Hating Ourselves...Turning the Ship Around

How Black Economic Hate Can Turn Around Before it Sinks Us ALL and Instead Become Black Economic Empowerment: A Grass-Roots Financial Perspective

By Brother Tracy Gibson...

I was on the Broad Street Subway a few months ago, on the way to or from a Class I was taking with the Temple University Small Business Development Center. There was a White man collecting money from Black passengers while saying he needed the money for food and shelter. Something about this picture didn't look right to me.

The event, coupled with another few incidents--this time with Black beggars,  was a case study in self hatred among Black people.  The White man scored big among Black people.  Many, many Black hands were outstretched giving him entire dollar bills hand over fist, not wanting him to starve or do without decent shelter.  The White man probably worked in Center City or commuted to and from Wall Street in Manhattan.  He had those Black dollars all to himself and he was smiling and proud of his achievement.

We had been bamboozled again, but that is only half of the sorry equation.  The really sorry picture... There were two other incidents of public begging by Black men that didn't result in Black hands with outstretched dollars and change filling beggar's pockets....  This time the beggars were Black men and they had a similar story of woo--no money for food and shelter, can't you please help?  I never saw so many hands stay in pockets since I attended the ``Hands-Stay-in-Pockets Convention'' in Boston in 2015, last year. Not a single Black man or woman gave either of these begging BLACK Brothers a single dime--not a cent. Even though they said they had children and families to feed and even though they looked just as pitiful as the white dude who was begging on public transit as well...

It is the same story as with Wal Mart.  We, as Black people, fall all over ourselves to buy from Wal Mart, owned by the Walton Family, and we act like we have done something for ourselves and our families when we spend those dollars. {Believe me, if the Walton Family doesn't get another dollar form anywhere, they will have more than many Americans will ever see.}  We have done nothing but make another fat rich White conservative family wealthier and further empower them to discriminate against people of colour, women and most probably Gays and Lesbians as well.  We might have a bargain, but are we thinking about the poor South Korean, South American of African that was down right and unjustly exploited to make that $5. Dollar Shirt and those $15. Dollar shoes--no we have a bargain and we are making our way home with it.

What we don't realize is by further empowering a family such as the Waltons, we are further eroding our own rights as workers seeking a decent wage and further eroding our own right to make our own North American dreams come true. 

What we should be doing is finding a Black man or a Black woman who we can purchase that shirt from--even if we have to pay $10. because those dollars are crucial for our communities to grow and prosper financially... {I was also struck by how, during my South African trip, ALL the Big Stores in Modern Durban were owned by Whites and East Indians, Blacks had only a few corner fruit stands. While Nelson Mandela may have politically generated the right for one man, [or one woman] one vote, he apparently didn't get many economic rights and economic expansion for Black South Africans in the offing.}  The funny thing is that I heard right on the Melissa Perry Show on MSNBC that many Wal Mart workers in California have to depend on the public welfare system in that state to make ends meet because their wages are so low.  The tax payers get hit up for several million dollars in California and other states because the Waltons are such greedy North American Bastards that they won't pay each worker a minimum wage of about $35,000.00 a year.  The fact that Wal Mart made $16 Billion Dollars last year in profits hasn't gotten by me either.

But the real crime is that we as Black and other oppressed people support our own oppression by walking right up to the counter at Wal Mart and handing over our money and refusing to see that we are putting a knife in our own financial backs and turning it around every time we support exploitative stores with greedy store policies towards workers, no health benefits, no retirement benefits, etc.,  when we support a Wal Mart Store in our neighborhood.

Wal Mart has no vision whatsoever about how to create a better more sustainable world, environmentally improved out landscape, and create an atmosphere that relishes humanity over not-so-pure profits. A world with more progressive and livable-wage oriented store policies for Wal Mart will go a long way in creating such a more positive and user-friendly world....  Wal Mart Executives  are living in the proverbial Dark Ages.  We need to leave them right in those Dark Ages, alone and dollar less  and find somewhere else to shop.  At least Target gives back some 5% to community groups, NGO's and NON-Profits.  That would be a change and a start.  At least Target seems to have some sense that people need something to make subsistence level incomes stretch a bit by giving this support.  I haven't done the research, but I'm sure Target's wage structure isn't all that much better than Wal Mart, but it is a start.

Something even better is to buy the following books and get real with building Black Economic Empowerment on a REAL powerful, personal and local level. Suggested reading: {``Our Black Year: One Family's Quest to Buy Black in America's Racially Divided Economy,'' By Maggie Anderson; ``PowerNomics: The National Plan to Empower Black America,'' By Claud Anderson; ``Black Economic Empowerment: Create Your Own Plan to Build Great Wealth {Reklaw Education Lecture Series}'' By Robin Walker; and ``Black Economics: Solutions for Economic and Community Empowerment,'' By Jawanza Kunjufu... I have only read one of these books myself, {``PowerNomics''} so I have my own homework to do as well.  It is time I turned off the TV as well and started...    Started to find out how to effectively support our own community stores and Black businesses in our community.  That is REALLY taking a step in the correct direction and it is a step that will have a lasting positive economic and social impact for many, many years to come. It will, if we have a positive spirit and attitude about it, even impact positively on our children's and grand children's futures...Turning Self Hatred into Black Economic Empowerment is a great thing indeed...


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