: the pitiful Palestinians throwing rocks at armored Humvees, and firing rockets into the deserts of Israel, while the Israeli army, among the top 2 most deadly armed forces in the world, uses sophisticated precision weaponry to assassinate and destroy Palestinian people and infrastructure at will. The only thing that makes this relationship special, is the fact that America, which used to pride itself on standing against oppression, is unwilling to take Israel to task, and to use its relationship to force a more equitable end to the lopsided war that has turned Palestine into an open-air concentration camp.

So why continue to resist? Like the Native Americans before us (and the Palestinians currently), the White man and his woman have conquered, and with conquest comes the power to ascribe value, determine priorities, and set standards for discourse and acceptable action. Obama has been cleared for take off. He has proven himself a loyal servant, he has offered his pound of flesh in exchange for the opportunity to be the first Black face in a decidedly white place. Unfortunately for the masses of Black folks in America, and the world, this doesn't bode well for our prospects for freedom; freedom from the endless lists evidencing underdevelopment, poverty, destitution, downward mobility and dependency. Since we are not moving forward, then we are moving backward because evolution is certainly not standing still. In fact, in the book, Radical Evolution, Joel Garreau writes about the advances in genetic, robotic, information, and nanotechnologies (GRIN) that are pushing the envelope on evolution, accelerating human mental and physical capacity in ways that envision a new Neanderthal: 2oth Century humans.

Now consider this capacity to alter what we understand it means to be human, combined with a ruling class, Whites in the Western World (is that what "www" means?), use to having their way with the world's resources, and you can quickly envision the evolution of a real master race. The futurists talk about the "singularity", in essence, the point in time that man-made computers exceed the organic intelligence of humans. At that point, some 50 or so years away by some estimates, the world's population will begin to slide into regression. The population will not continue to grow but will be in a free fall down to a more manageable and useful 2 or 3 billion people.

Guess who is not going to make the cut. Niggas and flies! Although, if a choice has to be made, my money is on the flies.

The very serious point being made is that elite White folks have turned their attention to a more perfect future, or: The Next Iteration of Human Existence. They will be, and already are making choices about what lives have value ("cheap labor" is another way of saying the lives of the people in low-end jobs are of little value) , and who deserves the opportunity to join their club. This is where the terminal dependency of Black folks is going to take it's toll. We simply don't have the social capital to ensure our own survival. The "exceptional" amongst us will undoubtedly be the beneficiaries of some White largess, but that doesn't bode well for the survival of the Black Man as we know him today. The "exceptional" amongst us can smell the scent of death that hovers around all the rest of us. They can see clearly that there is no Black power, and it's now every man, woman and child for their Black selves. Their kids will be half-breeds, their grandchildren will pass, their great-grandchildren won't know their names. (Go to a college mixer at an NYU or Columbia, and watch how those Black folks are running from each other.)

No, there is not going to be some great cataclysm that wipes out the Black race. As we are starting to see now with the disappearance of middle-class mobility work, technology will continue to increase productivity and convenience, reduce jobs, and take the human touch out of the social economic equation. The most vulnerable amongst us, those dependent on "others" for their survival, are simply going to perish, disappear, like so many homeless people sliding into the underground, unseen, unheard from, gone. The "others" we were depending on will simply not be able in most cases, willing in some, to extend the gift of life -- a livelihood -- because they too will be struggling and hoping to find ways of cashing their White dispensation check. Many of those checks will be returned for "insufficient usefulness". Many of those checks, however, are being cashed right now: The Savings and Loan Giveaway, The rescue of the Longterm Capital folks from their own genius, The Chrysler Handup, The Dotcom Pyramid Scheme, and most recently, The Subprimate Mortgage Fleecing. Every one of these financial schemes are chock full of losers, and a handful of winners, some we know about, most we'll never know.

Given the reality of this Next Iteration of Human Existence, why should the Black Cultural Grassroots continue to resist White supremacy? Well, because we, by and large, don't know what else to do. Standing still while an accelerated evolution rapidly surpasses us simply doesn't feel right. It betrays the legacy of the many RunAwaySlaves that paved the way for our legal freedom. Maybe, as the Grim Reaper continues to descend on the 4 or 5 billion "cheap lives" out here in the world, the ambition of Black folks will exceed a place in the White house and start to focus on our own house.

###

Organizing Agenda

What! What! Well, the "what" is all in the execution of a relevant vision. Below, is a proposal that was submitted to an organization that thought it wanted to be relevant. When it was time for the rubber to meet the road, they bitched up. And these were people that really thought they wanted to be "bout-it, bout-it". What it will really take is a pool of independent money, something like what George Soros has done in setting up MoveOn.org. And please don't say Oprah. This effort will require real money from people with money that get it; that understand that the Black male in America is on the endangered species list. Step on up!

"Good day,

As per our recent conversation, I am writing with a proposal for my role as organizing consultant. This proposal is intended to give you a broad overview of the campaign tactics (section III), and some of the “messaging” (sections I, II) that, in my reading, best seems to accomplish the goals of the ... campaign that you have currently initiated.

Goals
The ... campaign is at its core, a campaign to strengthen our people and our community. It is intended to make us strong, viable and interdependent partners in human progress.
The gentrification of ... has presented us with a survival challenge that begins with our homes, and our neighborhoods, and ultimately extends to our ability to economically provide for our own future.

Overarching theme: "Self-Sufficiency, Not Dependency"

The enemy is DEPENDENCY. The solution is building an Infrastructure of SELF-SUFFICIENCY.

Fifty years ago, we took on the challenge of Civil Rights because we understood that we could not prosper as a people within the matrix of Jim Crow. It was a system so embedded in our society, our psyche, that it affected every aspect of life in blatant and subtle ways. There was no peace to be made with Jim Crow.

The gentrification assault on our communities is one tool in a matrix of mechanisms that operate to target us as the most economically vulnerable people in America, and the World. We cannot protect our neighborhoods if we cannot buy our homes. We cannot buy our homes if we cannot find and keep jobs paying living wages. And in this global economy, living wage careers have been replaced by substandard wages and low-end, fly-by-night jobs. Black male out-of-the-workforce numbers in some of the top cities in America are higher than 50%; the impact that has on our ability to survive and prosper is measured in all the social indicators that point to a people under siege.

Action -- Grow Self-Sufficiency Movement (The New "Civil Rights")
1. Who we are, what we stand for.
- research and communication strategy.
2. Rallying the Troops
- Methods: Boots on the ground, Mail, Phones, Events
3. Collaborating with other organizations with similar interest
- devising collective strategies and actions
4. Establish a communication infrastructure: cutting out the middle-man, speaking directly to our constituency
- recruitment and training of persuasion organizers
- develop web portal
- content production
- distribution
5. Movement Action Plan: taking control of the economy of our own existence: the difference between a tee-shirt store and ascribing value to our goods, services and ideas.
a) 21st Century Skills Institute (for illustrative purposes)
- teaching skills that will enable our constituency to compete in the worldwide economy
- teaching model based on activities rooted in the economy of our specific existence: images and stories; culture and beauty

The elements of the Action phase are sequential and contemporaneous, meaning that while a certain order of action is necessary, some of the elements will be on-going and will overlap with others. My consultant role would be to provide strategic and tactical advise, counsel and training. Which would include training organizers, helping to develop campaign literature, talking points, and other such content, communicating with potential collaborators, helping with recruitment and management of volunteers, developing and implementing a fund raising strategy, and auditing results. I estimate that it would take approximately six months to accomplish actions 1-4. The fifth action is an on-going program that will constitute the essence of the "how" we propose achieving our goal of "Self-Sufficiency, Not Dependency".
###

A Movement To End Black Dependancy

Good Article:

"A Movement to End Black Dependancy"

Managed Mobility

I've been looking at some census bureau numbers lately, and the picture they paint regarding Black capacity for economic mobility is pretty dismal. Yes, even in the age of Obama, there are some challenging issues that will determine the real "hope" quotient for Black folks.


Here are some stats that best sum up the Black self-sufficiency challenge: 75% of all Black businesses in America gross less than $25,000 per year (yes, total income before expenses); Black folks making grown-up money, $92,000 and up, number a mere 600,000+, roughly 17% of all Black folks with at least a four year college degree (compared to about 12.5 million Whites, or 27% of Whites with a degree). Black owned businesses with at least $1m in income number only about one-percent of all Black owned business in the country. Approximately 49% of all Black people with income make less than $25,000 per year.


What these numbers mean is that 0ur upward mobility is being managed. The number of Black folks making decent money is small and the threat of economic regression so large that it scares the shit out of anyone too-black-and-too-strong enough to even think about challenging the control that White folks have over our lives and priorities. And without the confidence and impetus from this investment class, the grassroots Black entrepreneurial class will continue to fight a withering and debilitating battle to build a business infrastructure that would help Black people worldwide compete in the global economy.

Black people in America are terminally dependent on White people for their jobs, incomes, livelihoods, and opportunities. Very few Black people in this country are secure, and fewer enjoy any real personal sovereignty. Personal sovereignty is what frees one up to define one's own future, plant one's own seeds, cultivate values that reinforce rather than obscure one's existence, and allow one to harvest the power to ascribe value to the economy of our existence: the goods, services and ideas emanating from our collective experience, our tribal connections.

In a world where the White elite, who have benefited mightily from the social contract with American society, its law, military prowess, and economic power, are allowed to take the booty and run offshore along with the middle-class mobility work that was the trade-off for the American public, there is no sense of allegiance to any one thing or entity. There is no "American Business" there is just Business. And that business is being controlled not by nations but people; people connected more by corporate tribal affinities than by national ones.

In a world composed of tribal competitors, our erstwhile benefactor is releasing himself from the obligations that come with great "nations". Simply put, White folks are moving on. In the words of Snoop Dogg, "if ya can't swim ya bound to drizzown."

It is apparent that the Black Tribe is going to have to compete with these other global corporate tribes for our own piece of the rock. Taking control of the "economy of our existence" is our only option.