Black Middle Class:The Problem with Black Business Movements

The Black Empowerment Project raised a very valid question, one that has yet to be responded to, nor answered by any of the Black economic movements. That question is how do we achieve Black economic independence? Now, the question suggests the answer. The answer is, by build Black economic intradependence and independence. But, all the Black economic movements completely fail to even formulate a plan to encourage Black economic independence.

Now, Dr. Claud Anderson, in his powernomics movement, had a very sensible idea, but it shared the same limitation as the Marcus Garvey movement, it had a singular focus in one product, albeit a very good one. Dr. Anderson wanted a vertical monopoly: fisheries, transportation, restaurants. Garvey wanted ships for transport and cargo.

African American Manifesto: My Black Agenda for Mellenium 2000

African American Manifesto: My Black Agenda for Millennium 2000

[I am touched that you wrote me. I have been planning to start a Black business bureau for some time now. I have not written out the plan, but this seems as good a time as any. This letter will not only go to you, but I am now, because you inspired me, will be sending this out to every Black church, Black politician, Black organization in the entire country. I can dedicate a few thousand to this letter and campaign. I am also an online marketing genius and will be doing a major press release of this letter as well. Thank you for inspiring me. Here’s my response to you.]

When African slaves were sold or stolen from Africa, they were first sent to an island just off the coast of west Africa. On this island, they were mind-wiped and the men were brainwashed against the women. For, 95% of Africans were sent to central and south America. In central and south America Africans could hope to live the ripe old age of 23. However, they actually were treated quite a bit better, since they learned skills. However, because their death rate was so high, they never grew in population.

Well, what about that 5% that was sent to America? Because the US had a constitution that said “all men are created equal”, Americans went overboard to make sure Africans were never seen as humans. They went through TWO different mind-wiping sessions. One off the coast of Louisiana, and a 3rd at the auction blocks. However,they were treated with kid gloves, compared to south America. However, they were kept as dumb as rocks. They learned absolutely nothing and it was forbidden to teach them anything, by law. Americans were deathly afraid they would revolt, which actually happened several time, but was kept to just that city. One town was completely slaughtered by Africans. There is even a famous painting about it, however this is not taught in public education.

When slavery was abolished in the US, Africans had been able to live to a much higher age than in south America and grew to be 30% of the population. However, these Africans had been mind-wiped 3 separate times, stripped of religion, origin, family, and culture. Upon their release they knew nothing, literally nothing.

Africans had to teach themselves how to read and write, make a family, farm for themselves, etc. Two things they could not teach themselves: their religion; their cultural origins. Even with these horrible odds, Africans became 80% literate in 50 years, something unheard of in human history.

While there were Africans that flourished in the new free era, most barely got by. A lot were slaughtered by racist white people who saw African freedmen as an economic threat to their livelihood. Many new laws were passed to keep tools out of the Africans hands; minimum wage laws were passed to keep people from hiring Africans; and anything produced by Africans was not allowed to come to market. Many African farmers went under from not being able to sell their produce.

The answer is not a question of just pouring money into the modern African American community. It requires a COMPLETE overhaul.

• – branding: African Americans need to be branded as a viable and independent political group with our own identity, culture, religion and origin from Africa
• – BRANDING: we need to produce new art, media, entertainment that if Pan-African, African centered and African inspired, with Africans as the only people in such media [THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ALL OTHER POINTS]
• – we need to denounce any and all other groups that try to co-op our history, culture and art, who systematically claim it as their own and as their origination [like the Egyptian story; jewish story; our music; our culture]
• – as a political group we need to acquire and send lobbyist to every state legislature and the federal congress, to lobby for African political and economic gains [NOT CIVIL RIGHTS]; we need things like the war on drugs stopped, which was intended and used as a racial profiling thing to send Africans into the prison system, to the tune of 75% of all Africans in prison today are there based on drug charges, to the tune of a $75 BILLION a year price tag; we need to remove all racist legislation; we need to understand, read and hold politicians responsible to the constitution, which is our best and only way to eradicate racist legislation; we need to remove Africans off of all social welfare legislation, this has destroyed the African family
• – as an independent political group we need to divorce ourselves from the Democrat party; if we are serious about our independence we need to have the capability to vote as a group; voting for the Democrat party has made the Democrats take our votes and voice for granted
• – we need to control African finance and African money; we need to open and gather in every city African run, operated and owned credit unions; we need to aggressively educate and finance African business; we need to arrest and stop any 3rd parties that are financing and control African business
• – we need to control all African disposable income and spending; we need to arrest and stop any 3rd parties that are selling commodities in our communites and to Africans in America
• – we need to control all African necessary expenditures, this includes food, energy and real property; we need to arrest and stop any 3rd party that controls necessities Africans have to pay for
• – we need to go into our communities, move back in, fix them up, and open up all forms of business that Africans need and use on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis; we need to target and pick locations that have high concentrations of Africans already in them and do our best to move out 3rd parties; we need to open up convenience stores, credit unions, grocers, transportation and everything else needed, in each community so that Africans do not need to go outside of the community to spend money.
• – we need to start regional stock markets that trade in African produce, commodities, and equities in African firms; this will get African farmers to produce and transport their produce to African stores as one big giant economic circle
• – we need to connect these regional stock markets with stock markets in the motherland, which are now booming and coming online; 2 new major stock markets have come online recently in Africa and they need more business
• – we need to understand that marriage is the most stabilizing social factor in our modern time, and we need to encourage our community to get married at every opportunity; marriage also is very strategic and economically good for both people; we need to launch a national campaign to encourage Africans to marry each other; we need to put African marriage in front of our people, through pictures, art, music, entertainment and as a sound business strategy [since it is more economic to be married]
• – we need to purchase and take private, all historically Black Colleges; we need to control all African education; we need to arrest and stop 3rd parties from mis-educating our African youth, young adults and young professionals; this is exactly what all other groups do; we need to open and start vocational and skill based education for high school and young African adults; we need to access and encourage our youth to understand what they are good at, what they desire and to realize that college is not the answer for nearly 60% of the population; we need to educate our youth that colleges are a business and that they are putting out propaganda that you “should” go to college, in order to rake in money, at the young African’s expense, which they’ll be paying for, for decades; we need to encourage our young African to develop skills, such as automotive, electrical, plumbing etc, for blue collar paychecks, instead of minimum wage

If we are to survive this next century, we need to take some serious stock of what we are doing. We need to realize that, unless we get organized and think of ourselves as a group, we will be treated as chattel, misused, miseducated, and state dependent victims to a socialist state, with our wealth stolen year after year.

As it stands now, Africans in America cannot do anything to protect, save or help our countries in the motherland. Our people are being raped, murdered and wealth stolen by nearly every western power on the planet, and now Asia is getting in on the taking. We need to clean our house and get it in order.

Traitorous, Double-Crossing, Quisling Black People

Is it alright if you innocently do not study history and yet convince your fellow African-American that Democrat is the way to go? Is it alright if you do absolutely no research and trust the news to tell you that Democrat is the party for Black Americans? Is it alright that you listen to urban myth that Democrats want to help Black people and somehow usher in a new golden age for Black people.

A lot of Black people have no interest in researching, thinking or studying politics and what the best approach is. They go to their church and rely on their preacher to tell them how to vote. Nonsense. Meanwhile the preacher is being paid thousands of dollars to tell them to vote for such and so, selling the entire congregation down the river.

Truth be told, most Black people concentrate more on sports, music and who’s doing who, than concentrating on whether or not a supposed Black man is selling them down the river in the white house. Truth be told, most Black people could tell you the draft picks, starting line up and last season results of their favorite sport, but could not tell you any legislation that was passed in the last 8 years.

I made a vow to myself when i was 7. I vowed that the world did not need another Black ahtlete, singer, dancer. It needed intelligent superior Black people. I was to be one of those people. I do not open my mouth, nor put words down on paper nor machine, without first checking, cross referencing and getting historical backdrop.

If I say the Democratic party is not good for Black people, I need people to trust that upon my reputation that it is the correct thing to say. I need people to be a little bit more intellectual than they are used to. I need them to draw upon 200 years of experience and historical facts to keep up with what I am saying. For fifty years the Black population shifted from the Republican party to the Democrat party. For those fifty years, Black buying power has gone from $1.1 trillion in 1950 adjusted for inflation, to $1.1 trillion in 2012? That’s right folks, Blacks have made no gains.

How is it that Blacks command a staggering $1.1 trillion yearly in buying power and yet are 10 times poorer than whites?

The 2001 Consumer Expenditure Survey showed that, despite their lower income, African Americans spent more on telephone services, utilities, shoes and children’s apparel than whites. As a proportion of their total household income, blacks spend more on groceries, housing, utilities, female clothing and personal care.

The average married black household’s income is around $48,000 – less for a single parent household.  Moreover, in terms of income, the gap between whites and blacks has nearly quadrupled in the last 30 years, mainly because blacks typically earn 68 cents for every dollar whites earn.  Add to this the above average unemployment rate among African- Americans and the fact that the housing bust wiped out whatever equity black folks had been able to accumulate.

According to one study, blacks in lower-income neighborhoods are more reliant on smaller grocery stores which carry more expensive goods. The same could be said for housing, transportation and car insurance.  This should let us know that there are plenty of other barriers in place, including racism and classism, which seem to prohibit blacks from capitalizing economically on so-called disposable income.  Likewise, the growth of black businesses has yet to be allowed equal access to markets where black folks tend to shop for phone service, electricity; natural gas and groceries.  So it is inevitable that the “black dollar” will always find a route out of the community.

The majority of Black people are married, educated, middle to upper middle-class and are employed.

We are not welfare, food stamp people. Yet the Democrats try and portray that they are being kind and generous and offering “us” welfare and food stamps. It’s a brain washing game. The U.S. is headed towards a communist agenda. Do you honestly think white people would embrace having Black people on an equal economic footing, in a communist system? No, they would not.

And, Obama is not in control of anything. Hoping that because someone has a Black face, makes them pro-Black is juvenile, at best. It’s idiotic when the man shows you time and time again that he is not pro-anything other than wallstreet.

Blacks have lost 65% of their wealth under Obama. Anyone trying to defend him, is not someone I would call a friend. Because, defending that is traitorous to the Black American community.

Please visit my legal website: Las Vegas DUI Lawyer
See me on YouTube: Seattle Cop Punches Black Teenage Girl
Follow @Kevin_Cardinale

The Marginalization of the Black Community

Blacks Don’t Know How Powerful They Are

The Black community controls 10% of the buying power in America yet bottoms out the lowest income bracket.^cite   Until Blacks actual pool their resources and consciously agregate their buying power and political muscle, they will accomplish nothing given the current trend in marginalizing the Black community.  The national and local media constantly bombards the Black community with negative images of itself.^cite   National entertainment outlets also applauds the worst in the Black community, leaving the younger generation to aspire to nothing more than rappers with known criminal backgrounds; athletes with questionable ethics and morals; or Black individuals with a complete lack of intellect or financial education.^cite   Blacks are portrayed as dumb, going nowhere and fit only to be killed in movies.^cite   Until we Blacks make our own movies and t.v. shows dealing with REAL Black issues that we define, we will constantly be marginalized in the media.

The Damage to the Younger Generation

If you repeat a lie long enough, people will tend to believe it as fact.  The Black community is constantly bombarded with images of Black males as being the originators of crime.  Time and again, study after study has shown that Blacks are no more criminal than any other race.^cite   However, Blacks are 90% more likely to be portrayed in the media as being criminals and / or being arrested for crimes, regardless of their guilt or innocence.^cite   The general population, being law abiding citizens, then think that those portrayed in the media as being primary suspects in a criminal case, deserve nothing less than jail or some form of punishment.  It stands to reason that since they are the chief suspects that they deserve to be suspected.  However, while the media portrays Blacks as being the normal criminal suspect of police, they never retract any of their stories, should the person be proven to be innocent.^cite   This constant barrage of Black suspects then, ingrains itself into the brain of those who watch it and people then come to expect Blacks to always be the primary suspects in criminal cases.  After some time, this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Young Blacks are bombarded with images of Blacks being criminals.  The next step is to cast Black artists in the images of criminals and have them praise their own fake criminal backgrounds.^cite   As sure as the day is long, this recipe comes to fruition and idiot Black youth start acting out the very images they see in video and in movies.

Years ago when the mafia movies first started coming out, there was a minor group that protested the movies, saying that they glorified violence, and the criminal element.^cite   They were against white Italians being portrayed as criminals and the movies glorifying crime.^cite   Hollywood of course never listened.  So to the various groups chagrin, Italians were permanently cast as being mafioso.  However, the vehement fight the groups put up left an indelible impression on me, that we should always fight when the national media and entertainment outlets seeks to define an entire race or country of origin of a group of people.

In a country where young Black kids are constantly bombarded with images of Black men being IN prison or an idiot rapper glorifying his criminal past, it is no wonder that Black youth first seek to resort to a criminal option to a situation.  In fact, it is now considered a part of a Black manly identity if you dress, act and think like a prison inmate.^cite   The Black male group thinks it weak if you do not disrespect women.  The Black male group thinks it weak if you don’t act like a “thug”.  In fact the word “thug” has completely been usurped by the Black male group.  Instead it being a male criminal, normally of Italian origin, it has been recast to mean a Black male individual.  Also being a “thug” is now seen as being both cool and sexy.

The Destruction from Without

From the highest office in the land, Blacks are now the prime target for incarceration. ^cite According to research, president Nixon conducted a national study and then changed the results to reflect that Blacks were the originators of all of the unrest in the country. Knowing full well that the entire country was against his Vietnam war, he nevertheless targeted Blacks as the chief source of unrest.^cite He then started his “war on drugs” with the primary target being Blacks.^cite 90% of all Blacks in prison right now are there due to some form of a drug charge.^cite Meanwhile drugs were being introduced into the Black community from a mysterious outside source. Before the 60s there was no drug presence to speak of in the Black communities across the land.^cite But, after this time drugs in the Black community became rampant and readily available. For a community that was generally isolated, having rare, imported drugs being spread wide and readily available is suspect all by itself.  No Black leader has ever raised the issue of where any of these drugs have come from, nor has any media outlet ever let on that drugs were not a “Black thing” before.  For all intents and purposes, Black history month goes more along the lines of Black fantasy month, because they never show how financially sound, well adjusted and progressive the Black community was before civil rights.  Study after study has shown that the income gap, the educational gap and the buying power was aggressively decreasing before desegregation, while now it is widening at an alarming rate.^cite  No Black leader wants to admit that desegregation and civil rights destroyed the Black community, not build it up.^cite

The Financial Miseducation of Blacks

Wells Fargo has been the current love child of predatory lending and wiping out Black wealth.  While calling a house an asset is a misnomer, 90% of all Black wealth is derived from their family house.  In other words, of all the assets you can use to judge a Black families financial worth, their house is usually the only “asset” a Black family has.  That being said, if you were to concoct a scheme to swindle a Black family out of their house, you could wipe out nearly all Black wealth in the nation.  Wells Fargo is under investigation for just that very thing.^cite  They systematically targeted Blacks, based on the fact that Blacks are completely financially ignorant, for predatory lending.^cite

What is predatory lending?  Unscrupulous actions carried out by a lender to entice, induce and/or assist a borrower in taking a mortgage that carries high fees, a high interest rate, strips the borrower of equity, or places the borrower in a lower credit rated loan to the benefit of the lender. As with most things of a dishonest nature, new and different predatory lending schemes frequently arise.^cite

The easiest way to completely avoid predatory lending is to SHOP AROUND.  Remember that song?  Even the most financially ignorant person can hedge their bets that they will not be “taken” if they simply shop around.  Normally the loan scam starts by either, the bank coming to the doorstep of the person, or if they’re buying a house, the realtor suggesting the bank. The buyer then signs the loan with that bank without ever looking at another bank or lender for better terms.  It would completely disrupt the scam if the buyer simply went to at least 5 other banks, credit unions, or lenders to compare terms.  However, no Black leader or Black organization, *cough*NAACP*cough*, ever brings a law suit on behalf of a Black community that has been the target of predatory lending.^cite   Right off the top of my head, Memphis has born the brunt of Wells Fargo’s predatory lending campaign.^cite   It took city leaders to bring a lawsuit against them.  Seems Jesse and friends have been completely silent on the issue.  And, why would I say Blacks were the target?  Because, employees of the company have signed affidavits attesting to the fact that supervisors in the bank specifically said to target Blacks because they are not financially savvy.  They had Blacks sign mortgages with 29% interest when they qualified for 5% interest.^cite   They had Blacks strip themselves of all the equity in their home, saying it was a lower interest loan to consolidate ALL of their debt, when in fact it was an interest only with a balloon payment mortgage, or adjustable-rate mortgage.^cite 

Stop Predatory Lending: A Guide for Legal Advocates

What is an ARM?  An adjustable-rate mortgage is a type of mortgage in which the interest rate paid on the outstanding balance varies according to a specific benchmark. The initial interest rate is normally fixed for a period of time after which it is reset periodically, often every month. The interest rate paid by the borrower will be based on a benchmark plus an additional spread, called an ARM margin.  For example a 2/28 arm loan would have you pay a very low interest rate for 2 years, however for the next 28 years that interest rate would keep adjusting up and up, even monthly.^cite

Black communities like Memphis, were wiped out by predatory lending and the sub-prime mortgage crash.  The Black wealth was completely robbed.  Where white wealth was not wiped out, the biggest losers have been the Black community, across all racial boards.

What Has to Happen

First and foremost, we as a community have to acknowledge what has happened.  Until we can come to terms with the factors that are leading to our downfall, we cannot hope to progress.

• Blacks are constantly the butt of crime
• Blacks are portrayed as criminals
• Black entertainers glorify crime
• Black males glorify being a criminal
• Blacks are portrayed in movies as being criminals
• Blacks are portrayed in movies as being unintelligent
• Blacks are never portrayed as a bad guy with tremendous intellect, i.e. a nemesis or arch-enemy
• the Black community before desegregation was on tract to close the income gap between Blacks and whites
• Blacks are the chief target of predatory lending
• Blacks are never educated financially
• Blacks have suffured the most in the sub-prime crash
• due to complete financial ignorance, Blacks signed sub-prime loans when they qualified for low interest prime loans
• the current economic crash wiped out nearly 50% of Black wealth in the entire nation
• due to a general lack of Black owned and operated businesses, Black unemployment is triple the national average, in some sectors it is nearly 50%
• due to a general lack of Black reinvestment into the community there are less and less Black businesses

Please visit my legal website: Las Vegas Nevada DUI Penalties
See me on YouTube: Shakaama Live

For Blacks: I Am Unapologetic

I Am Unapologetic for Discussing Black Issues

Time and again when I mention the word Black in mixed [read white] company, I immediately get harassed and get the “why does it have to be a Black issue”.  What’s worse is, when I bring up a Black issue in the company of a young Black man and he does the whole Sambo dance in front of me about how “color blind” he is.  For instance last night I was having a conversation with two tourists, both young Black men.  The one was discussing how he was staying at a hotel shaped like a pyramid.  I made the joking comment how all of the fixtures and decorations depicted the Africans as being white.  The Black man that made the comment went into a tirade of how it shouldn’t be a Black issue.  The two Puerto Ricans and his own friend tried to explain what I had said to him.  We all finally gave up when he continued to stand by how I had said something remotely offensive or racist, even after the Puerto Ricans pointed out that it was racist to depict Africans as being white.

I find it offensive when people attack me for mentioning Black issues.  As far as I can tell, noone is talking about Black issues.  Oh, people are talking about “latino” issues.  People are talking about women’s issues.  People are talking about Jewish issues.  Absolutely noone is talking about how the Black community is being defined by the media and being destroyed.  Noone is talking about how Black women are gracing the covers of XXL, King and SSX looking like complete prostitutes, with distended breasts and distended behinds.  Noone is talking about how although the U.S. Black buying power has risen from $318 billion in 1990, to $590 billion in 2000, to $799 billion last year, and will rise to $1.1 trillion in 2011 – a 237 percent increase in 22 years, they still have the lowest median household income of ALL races in America, even if you included Latino as a race [which it is not].  Noone is talking about that Blacks spent a larger percentage of their income on natural gas, electricity, telephone services, and footwear, and a higher proportion of their money on groceries, housing and women’s and girls’ clothing than others.  Noone is talking about that Black consumers account for almost nine cents out of every U.S. dollar spent.

I am unapologetic for discussing the complete lack of Black financial education.  Wells Fargo is under investigation as being the TOP reserve-redlining bank in the entire country.  And how were they capable of single-handedly taking down nearly all of the Black wealth in the country?  By targeting Black folks who were completely financially non-savvy.

You want to harass and complain about me discussing Black issues?  Take down Fox.  Take down Rush Limbaugh.  Take down Michael Reagan.  Take down Michael Savage.  Take down Bill O’Reilly.  Take down Pat Robertson.  Take down Glenn Beck.  Take down Ann Coulter.  I will never apologize while these … people are up and running with their hate mongering, fear mongering and divisionary revision of current history.

Please visit my legal website: Las Vegas Nevada DUI Penalties
See me on YouTube: Shakaama Live