Ever since the start of racism on the planet against the Black man, has there been a struggle to get out from under the yolk of the white man and establish ourselves as not superior but equal to white men in every aspect of life. The short sighted Black leaders of yesteryear and today plunged the Black man into a 50 year long struggle to gain equality at the end of a pen, i.e. "civil rights". Every civil right was granted, every policy changed, every uneven law undone. And yet Black people are in the same economic predicament that they were in since 1860. Let me repeat that. Black people controlled 0.5% of the U.S. wealth in 1860. Today, in 2010, Black people control, including Oprah and Bill Cosby, 0.5% of the U.S. wealth. And we are no more equal to white men now than we were in the 60s.
"There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance" - Ali ibn Abi-Talib
You do not grant equality. It is taken by force. A man does not beg you to treat him
as your equal, he walks up to you and punches you in the face and tells you, you better treat him as an equal or there's more where that punch just came from.
"You can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word." - Al Capone
Black people seem to run and cry to someone that will listen to their complaints rather than hire a lawyer and sue the piss out of someone that wronged them.
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" - Mao Zedong
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| Black Owned Business |
We come now to the topic at hand.
The U.S. Black population, universally, tells their children to go to college, so that they might find a good job. However, the statistic of white businesses that are started from college dwarf any other business start in life. How can it be that Black parents tell their children to go to school to get a job, and yet the white counterparts start businesses going to the same exact school.
"The great masses of the people... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one." - Adolf Hitler
After 50 years of civil rights, the median income gap between the Black man and white man is actually widening, not closing. I've touched on this very subject in other article in my blog. Search at your leisure. How could this be that after the "tremendous strides" that our Black leaders like to say, we've made, that we are poorer today than we were 50 years ago?
Black Businessman
It's quite simple. White business starts have increased. Black businesses starts have decreased. Also white recirculation of money has increased, while Black circulation of money within our community has fallen off a cliff. Every Black dollar spent by a Black person in the U.S. loses $11.00. That means, that although we have $1 trillion in income, that comes into Black hands, effectively we lose $11 trillion. Every solitary dollar in the Black community is spent into someone else's community. Black people cannot hold on to any money for any period of time.
Black Businessman on Phone
"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, but the one most responsive to change." - Charles Darwin
Finally, because of point A and point B, Blacks control no real estate to any extent. Although several cities are predominantly Black to a very high margin, not one Black person controls any center of power in so far as commercial real estate is concerned. Black dominate certain industries and yet control no center of power in those industries. There are companies which are predominately Black in their employee roster, yet no Black holds a position of ultimate authority. That is not to say there are not Black CEOs etc. That is to say, in these Black dominated industries or companies, Blacks have no say as to how Blacks will be treated in the company or industry. Meaning you can have a company that is 75% Black and yet Blacks are mistreated out of hand and nothing is done about it, because there is no 75% Black dominated members of the board. One Black CEO, equality does not make.
Why One in Ten?
What is so magical about one in ten Black people owning a business? It is the measure of wealth that would mean we are finally equal. But let's first look at the word wealth.
Wealth
Wealth is nothing more than the value of store surplus labor, i.e. those goods which can be equated to the labor that went into producing it. Wealth is not income. Income has nothing to do with wealth. Measuring wealth only implies a good already present, not an incoming good.
So then, owning your own business is the only true source of wealth in this country. Why is this so? Easily, I'll show you a measurement that does measure income, insofar as it applies to wealth. I have gone over this before, but it bears more careful consideration here.
Median Family Income
Asian $55,000 - $56,000
Whites $54,000
Hispanic $32,000
Black $19,700
Whites $54,000
Hispanic $32,000
Black $19,700
Obviously there is a huge gap between white wealth and Black wealth. But, simply looking at the number does you no good if you do not understand the why of it. Let's take a look then as how can we arrive at this wealth measurement with each race. The majority of Blacks have no idea why we all are so poor. It is a mystery to them.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke
Racial Breakdown of Per-Capita Business Ownership
Asian 1 in 10 in business
White 1 in 34 in business
Hispanic 1 in 54 in business
Black 1 in 104 in business
White 1 in 34 in business
Hispanic 1 in 54 in business
Black 1 in 104 in business
It is readily seen that the huge disparity in wealth is directly related to the accumulation of businesses. Every community that practices racism therefore is behooved to own as many businesses as possible. Business then is an entity which takes in raw goods and maximizes profits from them. This simple definition can apply to any business, even a service business, i.e. uses human labor as a profitable vehicle. So then if you wish to practice racism you simply get your group to accumulate as many businesses as possible.
"Corporations, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility" - Ambrose Bierce
As you can see, the top of the list in income are the Asian group. The magical number that they have is, you guessed it 1 in 10 in business. As blacks wishing to practice racism them, we should concern ourselves with reaching that magical number. Yes, white control of centers of power and awarding of contracts to firm, may in fact go to only white firms, yes even still today, with Obama as president, if more and more Blacks were to simply open up firms, we could finally commune within our own community.
Nationally, African Americans businesses are getting shorted in stimulus contracts under the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). According to statistics from the Transportation Equity Network (TEN), in December 2009, the U.S. Department of Transportation had awarded $163.8 million in direct contract, with only $16.8 million, or about 10 percent, going to minority-owned businesses, $4.7 million, or about 3 percent, had been awarded to Hispanic-owned firms. No black-owned firm had received a single contract from the DOT stimulus pot of money. The shortchanging of black and other minority firms has trickled down to local governments.
Black businesses also need to be stimulated in these tough economic times. Atlanta’s black-owned firms still face discrimination when it comes to city contracts. This is not a small point since more than 60 percent of the employees of minority-owned firms are people of color. According to a 2006 disparity study, Black and other minority-owned firms accounted for 48 percent of city service contracts in fiscal year 2005, up from 33 percent in 2001. Minority firms won $150 million of the total $312 million contracts in 2005 for private construction, engineering and related services. The expansion of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was fertile ground for contract. However, minority firms received a much smaller share of city goods and commodities contracts.
With nearly 64,000 firms, Metro Atlanta is home to more black-owned businesses per-capita than anywhere except the nation's capital. These firms employ mostly African Americans. This shortchanging of black-owned firms will likely continue unabated if some type of “set-aside” program and stronger accountability and transparency in tracking the use of all federal funds for economic stimulus and job creation. The awarding of stimulus dollars is one clear signal that we are not living in a “post-racial” society—even with the election of President Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president.
Black owned firms hire more Blacks than any other firms put together. Yes we have upwards of 50% unemployment among Black men, but if the other 50% of Black men were to open firms, they would hire Blacks and that number would shrink or disappear.
Community Recirculation of Money
Buying from Black Owned Businesses
Buying from Black owned businesses is a major issue in our community right now. However, if 1 in 10 Blacks owned businesses it would be a non-issue. As it stands now 1 in 104 Blacks own a business. You would have to search and search just to find the Black owned business.
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| Buying From Black Owned Businesses |
Also with the mass exodus of Blacks from prior Black communities, there's no way that our businesses and communities can thrive. Middle class Blacks flee from inner cities, with some foolish notion that they are moving to a better place. Meanwhile, white city councils are giving money to whites to move to these inner city neighborhoods for "renovation" purposes, i.e. to oust poor Blacks. So the affluent Blacks are rushing away from the very neighborhoods affluent whites are flocking to, and getting paid to do so. Some Black communities which are more than 100 years old have already begun to disappear. Had these affluent Blacks simply turned around and opened up businesses in these communities, the very act of opening the business would have done more for the community than them leaving ever could. Because invariably they would hire Blacks from the area. This income would translate into larger buying power for the community directly. And, as more and more Blacks firms open in the area, a sustainable community is reborn. Young teens which suffer the highest unemployment rate in America would have jobs, since entry level positions would be filled by them. That means, block gangs and juvenile delinquency would plummet.
As more Black firms would open in the community, assuming the firms would be diverse, and not all liquor stores or clothing stores, the community could thrive. Hopefully grocers and such would be opened, the least represented business in Black communities.
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist" - Dom Helder Camara
The magical number is 1 in 10. If 1 in 10 Blacks opened businesses, we would be wealthier than Asians. Why? Because we are 3 times the population of Asians. Notice Whites are only 1 in 34 in business, yet they are on par with Asians. That's simply because of their huge numbers. If we got 1 in 10 Blacks to open a business we would surpass whites and asians in wealth.
"The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot eternally live in a cradle." - Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky
Forget pie in the sky, and a better day tomorrow, money makes the world go around. Wealth is power all by itself. Anyone that tells you different is selling you for a fool.
Recommended Reading for the Libertarianly Minded
Recommended Reading for the Libertarianly Minded
http://shakaama.blogspot.com/2010/07/for-blacks-one-in-ten-blacks-should-own.html
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