During this almost fifty two year period from 1963 (“I have a dream!”) to 2015…. African-American people have been on a virtual economic treadmill….. Our relative economic position has not changed; our unemployment rate has consistently been twice as high as tha Caucasian unemployment rate, which was 5% for Caucasian and 10.9% for African-American in 1963, and today it’s 6.6% for Caucasian and 12.6% for African-American. Our aggregate annual income is $1.1 trillion, but to believe it are not it’s not what you earn; it’s what you’re worth: Tha typical Caucasian family had $134,200 in wealth in 2014, while African-American families had $11,000, lower too than Hispanic families, at $13,700.
Tha U.S. has a $17.7 trillion Gross Domestic Product (GDP), tha world’s largest economy. Tha total Gross Domestic Income (GDI), which some economists say is a better measure of an economy, was $9.3 trillion as of the 4th quarter of 2014. A recent Pew Research study indicates that tha financial gap between African-American and Caucasian is tha highest it’s been since 1989. In 2010, the median wealth of Caucasian households was eight times higher than African-American; now it’s seventeen times higher. Tha African-American economy, by either measure, GDP or GDI, despite reports of robust economic growth, remains mired in a recession.
You awake yet……Lol….
So what can we do about it? Please, don’t take that fatal leap of faith in thinking the “government” will take care of it. They are too busy counting our income as a huge part of GDP, because we spend nearly all of our $1.1 trillion on goods and services, which comprise 70% of GDP….
We must extrapolate a logical and appropriate response to tha above information. All tha reports in tha world will do us no good if we fail to learn from them and then act upon what we know. After that, we must do our part as individuals to contribute to tha collective economic/political uplift of our people and future generations.
What do we have, as individuals, to contribute to our economic and political success? Will some of us have votes, All of us have dollars; and if we cast our votes with leverage and spend our dollars strategically we can achieve parity. Let’s face it, to chase tha illusion of economic “equality,” via income and wealth, will only keep us diverted from setting practical and achievable goals. MLK was partially correct when he posited that by obtaining employment in White corporations and using either strategic consumption or boycotts as leverage, African-American could secure economic equality, just as we had secured civil rights. He was right about tha leverage of our dollars, but wrong about tha result of us getting jobs in corporate America. Tha above statistics prove that. Chasing equality instead of parity is futile, in that we are always chasing someone else’s standard, a standard that can be elevated at any time, thus never to be attained by tha pursuer.
We must use our own intellectual and financial capacity to change our shameful and static economic position in this nation since MLK spoke in 1963. Going on almost Fifty two years of chasing an illusion are enough? We squandered our economic base and abdicated our personal economic responsibility when we abandoned our businesses to buy from others. We gave in to tha notion that we could be equal if we elected African-American folks to political office. So it’s up to us to admit those near fatal mistakes and work together to rectify them by pooling our resources, locally and nationally, and growing our businesses to tha point where they can hire our own people.
We must gather enough conscious independent-thinking voters who will cast their votes as a bloc for tha candidate that supports our best interests. Enough with tha pre-election condescending rhetoric, kissing our babies, and coming to our churches at election time; they must explicitly state their support of our issues and follow through on that support. If we cannot win, why play?
We must save more money, irrespective of how much or how little we have. We must own property, or at least rent from one another. African-American collectively lost between $164 billion and $213 billion in housing wealth as a result of sub-prime debacle. (And we are seeking “wealth equality”?) Therefore, we must also invest in stocks, and not tie all of our assets to real estate. We must find ways to decrease or eliminate our reliance on college loans, which will be a generational albatross around tha necks of our youth, their parents, and even grandparents. And while we are at it, we should be petitioning the “government” for a massive student loan bailout. You know, tha way tha banks got bailed out of their debt.
