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OR Watch 60 Minute Movie BEFORE Joining FREE Today click here  (Press the button above to start your GDI Free) If you reflect closely, you will see what has happened to us over the past few of decades or so. Especially, since we've become "African-Americans". It is as if we have gotten completely off track. Looking back at history we could have taken another path. We could have forged ahead on a different course. So what happened? When we were "colored" and "Negro" we owned most, if not all, of the businesses in Black neighborhoods, and helped each other in our daily lives as community citizens. In those days, our next door neighbors were positive role models such as teachers, doctors, lawyers, ministers, policemen, barbers, morticians, accountants, grocers and other retailers, etc., etc. They were respected members of the community and looked upon as such. Even the number man and the hustlers had respect for the community. Our money remained within our control and circulated from hand to hand, many times within our community before it left, as is the case in most ethnic communities. In search of a better way of life and wanting to end years of "Jim Crow", we took on the challenge of our lives to seek acceptance as American citizens. It wasn't so much that we wanted to be flag waving patriots. What we really wanted was better "public accommodations" and equal treatment. After all, we paid taxes too, so we should be able to sit on any seat on the bus or train, go to any public school, drink from any public water fountain and use any public bathroom facility. But, that wasn't the "American way". So we organized. We marched. We protested. We got beat, hosed, bombed, lynched, attacked by dogs and died. We finally got the right to vote in some states and some elections. Some say we won much during those times. But in the process we also lost much. During our years of segregation, we were in a real sense, forced to do business with one another. We didn't have any other options. We had to provide goods and services to one another. We could only shop with stores within our community. Our money as little as it was circulated. As a result, our businesses prospered and grew. Then came so-called integration, and we carried our money downtown and willingly handed it over to white entrepreneurs because the law now said, we could fraternize or shop with them. They took this "new" money and ran with it back to their own communities and built them up. They sent their kids to private schools and widened the financial gap between us. We were so excited to now be able to enter and shop in stores we only dreamt of shopping in before. We thought that we had arrived. We made it to the mountain top. Getting permission to go into a store, does not mean that you can afford to shop there. Some where along the way, we never stopped to think that we now needed to make more money. Instead, we spent all we had and then some (on credit). You can say, we got hoodwinked. So very few, like S.B. Fuller, the great entrepreneur, figured it out. He tried to tell us to buy the bus companies, after weakening them with our boycotts in the south. He wanted us to become producers and not just consumers. But no one took time to listen. Ours was a lop-sided transaction. They got our money, and we didn't get much of theirs. To this day, we spend 97% of our money outside our community and only 3% of new money from business revenues comes into our hands. We also moved out of "all Black" neighborhoods and into what were formerly "all white" ones, thus starting the "white flight" from the suburbs. It seems there is an inherent belief by some whites, that when a Black moves next door to them the quality of life for the whites will inevitably go down. Albeit, we still wanted to be next to them. We moved and so did they ... Back to the city where we just left. No long commutes for them anymore. They got loans to renovate and gentrify, or restore what we gave up. With help from the government with grants and loans from the bank, they turned what was left of inner cities into socially acceptable havens of class and style. Don't get me wrong, its not about white people. Its about us. What happened to us may have been avoided. Certainly, it doesn't have to be perpetuated or repeated. In the interim, what once were thriving businesses in the Black communities were boarded up, occupied by drifters and drug addicts or torn down. Most, however, were taken over by foreigners willing to risk it for such easy reward. Look how far backwards we have moved, since becoming "African-Americans". We lost our neighborhoods. The better ones of those like Harlem in New York, have been gentrified or taken over and restored. Now we can't afford to live there anymore. We lost most local commerce. We don't even own a grocery store in some of these neighborhoods, which is the lifeblood of any community. We lost our purpose. We have become slaves on the corporate plantation in every sense of the word. When we attend college our goal is to finish up, come out and find a "good" job, when instead we could be creating jobs. We could be "job makers" and not just "job takers". Colleges and Universities today are preparing us for the plantation. You do not learn to grasp independent wealth there. You are taught to be a slave to a corporation. Not that a higher education is a bad think, of course, its not. Its just how do you apply that education in the real world. Since whites own nearly 100% of the corporations the odds are, you will go to college to become a corporate slave, to serve on the plantation (corporation) to make an already rich white man even richer. There are a few who manage to escape and start their own businesses, but they are few. Then, there is the penal system. Laws have been geared to swell the prisons. This means more hands for free labor. Inmates get paid pennies a day for doing some of the same work that would require a decent wage on the outside...more slaves. We are slaves to Visa, MasterCard, higher mortgage rates, higher insurance rates, higher car notes, lower incomes, Versace, and Tommy Hilfiger, among others. We drive expensive cars, spend hundreds on our hair, nails and anything else that gives the impression that we are successful. When asked about investments, savings, business equity or retirement plans all you get is a blank stare. When conversations of organizing come up they result in confusion and little or no action. This segues right into my next issue, which is economics. Unless a people is economically strong then they have no power. Especially in a capitalistic society. We need to become educated to the benefits of developing economic strategies within our communities. No Black leader in recent history (40 years), with the exception of Elijah Muhammad, has stressed economic empowerment to the Black masses. We are still "conspicuous consumers" today in every sense of the word. Our children are the most affected. Some seem to have taken "the love of money" on as another addiction. They're strung out on "blink-blink". Blinded by the lure and false promises and pain relief these temporal riches suggest. They are so caught up that they willingly degrade, and in extreme cases murder one another, without remorse. They continue to spread negative stereo-types and accept being used or pimped as a way of life..... especially young Black women. Young sisters will "drop it like its hot" and "shake that booty" for a buck. Lots of young men, believe that they too can become the next big rap star. Hyping "bling-bling" products, designer labels and lavish "gangsta type" lifestyles. Corporate handlers (real pimps) create an environment of greed and scarcity. Playing one against the other. Causing some with real talent to make bad choices. And others with less than real talent, to think that the choices these pimps offers are the only choices they have. As a result, the air-waves are inundated with mass-produced, gimmicky lyrics with the dumbest ideas, promoting the worst stereo-types, using the best "sampled" beats of a generation gone by. They're turning young Black listening minds into zombies. Programmed to do, buy or believe anything. I am reminded of the old adage, "stand for nothing, fall for anything". This is happening to our children and we do nothing. Why, because most Black adults are medicating their own pain in some form or fashion. Over-eating, over-working, over-playing, over-sexing, over-spending, over-talking, over-indulging in entertainment. Too much tv, too much movie going, and too much (playing) church. Not enough handling our business. Not enough taking care of our own responsibilities. Not enough solutions. Waiting for someone else to come along and fix the problem that can best be fixed by us. This could be a time of economic change for Black people. Billions of dollars pass through Black hands annually, without very much being returned to the community. I know some will say there is no "community" any more. Well, I agree in a geographic sense. But each time we control a sizable portion of dollars and re-spend them among ourselves, we establish "community". For example, don't you know the difference between a ghetto and a slum? A ghetto is a geographic community where the majority of the money within that community stays within that community, because the business are owned by people who live and work and create work, within that community. A slum is a geographic community where the majority of the money within that community leaves that community, because the businesses are not owned by people who live within that community. They only work there to take the money out to empower the community where they do live and create jobs for the people of their community. This is basic economics and has little to do with race. To that point, we must invest, and reinvest within our own communities. We need to believe that we can do this. The developing of a new consciousness must be at the top of our agenda in this new century. Our children must be rescued. They can be re-taught to be entrepreneurs rather than just consumers. Job makers rather than just job takers. Leaders in all aspects of business and life. All we need to do is redirect our energies, and refocus our efforts, in order to accomplish this. Opportunities exist all around us daily, but unless we are ready to take advantage of them they will pass us by. To quote Jim Clingman, in his book, Economic Empowerment or Economic Enslavement - We have a choice, in his reference to a statement made by Harriet Tubman, "I freed a thousand slaves, and could have freed a thousand more if only they had known that they were slaves." Awareness brings responsibility. It is this kind of awareness we need to strive for now. We need to start developing a new consciousness about who we are, and what our corporate or collective purpose is We can start with learning more about how having a new outlook on life, a changed mindset. A home-based business of your own can help you and your family develop the disciplines necessary for our future growth and development. Teach your children about what business and commerce and free enterprise is all about. Lead by example. Be an example of stellar business practices and demonstrate business success. Don't believe the hype. I want you to strive to make more money. But not to make more money to, in turn, give it back to someone else who won't help you get to where you want to go. Help yourself, your family and your people by becoming the best business person, income earner and investor you can become. Use your resources wisely to build the future. Commentary by Lee Green Entrepreneur, Chairman, Founder National Black Business Trade Association "A Brilliant Solution and Resource, NBBTA Provides The Motivational Inspiration and Effective Tools For ANYONE Serious About Building A Successful Home Based Business" Jim Kennedy TheBlessedNetwork.com Are You a Member of the National Black Business Trade Association (NBBTA)? If Not, Join Us Today! Help Us Build a CommUNITY of Black Business Owners and Entrepreneurs from Around the World and Make Positive Change. click here: to Join. Visit TheBlessedNetwork.com OneUnited Bank The First Black-Owned Internet Bank click here To email TheBlessedNetwork.com/1United.html click here
Wayne Wonder - Again 
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