14 years of the same ISH

Sometimes I feel as if I am in a bad dream, it is as if President Obama and President George W. Bush are one in the same, for the policies I was vehemently against while GWB was in office, I am still against and have been put in effect a lot more viscerally under Obama.  What I saw with Bush: the incessant wars, taxbreaks for the wealthy, the banks and Wall Street getting wealthier without any threat of prosecution for criminal wrong doing and war mongering, I see two times in President Obama.

Bush did not place U.S. domestic issues as being our main priority, and nor does Obama. Bush was preoccupied with Iraq, and Afghanistan and Mr. Obama, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, and now the Ukraine. Currently the latter is more like some dystopian Fourier reality, that for him is dynamic and fascinating, but for the majority of Americans, wasteful and unnecessary. It is as if the Ukraine and parcels of land 99 percent of Americans will never see or set foot upon, deserves more attention than the millions of Americans with major financial needs like the hungry, the homeless, or the millions who can’t pay their rent or mortgages or whom need jobs at living wages.

There is no valid reason to be occupied with the Ukraine when what we face at home is a true national security threat economically. Just this past week, Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen informed the Joint Economic Committee of Congress that under current policies the federal government’s deficits “will rise to unsustainable levels.” Unemployment, depressed wages and unadmitted inflation is killing us. We are over our head and drowning in deficit spending so all we left with is printing “mo money, mo money and mo money,” to use a phrase from “In Living Color.”

Why is the U.S. economy more of a national security issue than the Ukraine? First, at last count, about 5 trillion or approximately 47% of U.S. debt is owned by foreign investors, the largest being China and Japan at (plus $1.1 trillion each). Unlike us, the Russian government expects to have a budget surplus according to the IMF. Add to this, Russia also has a trade surplus which increased to $18.86 billion while the U.S. trade deficit continues to fall. If anything, maybe the U.S. wants a war so it can rev up its dire economic prospectus. For it is clear that what we observed when George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, the same can be noted, applied and said for the Obama Administration – the economic and financial need ­of conflict with another energy rich nation.

Why else make a big fuss about nothing? Obama in his neoliberal caricature resembles Balzac’s master criminal Vautrin more than the leader of the free world as the U.S. has been coined. Big oil and Wall Street made a killing under Bush. The U.S. invasion of Iraq crushed that country, destroyed Iraq’s state-owned oil industry, and grew the price of   crude from $20 a barrel to $147 a barrel in 2008 (needless to state Exxon Mobil’s most profitable year ever). The point being whenever sanctions are placed on an energy rich nation, U.S. plutocrats get paid. Obama is just extending the Bush playbook and we saw such in 2011 when sanctions were placed on Iran and Sudan. And when they don’t work, we have good ole NATO, who implemented an undeclared war on Libya, not to forget the CIA efforts in Syria. Thus, it doesn’t take a high school graduate to foresee the impact or likely impact the disruption of the flow of Russian energy to Europe would mean for big U.S. oil companies.

Obama and Bush are in policy, one and the same person, the only differences are gang, I mean political affiliation and ethnicity. The U.S. I suspect see the Ukraine as a means to grow and escalate military spending across Europe, making the U.S. military industrial complex more loot on behalf of U.S. oil interest. See, what corporate U.S.A and Wall Street know is that war drives capital into the United States, which keep U.S. banks the main feature of the global economy by cutting the deficit and artificially propping up the dollar. This is the only conclusion that is both reasonable and logical for as German MP Alexander Neu noted, “Not a single NATO country is in any way threatened,” by the actions in the Ukraine. Plus, what would we expect, there are more than 6000 German companiesactive in Russia with more than $27 billion invested in the nation. Meaning just like Iraq was no threat, or Libya, or Syria, Obama economic and foreign policy is no different than his predecessor with the exception it is on steroids.

 

Working Hard and Living in the Shadows

It has been several days since the President gave his State of the Union Address.  Unlike many of my contemporaries, I like to wait a few days and re-read, and digest his remarks several times or otherwise like them, I would just pen worthless vitriolic dispositions either in praise or disdain for the Commander in chief. I mean truth be told I anticipate and expect that all politicians, regardless of party, sex and/or gender LIE.

 

I listened attentively to the #SOTU on the radio and afterwards, downloaded a copy of the text of the complete address.  There are several things that stood out which in reality are both true and false, depending on which side of the tracks you are located. First, he stated: “The lowest unemployment rate in over five years.  A rebounding housing market.”

This is basically what the President has been repeating for the last few years as if he believed just by saying it over and over again it will make it true. First and foremost, housing market is flat and uneven across the nation, let alone rebounding. Fact is that only an idiot would  believe the happy talk coming out of the White House, Federal Reserve and Treasury Dept. when it comes to the real unemployment rate and just how bad (and bad isn’t good in this case) major segments of the US population are doing from an economic purview. The true unemployment rate of those not working is almost 40 percent and not the 6.7% advertised by the Fed. By sheer tricknology alone, Obama Keynesian economists cite the rising US stock market as evidence the economy is picking up steam yet simultaneously act truly surprised by the lack of hiring across the nation. Their description of the unemployment rate only describes people who are currently working or looking for work which mean if you are unemployed and not seeking a job you may as well be employed by their math since unemployment in its truest definition refers to the portion of people who do not have any job, full or part-time. Not to mention that as a nation, we need to add at least 127,000 jobs each month just to keep up with our annual population increase. In December we saw only 74,000 jobs added, of which most were temporary and part-time for the holiday season and represented the lowest increase since Jan 2011.

The manner in which unemployment presently is calculated doesn’t even include folk who have just entered the labor force and haven't found a job. Which brings us to his last point and begs the query, why and how is the US stock market hitting theserecord highs while so many are unemployed? For one, 95 percent of the new income that has been generated since 2009 has mostly gone to the top 1 percent. This has mainly been the result of the Administrations “top down” economic policies which encourage companies to keep their profits strong by not hiring folk.  Moreover, there is Quantative Easing (QE) which promotes that every month, the Federal Reserve buy bonds so it can inject $85 billion into the money supply. So the folk with money in essence can make more money why all else feel this devaluation of the currency in our pockets since the result is inflation that only pushes all prices higher, including stocks.

Then there is Obamacare, which is really a throwback tariff that in essence enables big companies to get paid for each full-time worker they cover and provides strong incentives for small businesses to stay below 50 full-time workers. The reality is that longer unemployment benefits or subsidized government-run health care are the kind of policies that contribute to the systemic discouragement of production & employment. This maybe one factor contributing to the observation that for the first time ever in America, working-age people now make up the majority in U.S. households that rely on food stamps.

In simple terms, with a smaller proportion of Americans in the overall workforce, the policy of the present administration is plutocratic at best and corporatist at worse since government benefits are handouts that are approved as acceptable for the wealthy, but bad for Americans in general – whether employed, under employed or unemployed.

The only thing that we have to sale to the world if one wants to keep it real are fraudulent and toxic financial instruments and other complex papers and GMO foods that no one around the world even wants to purchase. We have money to spend too, however as of 2012, we have spent $682 billion on defense, while as a nation we have nearly 4 million U.S. workers laboring at or belowminimum wage, with the percentage of Hispanic and African-American children living in poverty, growing an now at 36% - numbers that show how Obama’s economic policy hits and hurts the younger and more economically disadvantaged members of society more severely.

The President also stated, “Today, women make up about half our workforce.  But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.  That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment. A woman deserves equal pay for equal work.” I find this comical albeit it true, but it reminds me that he goes out of his way to mention women, gays, and even the needs of foreign nation over his largest constituency – African Americans and the poor.  He never mentioned “poverty” or “the poor”” or “African Americans in his #SOTU address, and he never will. Don’t hold your breath to hear him say: “A black person deserves equal pay for equal work. “ Funny seeing that Barack Obamacaptured 93% of the black vote in 2012 and our reward remains to be what it was under prior presidents - Jobless, homeless and in poverty.

And even “by lifting the minimum wage to $10.10” this will not change, for if one works part-time, 29 hours a week for fifty-two weeks they will only make $15,080 annually, a figure still well below the poverty line in the U.S. for an individual. And the President saying openly that “I will direct the Treasury to create a new way for working Americans to start their own retirement savings: MyRA. It’s a new savings bond that encourages folks to build a nest egg.  MyRA guarantees a decent return with no risk of losing what you put in… “  Sounds more like a snake oil salesman that actually policy given no one can predict or guarantee a return on any investment without doing some crooked ole shyster shit. And even worse, the audacity for him to make us give our money to the fraudulent big investment banks that caused these current troubled fiscal times is anti-American. We saw what happened in Greece. If this is allowed, then one can be certain that the “my” will become the property of the government and the banking houses on Wall Street. It is not by accident that the majority of financial wealth controlled by the bottom 60 percent of all Americans is just 2.3 percent.

I don’t see any reality in the conditional’s in the forms of: if”, “can”, and could” mentioned by the President to help and serve the needs of the hardest hit and still suffering on Main street. Five years in to Obama’s presidency the number of African-Americans participating in the labor force is at its lowest point everand still dropping. Still in America, data continues to show that African Americans are still more likely to get denied a home lone than other ethnic groups.

Thus it is easy to see why the current rate for African American men in the labor force fell to 65.6 percent in December, the lowest on record. I mean in America we have more than 2.3 million incarcerated across the country, which by law obviates a convicted felons the right to vote, meaning that the 5.9 million former and current felons disenfranchised from voting are likely to remain in poverty, of which 37% of that 5.8 million are African Americans.

The #SOTU only reinforced what I understand about the present Administration, American politics and the economic policies of our nation spawned from the bowels of Wall Street. Both Bush & Obama policymakers destroyed the US economy for the sake of short-term corporate profits via jobs off-shoring & deregulation for the folk who already got it good. And no amount of fancy word play can change that for no matter who is in office, no matter their race or gender, the rest of us will have to keep on working hard and living in the shadows, that is if we have a job. And if you think Detriot is bad, in reality that is what the future of America holds, but I will specifically address that later.

Federal Government Forgets I am a man

This week reminds me of why Martin Luther King, Jr. was in my home town when he met his untimely murder. It was because of the garbage strike, I suspect many folk don’t know about it to even care, or even understand its corollary with today’s US economic crisis.

Ask any Black person, and they will say the economy is growing. They will also say that it is all because of the policies of President Barack Obama. Ask the same folk how the dollar is doing in the world and the present US economic picture for employment prospects, and they will say he is doing his best and that it will take time, or that he is not just the President for Black Americans. But you never hear such pronouncements with respect to Jewish people, Gay or Lesbians or even Hollywood. They get mentioned and African Americans are conveniently left out of the conversation.

Now I am writing about the economic situation America finds itself in but I want to make this lucidly terse - I was objectively as critical about former commanders in chief starting with Regan and I will continue to be until my dying years as long as I can both read and write. But never have I been attacked prior (and I expected to be attacked) by my own folks for pointing out mathematical facts. For I know some uppity progressive, quasi-liberal, libertarian hating black political pundit will take aim and me and ridicule my suppositions, even if they don’t have facts on their side, all to protect the current Teflon President.

Again, proponents blinded by party affiliation will say the economy is growing and will give the President Props and if it is doing bad will blame it on the GOP. I think both are equally responsible but if it is so good, then tell that to the average African American or college student who is under employed or unemployed.

Fact is many recent college graduates are working at coffee shops and tend to be very skilled workers with higher degrees. In addition, each day they are increasingly ending up in lower-skilled jobs that don't really require a degree. This means they are making it even harder for unskilled workers who usually get such jobs out of the work force and yet, the present administration has offered no policy response to deal with this phenomenon. And by the way, the unskilled can be a synonym for the African American worker.

The US Labor Department reports that approximately 280,000 Americans with bachelor’s degrees and 37,000 with advanced degrees were working minimum-wage jobs in 2012 and that the number of college-educated Americans working such jobs has risen 70 percent in the past 10 years ( a figure double the number who worked minimum-wage jobs before the Great Recession).

The reality is that the high-wage, middle-skilled job — the thing that sustained the middle class in the past no longer exist. Although the mantra of the economy is getting better is batted around like a whiffle ball, the math shows us that the U.S. economy is in a bubble inflated by money created out of thin air by the federal reserve, and all of this money, instead of creating jobs, is going into the stock market by already well-off and wealthy folks. And this cannot and will not last. Obama’s approach is just as Regan’s economic approach - “trickle down.” When the Federal Reserve prints new money, it is basically reducing or stealing the value of the dollar (all the money you have in your bank accounts and wallet).

The math shows us that the Federal Reserve Bank is buying approximately $85 billion in assets every month, while at the same time keeping its key interest rate near zero. This does nothing to reduce unemployment or create jobs but rather only serves investors and big wig traders in the various stock and bond markets. This is why corporate profits and Stock prices are up. The question remains, why isn’t anyone hiring?

Fifteen percent of Americans are on food stamps according to the latest USDA report for November 2012. To put it plainly, in America, there are two economies - one for the rich, and the other for everyone else. The number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of "Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming." If one is lucky to have a job, it goes on deaf ears that the average worker’s hourly wages, after accounting for inflation, were nearly 2 percent lower this year than last year, and in total is taking home less than $800 a week.

As it stands one in four of every US citizens that is employed has a job that pays $10 an hour or less and for the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless. To top it all off, the U.S Dollar is losing its status as the world reserve currency. Just last week, five of the top ten economies in the world, decided to no longer use the dollar as an intermediary currency for trade. Last week the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) agreed to set up a development bank to compete with the IMF, indicating it's gearing up to compete in a post-dollar world. In addition, Australia (the world's 12th-ranked economy), China (2nd behind the U.S.), Japan (3rd), Brazil (6th), India (9th), and Russia (10th), have agreed to bypass the dollar in bilateral trade with China.

President Obama and Geithner’s toxic asset plan has enabled one of the biggest transfer of wealth in history allowing for big banks to transfer their toxic debts from fraudulent activities to the American People. All the banks are doing is redistributing the nation’s wealth to shareholders and their top executives. This what President Obama has done, even with all his flossy rhetoric is assist the wealthy in get richer at everyone else’s expense. All of the monetary and economic policy of the last 3 years has helped the wealthiest and penalized everyone else. Wall Street is good but Main Street isn’t. How can it be when the richest 10% own 98.5% of all financial securities like stocks and bonds?

But for some reason or another, our economic prowess is always, or in most cases obviated by the inability to be critical of the current administration. For it seems as for most black folk, politics involved talking about President Obama and even his policies in the affirmative only, Trayvon Martin or the GOP. I don’t hear any of the TV propagandists of the African American community dare mention the president’s name in the same sentence with growing equity disparities, employment and poverty as a function of race. And you shole wont here nothing asserting that under the Obama administration, crony capitalism has gotten worse. As President, Obama is prosecuting fewer financial crimes than Bush, or his father, Clinton or even Ronald Reagan.

I recall of this as I said, on the week in which one of the greatest men to ever live was killed. King was in Memphis, marching with sanitation workers on strike for a living wage when he was killed. No one remembers the words he stated while delivering a speech a Stanford University a year before his death: “In this America people are poor by the millions. They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.” And no one remembers how he frequently spoke about poverty and how that during his time, America had about 40 million people living in poverty. Obama seems to ignore that in America, the richest nation in the world today, there are almost 100 million people who are in poverty.

The sanitation strike in Memphis started because two sanitation workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker died when they were crushed to death with the garbage and nobody noticed – crushed in the back of a garbage truck because during a sever rain storm, they were not allowed by the city to seek shelter from storms. Why because white folks in Memphis at the time didn’t like or want any of the all black sanitation workers to stop in their neighborhoods. Cole and Walker couldn’t fit inside of the truck, so they crawled in the back where the garbage was placed and a broom fell on the lever which resulted in them being crushed to death with the garbage.

I would wish that folks knew this and would never forget this, for this is where the slogan “I am a man. I am a man, not a piece of garbage" originated. It seems that the Federal Government in all of its aspects seems to forget that African Americans are people and that we are men, not the refuse and waste or cheap labor for the rich.

Tale of 2 America’s: Separate and Unequal

America is falling apart and is reverting to what it always was: two nations inside of one. A frightening prospective but not unexpected given the lack of leadership in Washington; both party’s included as well as each branch of government. Maybe unbeknownst to the President also, given that he is asking people to fight on his behalf yet forgetting that it is hard for people to fight when they are hungry or homeless.

Once the call of this nation was separate but equal, a statement that cannot be validated even by simple algebra. Unfortunately in today’s parlance, all indicators reveal the overt reality that as a nation, we are separate and unequal – a lucid fact visible in black and white. If this divide is not mended, there will be hell on the avenues across this great nation.

Although we excel in some things, as a people, African Americans comprise 13% of Americans but only 4% of U.S. physicians, 3.2% of Lawyers, and less than 1% of architects but 69% of NFL, 80% of NBA and 98% of all rappers. The infant mortality rate of African Americans is 13.4 deaths per 1,000 live births compared to 5.5 and 5.7 for Hispanics and whites accordingly. Just 12 % of AA fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 % of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.

What is real is that we are our worse enemy and that the American oligarchical powers have used this to their advantage. A new report has just been released confirming that as Africa Americans we watch more TV than any other racial/ethnic group in the U.S. according to figures released on March 30, 2011. Moreover, Based on data collected in November 2010, African Americans used their TVs an average of 7 hours, 12 minutes each day — above the U.S. average of 5 hours, 11 minutes. Yet still, the disparities across the board are due to systemic practices of racism that elected leaders, regardless of race and political affiliation ignore as well.

Between 2003 and 2007, African American mothers had infant mortality rates at least twice as high as white mothers and AA children ages 17 and under were nearly 50 percent more likely to be without private or government health insurance than white children and that AA children ages 18 and under were three times more likely to live in single-parent households than white children. Nearly two-thirds of all AA children lived in a single–parent household and were twice as likely as white children to live in a household where no parent had full-time or year-round employment. Just one-third of AA children had a parent with a high school diploma, 24 % had a parent with at least some college experience, and less than 15 % had a parent who held a bachelor’s degree. These figures are not from the Ante-bellum south or during Jim Crow, but from the past few years and are just some of the reasons why one out of every three AA children lives in poverty compared with one out of every ten white children.

We are poor, jobless and in pain yet the nation’s first African American President and his political party ignore our desperate pleas as equally as the Republicans. Although Obama has proposed a job plan, it is difficult to see, unless targeted in urban areas and toward African American businesses, how this will aid in reducing the massive rate of unemployment we face.

For example, the dramatic difference with respect to access to capital. According to 2005 U.S. Census Bureau data, the median level of net worth among blacks is $6,200, eleven times lower than whites. Evidence shows that at startup, black entrepreneurs experience higher loan denial and tend to pay higher interest rates than white-owned businesses. Moreover, white-owned businesses have more than $80,000 of initial capital on average compared to black-owned businesses have less than $30,000 startup capital.

Regardless of the systemic constraints, we also must face the truth of aiding in our own demise and allowing these two nations within one to exist. From education to the correctional system this is observable. More than two-thirds of African American male dropouts are expected to serve time in state or federal prison. It would be idiotic to overlook the impact that arrests and incarceration have on African American families and communities. Since the 1990s, nearly one in three African-American men aged 20-29 were under criminal justice supervision, while more than two out of five had been incarcerated. Making African American males being incarcerated (4,618 per 100,000) 6 times more likely to be held in custody than white males: resulting in an estimated 1,559,200 children had a father in prison at midyear 2007; almost half (46%) were children of black fathers.Something is wrong with this America, the segment that has basically forgotten the sacrifices others made decades before them in order for them to be complacent, for they believe that they have theirs and that is all that matters.

But this is not reality. Today’s African American youth watch TV around 6 hours a day compared to 3 hours to whites and are exposed 6 hours more in total to all media when compared to white youth Even worse is that reading newspapers or books is basically none existence for African American youth, with whites and Asians reading way more each day, especially books, which if data is accurate, African American read on average 11 minutes a day and 33 minutes in total in terms of all print media.

If they do reach the point of completing High school and attending college, the nationwide graduation rate for African Americans is 42 %, most of which are females. As of five years ago, fewer than 8 % of young African American males graduated from college compared to 17% of white males in the same age group. What does this mean? It means that "The 4.5 million African American men ages 15 to 29 represent 14% of the U.S. male population of that age and
12% of all African Americans in the U.S. Their high rates of death, incarceration, and unemployment, and relatively low levels of college graduation rates raise concerns for African American families and the nation’s economy."

Yes America used to be a tale of two nations, black and white and separate but equal. Now this has returned however this time these two places are substantially unequal. Yes Obama wants us to get to marching, but he is missing the big social picture. People cannot march when sick and hungry. And they will not if the president is not open equally to hearing their pain. Instead they will be stealing copper from air conditioners and telephone poles, forming flash mobs and robbing stores and driving truck through beauty supply stores and stealing natural Indian hair.This is the new America and once people really get hungry, there will be hell to pay.

Normal for the New Middle Class

Fact: The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.

FACT: There are 44 million Americans on food stamps.

There are Tens Of Thousands Of Formerly Middle Class Americans homelesss now and On The Streets

Homelessness Getting Worse in America

1] Code Blue declared; local church helping to homeless (PA)

2] As homeless seek safe haven, counties seek out solutions (FL)

3] Thurston County seeks permanent homeless site (WA)

4] As winter descends, some of Madison's homeless live in tents (WI)

5] Homeless in the desert (AZ)

6] Church-run shelter opens when it drops to 20 degrees (OR)

7] Homeless Campground Cleared By City Police (TN)

Mr. President: Recession hitting us folk hard

The recession is crushing African American communities in major urban centers like Detroit and Memphis. Since the collapse of the auto industry and housing market, Detroit’s population has dropped to under a million from 1.8 million.

Today it is possible to buy a three-bedroom home in Detroit for around $10,000, however there are no buyers. Given this predicament, Mayor Dave Bing, a former NBA star, has suggested reducing the size of the metropolitan area in hopes of reducing the city’s expenses.

Bing’s proposal would require the city to demolish nearly 40,000 homes over the next several years. Poverty rates in Detroit are far above the national average. Some have asserted that such draconian approaches border on being a form of "ethnic cleansing." The fact is that almost a third of the city's 139 square miles is uninhabited.

Foreclosure procedures have been initiated against 1.7 million of the nation’s households, with the average borrower in foreclosure being delinquent for more than 400 days before actually being evicted. More than 650,000 households had not made a mortgage payment in 18 months.

In cities such as Memphis, the recession is having a similar effect due to rising unemployment and growing foreclosures. The median income of black homeowners in Memphis has dropped to pre-1990 levels. The unemployment rates for African Americans in the city is approaching 20 percent when it was below 10 percent just two years ago.

The recession is creating an ever-widening economic gap between whites and African Americans across the nation. Several studies have documented this disheartening trend.

The Economic Policy Institute notes that as of December 2009, median white and African American wealth fell 34 percent and 77 percent, respectively. A study conducted by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University concluded that for each dollar of wealth owned by a white family, a black family owns just 16 cents, based on Federal Reserve numbers.

The recession is real and it may take several years before any progress or improvement is noticed or felt at the community level. So for the time being, African American families will have to deal with rising unemployment and foreclosure rates and manage to survive the best way they can.

Hard out here

I think that a person can read and see metaphors in all around them. I will try to take this to the next step. There is a song that many folks either like or dislike. Its main lyrics go “It’s hard out hear for a pimp.” Taking this a step further, let us for argument sake equate the word pimp to folk, man, brother or homey and see what we get.

A recent story in the March 26, 2006 issue of the New York Times started with this paragraph:

“Black men in the United States face a far more dire situation than is portrayed by common employment and education statistics, a flurry of new scholarly studies warn, and it has worsened in recent years even as an economic boom and a welfare overhaul have brought gains to black women and other groups.”

The truth is that we do not finish high school as frequently as others, we die of cardiovascular disease and other chronic ailments than others and we traditionally make way less than others, with the exception of the local neighborhood pharmaceutical representative, hip-hop musicians, or the assorted professional athlete.

Why is this case? It is difficult to believe but these occurrences have been consistent over the years since the days of slavery. We have always had health related problems as well as have always been the target of social darwinism that would – in many instances- suggest that our intellect was less than other races. Even to the extent that laws were made to assist in maintaining intellectual and political hegemony over black men.

In 1646 for example, the colony of Virginia passed “The House of Burgess’ Statue (Law)”. This law defined men of African descent as an object of personal property. This was used by the so-called father of” of American psychiatry 1797, Dr. Benjamin Rush to suggest that “the color of blacks was cause by a rare disease called “Negritude”. This basically suggested that disease/skin color could be used as a reason for segregation
Today, this has manifested into a new for of legal segregation and tyranny that specifically targets Black men. We can see this in differences in police arrest practices and differentials in extreme poverty largely cause the race inequalities in incarceration rates. Of the 265,100 state prison inmates serving time for drug offenses in 2002, 126,000 (47.53%) were black, and 64,500 (24.33%) were white. Such a disparity equal that which we see in health and shows how devastating politically inspired incarceration policies (3 strike laws for example) are harmful to African Americans – especially us men. Then it is estimated that of the 2.1 million offenders incarcerated as of June 30, 2004, approximately 576,600 were Africa American between ages 20 and 39 compared about 1.7% of white males.


In theory, there is supposed to be justice and equal protection of the law to all. But we see that race unfortunately is still employed to criminalize that which main stream America fears and sees as a danger. Couple this with the joblessness, poverty, and high drop out rates; we will continue to see America’s true level of appreciation for men of African descent, which is none. So ladies, the next time you take that “waiting to exhale” perspective on life and say that there are no good men around, just remember the facts note that no one, other than the men, and maybe you, perceive that reality because we don’t believe it ourselves and propagate the continued political hegemony that reduces black men as objects that need to be dealt with as opposed to being accepted for who they are. For it is truly hard out here for a brother, homey and/or black man, “trying to get this money for the rent.”