>
>What's the biggest problem Most Blacks
>face?
>
>POVERTY!

Racism

>Which leads to crime, poor schools,
>shattered families, makes Blacks Vulnerable
>to opression, etc.
>

Every group faces poverty it's racism that makes poverty hurt our community more than say a white community.

>
>Booker T wasn't wrong, and this
>isn't a matter of saying...economic
>empowerment didn't work, because it's
>far to early to make
>that pronouncement. Are Blacks the
>wealthiest group in America? Are
>the the vast majority of
>Blacks Affluent? No, so how
>can we pronounce this idea
>as not being a valid
>method of liberation?
>
>Looking at Booker T's time, how
>many Blacks actually achieved economic
>success? Not many. How about
>now? Well since Whites still
>make more money then us
>(on average) and typically have
>a higher net worth, over
>Blacks making the same money,
>I'd say we haven't even
>reached economic success (as a
>people) yet.
>
>In other words, it's the 4th
>inning, we're losing 3-2 and
>you want to pull the
>pitcher even though two of
>those runs were on errors.

Actually I think the numbers are the same. If I recall correctly I think it was Charles Olgatree<sp> or Claude Anderson that said the same number(talented tenth) of Blacks at the top now is the same number that was at the top back then.

>
>In other words, it's too soon
>to tell.
>
>Furthermore, how do you define liberation?
>To me it means that
>people may hate you, but
>they can't eff with you
>and if they do, you
>make em' pay. Well, that's
>not going to happen in
>this country until Blacks get
>ahold of some more economic
>power. It should be obvious
>to any of us that
>money runs this country, if
>politicians were going to groups
>of wealthy Blacks for campaign
>funds and these Brothas &
>Sistas would call in those
>favors when a Black Man
>was unneccessarily shot in the
>street, things would change around
>this land of ours.

While I do agree that money runs this country and economic power will help Blacks I don't trust politicans. How many politicans that need a white majority to win are going help Blacks at the expense of their white majority? Just look at the Natives that were giving money to politicans, how much did it help them,or the way the Democrats have become more Republican.

>
>However, Liberation also means that you
>escape from a situation that
>someone else defined for you.
>Poverty is generational, so is
>lack of education and disenfranchisement.
>Blacks were put in a
>poverty situation by Slavery, Racism
>and Jim Crow. Well, I'm
>not poor, no one opresses
>me. I make more $
>then my white friends from
>college.....and they're professionals just like
>me. So what if my
>neighboors hate me, so what
>if Co-workers do......they aren't preventing
>me from living my life.

They can though. Look at what Ward Connerly is doing and Clarence Thomas. Money or no money this will affect your kids and grandkids.

>
>Granted I get profiled, calling folk
>to rent a house is
>a pain because people hear
>my name and think "oh
>my god, a negro" and
>let's face it living as
>a Black Man in America
>is stressful. People can still
>eff with us.......but not as
>much as they could to
>our fathers.....and our sons will
>face less. As more and
>more Blacks achieve economic success
>and basically take our piece
>of the pie, we'll be
>in less of a position
>to be opressed and that's
>the point of economic empowerment.

We are still getting shot dead in the street, still denied access to capital, upper education, and equal justice in the courts.

>
>
>Recognizing history is important in terms
>of seeing where we've come
>from and how getting control
>of our economics is still
>a priority. But it's short
>sighted to pronounce dead the
>theory of economic empowerment being
>important, particularly when we have
>a generation of Brothas who
>feel that slinging rock is
>the only way they can
>survive financially and in light
>of how far we have
>to go.
>
>This comes down to Quality of
>life, that of a poor
>man worrying about the Bills
>and if his sons will
>make it until their 18th
>Birthdays. OR a man worrying
>about whether or not his
>kids will get into their
>first choice colleges and where
>to vacation that year. The
>wealthier man can also focus
>more energy on helping the
>less fortunate and making a
>change in this country, which
>he will do when he
>meets with his political action
>group to bribe I mean
>donate money to politicians.
>
>That's the other thing, Blacks need
>to learn how to use
>their money too.
>
>Look at the Jews, people hate
>them almost as much as
>they hate us. But who
>gets effed with the least?
>

Jews are working with the same people who hate them almost as much as us.

>
>I rest my case.


If economic empowerment is the solution then what happen to Blacks when they had economic empowerment in Tulsa OK, Roswood, and Durham? They were still at the mercy of whites. Wealth did not save them.



"I must warn you, ma'am, that people invariably flee the room when I walk in because I'm from Levittown"

"And what a spectacular act of noblesse oblige on her part to escort the lowly Levittowner around Washington on Inauguration Day!"

"If one were sufficiently paranoid, one might easily misinterpret a decision to go get seconds on that chicken hash as a deliberate insult to the municipality of Levittown."

"Close examination of the guest list reveals many other guests with backgrounds more humble than Bill O'Reilly's. Yes, even more humble than an accountant's son from Levittown. We can only hope that they didn't take offense when O'Reilly himself departed."

I'm working-class Irish American Bill O'Reilly … pretty far down the social totem pole," he says. Growing up in the 1960s, he watched his father "exhausting himself commuting from Levittown" to work as an accountant for an oil company. Dad "never made more than $35,000"—which would be $100,000 or more in today's money