Culture of Fear Redux: Debt, Displacement, Unemployment and Wealthlessness for Black Folks

I knew that black people were damn near at our last limb when Cornel West became the voice of serious public, and dare I say, radical critic of the Obama Administration.

Then I got wind that the most depression recession-proof black business is selling hair extensions and weaves. Oh shit, do you mean fried chicken and fish shacks plummeted to number three and four, with black churches losing its premiere spot sometime between King's assassination and Kirk Franklin declaring he was in a heterosexual marriage?

I guess weaves, wigs and Yaki #9 are modern day upgrades of Madame CJ Walker's magnificent marketing and business plans.

But I keep thinking that someone will jump from behind a tree and say, "A-ha" like the Jewish character from the black barbershop scene in Coming to America.

But this is different from Oprah's "Aha" moment. My "A-ha" is a bullshit moment, with me slapping my leg and saying "Y'all stop playing jokes, we ain't this effed up. This is all just one, long corny joke." Right?

But, I really think we are, you know, fucked up, because most of us aren't laughing. And I think the joke is on us. Casting votes for a puppet whose nose continues to grow.

For real, for real, please let me know if what I am feeling is just Eco.Soul tripping again. Or, are you twitching and itching for solutions too? Running circles of hypothetical plans in your mind to bring order or clarity to this cloud of chaos, apathy, and terror in the world.

It is so interesting that the POTUS declared an end to the Culture of Fear. A US social milieu that had masses of people looking at Arabs and Muslims with side-eyes and condoning bombings on millions of civilians in multiple countries to protect our dwindling "freedoms." Right?

This Culture of Fear that aided in the breeding of distrust and wars with ghost groups and leaders in the Middle-East. Ahh, these wars, fueled by political instigation around religions that in its purest form, operate more like cousins then arch enemies, are about as real as Bishop Eddie Long's hairpiece.

Last week, people scrambled and called their elected officials to move on avoiding a debt ceiling. A debt of which people have been saying is really bologna. Others have stated that Obama is too acquiescing to Republican Party's anti-human agenda. Even though the Democrats' movement are anti-people these days.

But senior citizens, poor folks, Tom Joyner listeners, and people of color jammed the lines of their public officials in a frantic without really looking between the real lines of this bullshit deal that was being made. It actually was a push, to move an agenda that snubs the masses of people, those who are struggling, and provides another layer of safety for the 5% who own most of this country's wealth, and are gouging for more of it.

For example, huge short term cuts in social programs like education and housing, and guess what? Millionaires with jets, like Souljah Boy (emphasis on boy) and his $55 million pimped out private G5 purchase are keeping their share of the economic booty. Like our asses, our ripe and plump derrieres are for the taking.

What does this mean? That debt ceiling deal means, well, we are still fucked. America is a credit card company that kept calling your ass and scared you with court when it actually already has filed for tax write off and turned black folks over to a nasty collection agency like Midland Funding. Who is in turn, collecting on monies we still don't have and a debt that no longer exists, but didn't really in the first place; and now the shit is about to get even funkier.

I was talking to my father and father in law, both who are in their mid-60s, and they grumble in great angst when talking about a man they once cried for when he got elected. Now they are both trying to see how they can save their retirement money and health insurance.

When black men in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s especially from the South, express their disappoint in Obama than you know shit is really, really bad. This demographic of Americans bear the brunt of insidious racist experiences, but they too have turned their backs in shame at what Obama has been complicit in passing.

While America's "Culture of Fear" is waning, black people's fear of debt, displacement, unemployment and wealthlessness is at its height.

Our fear is very real. If about 20% of black people are unemployed in various states than that means 1 in 4 black people you know are unemployed. If black people's wealth is about $1 to every $20 white American dollars than damn near everyone we know is poor, working poor, one paycheck from poor, or one mortgage missed from foreclosure.

There is a report of an increasing amount of immigrants returning to their native countries for better job opportunities. But where can we go? Most African-Americans have not traveled out of their state or region, let alone, the country. 

I thought of the letter I wrote to the president last year, detailing the high unemployment and foreclosure in the black community, especially black male unemployment rate. I got a response that I know was written by some college intern who is there to get a notch on their resume. The letter encouraged me to report any acts of discrimination to the proper bureaus for further investigation.

What?

As I am applying for jobs, I know which positions are filled. Coons, Self-deprecating Negroes, and Spinelessness Leaders.

Good Black Businesses for Hire: Why African-American businesses will Gain in this Economy

The Black Grape Bar, Afro-Caribe Restaurant & Performance Venue in London

In most urban black and brown areas in the United States, residents are grossly lacking access to the necessities of simple, quality living.

I have lived in Los Angeles, Atlanta and now Newark, and know the frustration of looking for some reasonably priced, non-rotten romaine lettuce for my tacos. Forget picking up something like cherries anywhere in the hood. A cherry is like an exotic fruit from New Zealand.

Since about the late 1980s when Affirmative Action reached its peak, integration was largely (but never fully) implemented and the brain drain of black professionals really hit black communities, the closing of black businesses in large numbers began.

The lack of businesses that knew, understood, and catered to ethnic enclaves of where it originated and blossomed created a devalued perception of black consumerism and thus the cheapened the expectations of black standards of living.

Between the pimpalicious churches, liquor stores, grimy bars, hole-in-the-wall hair salons and Chinese fast food grease spoons, people in metropolis are hurting for quality commercial presence.

I am sorry, but the Korean liquor store, the Indian 7/11 or the Arabic (or African) ran Dollar Store selling cotton panties that will give you a nasty yeast infection resulting in a fishy, dripping snatch is not the business we desire.

And if you don’t know, the hood is the first place where large chains pack up and go in a bad economy. Why? Because there is an assumption that we will not keep business afloat; but it is a fact that the working and poor class are the first to buy some shit to keep up with the Jones and the Petersons.

Unfortunately, there is a silent, but blatant segregation of good businesses in inner cities. This is where small, good black and brown businesses can flourish. There is a needy target population, and thousands of people with a history of good employment who are ready to work and be an immense asset to your business.

BUT, let me emphasize superior quality stores and not the negro-rigged shotgun shack operations ran by Pookie and them.

Okay, so here is EcoSoul’s Recommendation for Good Black
1. Focus on basic services and incorporate a mission to refine your operations before you go big. John Henrik Clarke always said that we didn’t even have our own underwear company to purchase drawers. Hell, I’ll be the first to buy panties made for people who actually have booty meat, but the cotton and satin gotta fit right.

2. Treat your customers with respect and be patient with their recommendations. I know black folk can try our people, but in the chitter chatter, there are some good tips. Plus listening to your customers shows you are a vested venture in good community relations.

3. Keep your store, sidewalk and parking lot clean.

4. Upgrade your operations and aesthetic every 3-5 years. The 70s Sanford and Son look is a nice vintage visual for Blaxploitation movies like Black Dynamite.

5. Saying hello will help you.

6. Contribute to community building efforts.

7. Reality shows can hurt you if you act ignorant.

8. Make sure your relatives know you have a business and not a hang out spot where they can get the hook up in front of patrons.

9. No getting twisted on the job or smoking weed in the back. That shit is not-the-business.

10. Bookkeeping is not the man on your neck, but a financial necessity.

11. Remember, you are the seeking community members’ money, and not the other way around. Respect their dollar.

Some of Things I Think About in this BS Economy

1. The US currency is not backed by gold, contrary to most Americans belief that it is.

2. Gold is a natural resource, while cash is paper that is backed by thin air and our investment in the nothingness.

3. The Federal Reserve is not owned or ran by the US government. In my opinion, it is actually the reverse.

4. Owning land in the US is a temporary fix to American territorialism and old frontier ideology. No one owns land. We all lease it. For example, if you paid off your land and did not pay taxes, than it will be seized by the government (ask the millions of black folk who left their land to go North, and lose it some decades later due to unpaid taxes, oh, and illegal seizure).

5. The biggest and oldest welfare recipients live on plush estates and get yearly tax write-offs for blueblood money that has been stashed in coffers since the big bucks of industrialism and worldwide slavery were rolling in by the kazillions.

6. The newest welfare recipients are those who are profiting from the Iraq war and those who inherited billions from a stimulus payoff that trickles down as about as fast as a slow leaky pipe.

7. People ask about the stimulus money, but forget the billions of unaccounted for money from the Iraq war and Katrina undevelopment that is still being profited by Haliburton.

8. The Republican Party and Right Wing Conservatives have been quite the rabble-rousers lately, but were silent as they stuffed their faces while getting their palms greased while stashing dough in the Bushes.

9. Democrats have once again disappointed.

10. The unemployment rate has declined because damn near everybody is either jobless, part-time, or taking forloughs.

11. How can NY state represenatives refuse to work and get paid, but if I do it, I'd get fired.

12. Why is it that large numbers of "nice" people collecting welfare and unemployment benefits have made being broke chic, and the case workers so nice at the unemployment office they damn near are making caramel frappes for clients?

13. Since when did tent cities like those in Santa Monica, CA become acceptable, but in downtown LA, they were demolished several years ago?

14. I have been passing by the World Trade Center for two years and nothing has been built, but rest assured billions have been spent. Who owns all of these bogus construction contracts?

15. Forget a beer summit, give me some Martinique rum and a Cuban cigar, me and Obama need to get some things cleared away.