Black Bowled

Congratulations to coaches Smith and Dungy for making the Superbowl. They are fine examples of managerial and organizational expertise.
On the surface their accomplishment says that race is no barrier to greatness nor is it an indicator of future success.
They represent the American dream of anything being possible through hard work and perseverance.
The danger is of their accomplishment being viewed not as superficial (it is sport after all) but as a 'given'.
True, social conditions had to change to allow them into the arena, but it is their abilities not preference or affirmative action that effects their successes.

Black Paranoia in America

Unsurprisingly, as government bureaucracy works slowly, we are just now seeing some of the post 9/11 security policies being enacted. New requirements that all who enter and leave the country have a passport and federal standards for drivers license put this post on Black Paranoia in Britain in new context.
Ironically, the biggest problem for blacks isn't what the government keeps in its database but getting into it. Provisions keeping parolees, deadbeat dads and convicted felons from gaining access to passports and licenses will affect blacks.

Information and the Digital Divide

Some economists say that the main problem in economics is information. Needed so that markets can clear and be efficient.
The number one concern filed by minorities in worker discrimination complaints is that their coworkers were "withholding information."
Is information power?
It would seem so. In today's modern world blacks should stress gaining access to information and deciding how to use it. The Internet places vast information at the fingertips for a relatively low cost.
If the mind boggles when considering black people were once killed for knowing how to read and white people were killed for teaching them, it totally breaks down when considering the "Digital Divide."

The End of Black Liberty?

Black Economics is a worthy subject matter. To be thorough though requires a not quite as blacknificent worldview. After all, as it is put so eloquently in Ecclesiastes, we all share the same breath. So in the future there will be more but of a different nature.

Drug Legalization and Black Liberty

A report entitled "Marijuana Production in the United States" points out that Marijuana is the biggest cash crop in the country despite years of arrests, forfeitures, shattered lives and homes as a result of the war on drugs.
Black men and women more than any other segment of society would stand to benefit from drug legalization, yet our voices are almost absent in the discussion.
The price we have paid in the war on drugs has been socially devastating and turned every black man into a suspect.
Furthermore the war on drugs has done more to erode the bill of rights than the patriot act.
What do you think? Should black people support drug legalization?

The State of American Civilization

Is there any greater social indicator of the true state of America than Miss America going into rehab?

Kwame Jackson

Two years on from the apprentice Kwame Jackson is still going strong and speaking knowingly about blacks and the economy.

Envisioning Economic Collapse Part 2

A recent Boston Globe article on the declining dollar suggests that a currency collapse is imminent. While well reasoned the author ignores that it is in very few countries interest to see that happen. There would be, the author suggests, a run on the dollar into the euro.
What money manager would see the european union as being more stable than America? Why?
Still, the article is noteworthy because confidence in currency is critical to maintaining social order. Counterfeiting and money order fraud have grown to such proportions that the demise of physical currency is what is imminent.

His Panic or Yours?

Harvard professor Samuel P Huntington, populary known for his book, "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" chillingly writes of possible futures for America in his latest book , "Who are We."
He says the greatest surprise would be if America is the same country in 2025 that it is today. He even predicts it could be different countries.
He writes, "...various forces challenging the core American culture and Creed could generate a move by native white Americans to revive the discarded and discredited racial and ethnic concepts of American identity and to create an America that would exclude, expel, or suppress people of other racial, ethnic, and cultural groups. Historical and contemporary experience suggest that this is a highly probable reaction from a once dominant ethnic-racial group that feels threatened by the rise of other groups. It could produce a racially intolerant country with high levels of intergroup conflict."

Negrodamus

The effort to ban the use of the N word by Jesse Jackson has ,like the cristal boycott, merit. Paul Mooney dropping the word is a bombshell given his proclivity for it and his efforts to publicize it.
As long as there remains potential for someone to make money off of it the word will be in use in mainstream media.

Toxic World

This article on surviving your toxic enviroment is pretty good. While it is entitled how the world shaves years off your life it could just as easily been named, "How the world adds years to your life."
Be sure to check out the part on PM-10 which has got to be the most important health concern you have never heard of.

The Ultimate Resource

The ultimate resource is people.
Human ingenuity and creativity has almost limitless potential to enhance human life.
One idea can change the world.

Ghost of the Soup Nazi / Race Riot @ the Laugh Factory

Michael Richards is a haunted man. Like so many comedians his life contains little humour. Like so many human beings his thoughts tend toward the mundane, the vulgar.
His Kramer was a physical comedian. George, Elaine and Jerry handled the cerebral stuff. He was more of an athlete. Taking falls and fouls, yet scoring points.
Forced to make his money as a slave to the blank faced masses who stare at his image. More than once he has probaly said to himself, "At least the show is funny."
A jester, a clown, a funnyman beholden to funnymen.
Seinfeld was long ago; as well as the fame and the other riches that came with it.
So there he was, a washed up comic, begging for laughs when someone pointed out that the emperor wears no clothes.
Whoever said that was going to get it. The roulette ball came up black and Michael Richards lost the game.
He said he might need to do some personal stuff but let's face it.... he wasn't high on anything but rage and maybe a bong hit or two of self-loathing. Teaching an old dog new tricks is a long shot, there won't be any rehab for him.
The Soup Nazi is in all of us, fighting and tearing to get out. It can't be the medias fault. All that rage and violence and hatred and bigotry in American life is ...what it is. It's in us. There long before television or radio (or ipods and camera phones).
History shows but doesn't teach. If the enviroment can't change neither can the genes.
The words can make you angry but the hecklers left without further incident. Good for them.
Starting a race riot at the Laugh Factory would have been no laughing matter, well maybe but only in the strictest of terms.
What it shows is that Race is "one hell of a drug" and we need to stop our addiction.

Kramer the Nazi

By now you have seen the video of Michael Richards anti black tirade.
My first impression is at least Mel Gibson was drunk.
I watched his interview on Letterman and my impression of that is he doesn't care and his apology (if you can call it that) was very insincere. Like the Rodney King tape he said we didn't see it all.
Seinfeld said it sickened him. His defense of Richards is what is sickening. He said he loves him and he is his friend and that that's the way he does his routine.
Worse yet you can tell Richards has been this way for a loooong time, as the words slipped so freely from his tongue.
You have to applaud the hecklers for they showed constraint in a very difficult situation.

A few words on Friedman

Milton Friedman was (like Abraham, Marx, Einstein & Freud) a Jew with some big ideas. At first blush a supporter of Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan may not seem like the type to inspire Black Liberty but he most certainly was.
What I most remember is a passage in the Free Market Reader where he states that , "a furniture maker cares not whether he gets his wood from a negro or a Jew, so long as he gets wood" or something to that effect.
For the black economist it was a turning point in his understanding of social studies.
Later, when presented with a copy of ,"The road to Serfdom" (written by Hayek, not Friedman)the idea crystallized that whilst we can do little regarding color prejudice it matters not overmuch if we are paid and able to purchase what we please.
In Friedman's view, "better a negro woman pays a few dollars more for rent than not being able to rent at all."
It may on the surface seem callous (as admittedly much economic thinking is) but it is best overall.
The black economists view is that African-Americans need not paternalism but markets. Should anyone think that liberals cannot be racist I encourage them to tell one blacks don't need assistance but access and observe what happens.
A large part of white racism is a deep rooted insecurity.
In Friedman you had the best type of man. One who did not need to put down others to boost himself up. A white man who was not afraid of "the other" because he was confident in himself and who he was.
In fairness, I should mention that other writings of his did refer to Africans as savages, or uncivilized or somesuch.
The point though is like the Jew or Asian prejudice should not be allowed to hold back our material progress and like the Jew or the Asian LIBERTY will not come until we recognize that the freedom to think and learn is what we have and the key to our continuing success.

The Audacity of Obama

I haven't read his book, spoken to him, or seen him on television too many times but I continue to read of Barack Obama and the presidency.
The problem is that he did not have a groundswell of support that brought him into office. It was a scandal plagued republican challenger that gave him his boost. Now after 2 years in a position he would not have won had he been challenged by anyone who could pass a smell test he talks of the presidency.
If he engineered the defeat of his opponent he can talk legitimately, if it was by circumstance he (and anyone who believes his presidential ambitions) is being taken for a ride.
A friend mentioned that he thinks he is merely positioning himself for a run in 2016.

Black Paranoia in Britain

Eugenics is rearing its ugly head in Britain.
Apparently in Britain and Wales the police have established a database that contains the DNA of 60-75% their black male citizens.
This has led to concerns of a surveillance state "in which some ethnic groups are monitored more closely than others."

Black Radical Congress

No, not THE Black Radical Congress but that's what conservatives will call it if the democrats take the house in the upcoming elections.
Should the democrats take the house three of the most powerful committees in Congress would be chaired by black men.
They are John Conyers (Judiciary), Alcee Hastings (Intelligence) and Charles Rangel (Ways and Means).
That would, presumably, mean the issue of Reparations would be studied by the government.
This would not be the first time blacks have held high office in America.
It would be the first time in over 100 years however.

The Black Millionaire Next Door

Tavis Smiley interviewed the authors of this report but I cannot locate it anywhere on the net. Their research shows there were 116 thousand black millionaires in 2003 (out of 2.5 million overall). 80-85% owned their own business. About one thousand were athletes.

Ten Richest In Hip-Hop

1. P. Diddy, $346 Million
2. Jay-Z, $340 Million
3. Russell Simmons, $325 Million
4. Damon Dash, $200 Million
5. Neptunes, $155 Million
6. Dr. Dre, $150 Million
7. Ice Cube, $145 Million
8. Eminem, $110 Million
9. 50 Cent, $100 Million
10. (Tied) Nelly, $60 Million
10. (Tied) Jermaine Dupri, $60 Million

Wikipedia article on black billionaires