Newt, Food Stamps, and Social Security

Another controversy from the GOP candidates about our community seems to be on the horizon and this time it has to do with the black community and food stamps. To be more specific, Newt Gingrich has made an olive branch request to share with the NAACP to explain his thoughts about “why the African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps”. Tagging along at the end of Newt’s comment was his additional expressed desire to also share his ideas on how to revise the Social Security program to help young people, especially African American males who are “getting the smallest return” for their contribution. Hold on, hold on a minute. Say what?

While the mainstream media has leaped on Newt Gingrich’s comments and claimed them as being yet another example of racist GOP comments directed at our community, it may be important to take a step back and really dissect what Newt is really saying.

First, Mr. Gingrich is right about the food stamp situation; we should be demanding jobs right now. In fact, we should be doing everything in our power to create jobs in our own communities. With the average black unemployment rate across the nation currently at 15.8% and rising despite the nation’s overall unemployment decreasing (down to 8.5% as of today), black Americans should be coming together in local places of worship, barbershops, beauty salons...WHEREVER we can... to develop plans for attacking this problem plaguing us. We don’t have to wait on sympathetic government or others. We collectively should be fighting and moving with extreme urgency to harness all of the financial resources at our disposal to encourage and support entrepreneurial startups in the African American community. The time has never been riper to this with the various small business programs that have been enacted by President Obama’s administration and Congress. If others won’t employ us, we should be fighting to employ ourselves. If people like Gingrich want to help us, we should not bite back.

Second, Mr. Gingrich is also right about black males’ Social Security contribution situation. With the average African American male dying by 70.9 years of age, black males are seeing only 5-8 years of Social Security benefits after contributing through their work for over 30 years!  And recent actions taken by some in Congress to increase the age required in order to receive those benefits means our men will see NOTHING for their service. Is this fair? Is this right? Do we agree with Newt that maybe some changes need to be made?

Remember, sometimes it takes a little reflection to understand what people outside of our beautiful African American community are trying to tell us. But once their meaning becomes clear, it is up to us and not mainstream media to determine how to react to what people like Newt are really saying.

We welcome your thoughts on this issue. Please provide us with your comments.

Iowa, Santorum, and Other People’s Money

Polling is done and the victory speeches are over. The Iowa caucus, the first of the 2012 primaries, has started the season off with a loud bang on the Republican side of the US two-party political system. Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, both, can claim a major victory going into the next primary as there were only 14 votes that separated them from taking the GOP brass ring as the presidential nominee of this year’s fall elections. For some folks, everything is starting to smell a bit rosier for the future. But for African Americans paying close attention to the proceedings, there seems to be the hint of a foul smell in the air that may need eliminating.

Rick Santorum, a latest Johnny-come-lately challenger to the Republican presidential nomination, caused a bit of a stir when he made a statement during a pre-caucus interview that started the foul smell lingering so slightly of the primary proceedings. Mr. Santorum stated, in his own words, that he doesn’t “want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.” He went on further to say that he wants to “give them (Black people) the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families.” Ouch! Did he really mean to say all of that? By all accounts, he did and the GOPers, who are mostly white, love him for his “honesty”. But for black Americans, his comments raised negative and racially-related concerns and questions. Our immediate thought; what is this guy really saying and how is this going to hurt us?

A possible way to view Mr. Santorum’s comments is through the lens of a capitalistic society.  One basic capitalistic principle is that there are those who produce and those who consume what is produced. Those that produce are generating value to the society in which they are active. Those that consume are not. And right now, based upon rapidly deteriorating economic data about the US’ black population, the implications are that there doesn’t seem to be too many places where black folks are not consumers of the wealth created by the producers of our nation who incidentally happen to be primarily white. BAM! So we don’t need to go any further to understand the point Mr. Santorum was making and should be more concerned that there is more here than a funny racist fragrance in the air.

So, black America, are the unspoken implications behind Mr. Santorum’s comments speaking some truth? Has our larger community just become consumers and thereby is producing little value to the American economic engine? Have we unwittingly accepted a economically-dependent role in our modern-day society that would make our forefathers, who were able to generate businesses and create wealth under the system of slavery and Jim Crow, fight to get out of their graves? Have we become takers of other people’s money? Is the foul scent not from Mr. Santorum, but of our own making?

Sniff, sniff, sniff. Where’s the deodorizer?

The Mayans and Black America’s Future

Just about everyone knows this. According to common understanding, the Mayans predicted that the world is going to meet its demise on December 21^st of 2012.  On New Year’s Day, numerous news articles referenced this ancient prediction; in the past, religious cults have formed in preparation for it. And even Columbia Pictures made a movie a few years ago, ominously entitled “2012”, that made over $769 million dollars and is 38^th in the list of the all-time top grossing films worldwide giving all of us a frightening look at this forthcoming doomsday scenario. And with the disarrayed state of Black America at the end of 2011, another year of challenges with no solutions on the horizon might lead those of us in the African-American community to believe that the end-of-the-world prediction by the Mayans is not only a prediction, but an inevitable outcome that is facing us just right around the corner. However, this popular understanding of the foretold 2012 event could possibly be incorrect.

A closer look at a broad range of research literature written about the Mayan prediction reveals a little-discussed alternative interpretation of how things might play out for the world in 2012. According to experts who have studied the Mayan people and their culture, the event that they were anticipating and trying to communicate to future generations was not the end of the world, but the end of the world as we currently know it.  In fact, more modern-day analysis of the 2012 prediction point instead to the introduction of a new age of increased spiritual and communal awareness that in turn may lead to a period of greater widespread prosperity on the planet. This is good news for black America because it means that it is not too late to change our community’s current circumstances. If we start now to collectively strategize and plan, black Americans can actively participate and benefit from this next possible “golden age”.

Over the course of 2012, the Black Economist will be sharing information with its readers that envisions, encourages, and enables the African-American community’s transition from a group ravaged by deepening problems from a number of socio-economic challenges to a people group excelling and succeeding in the new global economy. We will do this by exploring the economic, technological, political, and cultural implications for blacks behind many of the today’s headlines. We will also provide our thoughts on the “hidden” opportunities that exist in today’s events and situations if things are viewed in a slightly different way. Just as the majority of the world is unaware of the untold alternative and hopeful Mayan prediction, we seek to bring you the untold alternative story of a bright future for black America.

Let 2012 be the start of a truly new tomorrow for all of us.