Gangs in Chicago Developed By Preachers, Businessmen, Politicians

Murder,USA: Chicago,Illinois.

Yes, we are extremely embarassed by the rampant shootings and murders here in Chicago. And believe it or not: This is not a "police" problem, i.e., the police are on the front line fighting a losing battle. This is not a government problem: The government (Federal/State/Local)has absolutely no jurisdiction over how people raise their children.

What this is a parenting or lack thereof problem. This is a lack of economic opportunities problem, among many other variables.

But more importantly, this is a cultivated culture problem. This is a problem that was purposely developed, initiated, and managed by an elite menagerie of African-Americans and whites, clergy and business people, and professionals alike, beginning in the 1960's. To support this claim, I offer the following that gives just one example of how the Blackstone Rangers (aka Black P. Stone Nation, El Rukins) were supported by clergymen, businessmen, and corporations in Chicago.

Note: When Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently suggested renaming a major, internationally known street after a minister who had hands on development of gangs and their influence in Chicago, we submitted the following correspondence in opposition, in which will give the world insight as to how gangs were encouraged and coached on how to expand their influence throughout Chicago's African-American communities, as well as communities throughout America:

Dear Mayor Emanuel (09/13/2013):

Please be hereby advised that African-Americans outside of Bishop B. Brazier's church, especially women are opposed to your intent to rename Stony Island Avenue in the name of Bishop Arthur Brazier.

Our opposition is based solely on our solid, irrefutable knowledge of how Bishop Brazier, through his personal leadership, as well as the involvement of his organizations (The Woodlawn Organization, a.k.a. T.W.O. and The Woodlawn Community Development Corporation, a.k.a WCDC) served as an architect in the proliferation of gangs in our communities, beginning in the 20th Ward more than 46 years ago. It is our collective belief that Bishop Brazier does not deserve such an honor as to have an internationally renowned street renamed to his in honor of him.

To support our opposition, we respectfully request that you reference the attached document (see below "May, 1969"), which will verify that Bishop Brazier, early on, failed us, his fellow man, and his community (in and around Stony Island) as a professor of the word of God when he decided to shepherd gang-banging, gun-running, drug-dealing murders, i.e., the Blackstone Rangers (El Rukins, Gangster Disciples) who prey on us and our children on a daily basis. Many of us fought against him back then. The decisions he made back then still to this day epically and horrifically affect how we are currently living. And God knows our children are bearing the brunt of Bishop Brazier's and others' (Preachers, Politicians, Police, and Businessmen)decisions.

Further, Bishop Brazier from 1967 up until his death never lifted his voice or political-might against the gangs, drugs, murder, or any other social vices permeating African-American communities.

We are hereby respectfully requesting that you do not insult us any further by moving forward with renaming Stony Island in the name of a man who does not deserve such an honor. We further request that you do not attempt to hold our elected officials hostage regarding this issue; and

Dear Mayor Emanuel [and Aldermen] 09/16/2013:

As a follow-up to the 09/13/2013 correspondence you received from Black Women for Economic Parity in support of our opposition to Stony Island being renamed to honor Bishop Arthur Brazier, attached herewith is a supporting historical document: The 1978 Audit Report of The Woodlawn Organization/Woodlawn Community Development Corporation prepared by the public accounting and management consulting firm Alexander Grant.

The [attached 50-Page] 1978 audit report discloses The Woodlawn Organization’s complicity, as well as authenticates all charges of operational duplicity made against The Woodlawn Organization in the May 1st, 1969 article written by James Alan McPherson. The information contained within, in concert with the disclosures in Mr. McPherson's documented interviews speaks volumes as to how Bishop Arthur Brazier and his Board of Directors structured, initiated, and managed what appeared to have been a loosely-ran criminal enterprise that served as an anchoring foundation to strengthen the influence of gangs throughout our communities.

Please keep in mind that the aforementioned is just one blatant, God-forsaken example of Bishop Brazier’s sinful social manifestations; and any "good" endeavor he may have performed will never supersede the long-range devastating social impact that his decades-long moral bankruptcy has had on our communities. Bishop Brazier deserves no honors because to this day (September 16th, 2013) our babies are still killing one another more than ever.

Again we ask that you discontinue your course of disregarding and insulting us--the people who are largely responsible for electing you Mayor of Chicago--and do not rename Stony Island in honor of Bishop Arthur Brazier.

Following is a true representation as to how the gangs of today in Chicago were cultivated by African-American clergy and businessmen, civic leaders, and white clergy, white professionals, and white-owned/well-known corporations:

May 1969
Chicago's Blackstone Rangers (I)
Are the Blackstone Rangers a corrupt, exploitive street gang? Or a constructive engine of community black power? This is Part I of a two-part study of the Ranger Nation, the result of six months of research and interviewing.
JAMES ALAN MCPHERSON May 1 1969, 12:00 PM ET
Click here to go to part II of this article.

SOMETIME between 1961 and 1963, according to evidence presented to a Senate subcommittee chaired by John McClellan of Arkansas last July, an unknown number of black young men, who lived in the general area of Sixty-sixth Place and Blackstone Avenue in the Woodlawn area of Chicago's South Side ghetto, organized a street gang. Like most street gangs, it was formed to protect its members from intimidation by other gangs in the South Side area. The most formidable enemy of this new group was a gang called the Devil's Disciples, which claimed part of the neighboring Kenwood area. In the years which followed, the Disciples became the traditional enemies of the Woodlawn youths, who called themselves Blackstone Rangers.

At first the Rangers were interested only in protecting their territory and their membership from attacks and retaliations by the Disciples, but by 1965 there were an estimated 200 of them in the group, and they were breaking with traditional gang patterns. They were organizing in Woodlawn. And this organization caused some public concern, and even fear, because it began during a period of violent rivalry between the Rangers and the Disciples. During these formative stages the Blackstone Rangers seemed to have placed the running feud between the Disciples and themselves secondary to their primary goal: organization. Soon their influence in Woodlawn caused minor, less influential, less powerful gangs to join them. And they came from all over the South Side: the Maniacs, the Four Corners, the Lovers, the V.I.P.'s, the Pythons, the Warlocks, the F.B.I., the Conservatives, the Pharaohs. At present there are anywhere from 3500 to 8000 boys and men who identify with the Blackstone Rangers and who have affixed the Ranger name to the names of their own gangs. Such is the organizational structure and size of the Blackstone Rangers today that they call themselves a Nation. The Ranger Nation is headed by a group of young men called the Main 21. Until 1968 the president of the organization was Eugene "Bull" Hairston, the vice president was Jeff Fort (also called "Angel" and "Black Prince"), and the warlord was George Rose (also called "Watusi" and "Mad Dog"). The Rangers' spiritual leader was Paul "The Preacher" Martin, and the rest of the Main 21 was made up of leaders of the minor gangs who had joined with the Rangers. Each individual gang, it seems, maintained its own organizational structure with its own officers; but collectively all of the gangs made up the Blackstone Nation, which is presently incorporated to do business under the laws of Illinois.

Since the emergence of the Ranger Nation, individual members have been charged with murder, robbery, rape, knifings, extortion of South Side merchants, traffic in narcotics, extortion and intimidation of young children, forced gang membership, and a general history of outright violence, especially against the Disciples who never joined the Rangers. On the other hand, the Ranger Nation has been credited with keeping the South Side of Chicago "cool" during the summer of 1967 and the spring of 1968, following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. It has been said that they have kept drugs, alcoholics, prostitutes, and whites hunting for prostitutes out of their neighborhoods. They have also been credited with making genuine attempts to form lasting peace treaties between themselves and the Disciples in order to decrease the level of gang fighting on the South Side. They have been alternately praised and condemned by the national press, their community, the United States Senate, the local police, and Chicago youth organizations to such an extent that, if one depends on the news media for information, it is almost impossible to maintain a consistent opinion of the Blackstone Rangers.

Some of the Chicago papers have been quick to report any charges of violent activity against a Ranger. In newspaper accounts, the name of the gang takes precedence over the individual arrested and charged with crimes. Many of the charges are accurate; many of the young men who identify with the Rangers are guilty of various crimes. But much of the information passed on to the press is shown to have no substance upon thorough investigation. Still, the adverse publicity serves to keep the Chicago communities, both black and white, in a state of apprehension over the Blackstone Ranger organization, as opposed to the individuals in it.

There has been, and presently still is, a cry for a massive police crackdown on the Rangers. To accomplish this, the Chicago Police Department, following a general order issued by former Chicago Superintendent of Police O. W. Wilson, formed the Gang Intelligence Unit in March of 1967 to learn more about the Rangers and to decrease forcibly the level of gang violence in all areas of Chicago generally, and in the South Side area in particular. The stated purpose of the Unit was to eliminate "the antisocial and criminal activities of groups of minors and young adults in the various communities within the city."

IN EARLY June of 1967, The Woodlawn Organization (T.W.O), a grass roots community association made up of one hundred or so block clubs, and civic, religious, and business organizations in the Woodlawn area of the South Side, received a $957, 000 grant from the Office of Economic Opportunity to set up a special kind of youth project in the Woodlawn area. The purpose of the program was to utilize the existing gang structure—the Blackstone Rangers and the Devil's Disciples—as a means of encouraging youth in the gangs as well as non-gang youth to become involved in a pre-employment orientation, motivational project. The project was to include eight hundred out-of-school unemployed youths. And the entire program was to operate through four job-training centers which were to be set up in the home territories of the Rangers and Disciples. Reverend Arthur Brazier, president of The Woodlawn Organization, was responsible for bringing the interest of OEO to the proposed program, which was admitted to be a "high-risk venture."

The money from OEO went directly to The Woodlawn Organization. It did not go through city agencies, although one of the conditions of the grant was that the mayor was to be "invited" to concur in the selection of a project director for the program. There is some opinion that the mayor's office was not pleased with this. In fact, the full operation of the program was delayed over two months because of the inability of the T.W.O. people and Mayor Richard J. Daley to come to an agreement on a director for the program. By the time the program officially began in September, a project director had not been hired, and the Rangers and Disciples had, apparently, lost much of their enthusiasm for the program.

In September of 1967, The Woodlawn Organization opened four training centers in the Woodlawn area: two for the Blackstone Rangers and two for the Devil's Disciples. One of the Ranger Centers was located in the First Presbyterian Church, a church in the Woodlawn area headed by Reverend John Fry, a white Presbyterian clergyman. The Xerox Corporation was hired to formulate the curriculum; the Chicago Urban League was hired to do job development; and Arthur Andersen & Company was hired to give T.W.O. monthly reviews. In addition, a Monitoring Unit with the Chicago police was set up to have two meetings a month with T.W.O. people and representatives from the two gangs, which had attempted to deescalate the level of their violent rivalry since the new program had been announced.

The trainees were paid $45 a week to take five hours of instruction a day for five days a week, in, addition to travel expenses. The instructors in the program, or Center Chiefs, were not professionals but gang leaders who were supposed to be under the supervision of professionals because, as Reverend Brazier stated before the McClellan Committee, "many of these youth do not relate to professionals because the professionals with middle-class attitudes do not relate to them." Eugene Hairston, president of the Rangers, was hired as an assistant project director at a salary of $6500 a year. Jeff Fort, Ranger vice president, became a Center Chief and received $6000 a year. And many of the other members of the Main 21 occupied, at one time or another, salaried positions in the project. Apparently, there was not much public opposition to the hiring of gang leaders by the program. Rather, there seems to have been a reversal in public attitude toward the Rangers because of their performance in the year before the program began.

One of the activities which helped their public image was the production of a musical review called Opportunity Please Knock, which was sponsored by Oscar Brown, Jr., the jazz pianist, and performed by groups of Rangers and students from the Hyde Park High School. The show, which was eventually taken over by the Rangers, ran for six weeks in May and June of 1967. An estimated eight thousand people went to the First Presbyterian Church during the first weeks of its performance, and it received very favorable nationwide publicity. Subsequent performances were given in various suburban communities around Chicago, and parts of the show traveled to Watts to perform. Some members of the troupe appeared on the Smothers Brothers show, and Ebony featured a large color story of the production in its August, 1967, issue.
A second instance of positive Ranger activity, which also gained them favorable publicity, was their willingness to be bussed out of town on August 12, Bud Billiken Day (named for a mythical folk hero created by the Chicago Daily Defender, a black newspaper). All past major conflicts between the Rangers and the Disciples had taken place during the Bud Billiken Day Parade and picnic in the South Side's Washington Park. In 1966 the city of Chicago had financed an out-of-town picnic for the Rangers through the Boys' Club, although there is some evidence that it considered the picnic idea a kind of blackmail exacted by the Rangers. In 1967, however, The Woodlawn Organization requested from OEO permission to use $5000 of its funds to take six hundred Rangers to an out-of-town picnic at Valparaiso University. The Rangers made the decision to leave town, it is said, because of rumors of a brewing riot and the public expectation that they would cause or at least participate in it.

The Ranger vice president, Jeff Fort, had been jailed on July 30 on murder charges and was still in jail on Bud Billiken Day. There are conflicting statements about whether or not Fort threatened to start a riot. Policemen have testified that he stated that if he were arrested, "the city would burn," while other sources reported that he cautioned the Rangers, after his arrest, not to riot. In any case, he remained in jail until early September of 1967, and there was no riot. The Rangers attended their picnic, and there were few incidents during the day. Whether or not the Rangers and Disciples actively contributed to the calm remains an open question. But a safe assumption can be made that when the T.W.O. project began in September, the Blackstone Rangers were enjoying a good deal of favorable press coverage and community support.

A final incident in the fall of 1967 helped their image in the city. In the Kenwood district, which adjoins Woodlawn, the police dispersed a black-power rally on September 15. The crowd then moved to a local high school, where bottles were thrown and two shots were fired by a sniper. The situation seemed to have been too tense for the police, when Herbert Stevens, leader of the Four Corners Rangers and a member of the Main 21 (known as "Thunder"), was said to have stood before the crowd and said, "All you who are willing to die, step up now. Otherwise, let's go home." And as he turned to leave he said, "When I come back, I don't want to see anybody on the streets. I want these streets cleared." When he returned in five minutes, the story goes, the crowd had broken up.

THE Blackstone Rangers wanted to play a major role in determining how the OEO-Woodlawn project should be run, and there were meetings throughout the summer of 1967 between the gang leaders and representatives of T.W.O. to determine the extent of their voice in the project. These meetings were kept under surveillance by detectives from the Gang Intelligence Unit.

The public favor enjoyed by the Rangers during the summer pf 1967 dropped off severely when the president and vice president were arrested in late September for soliciting three juveniles—Marvin Martin, fifteen, Sanders Martin, fourteen, and Dennis Jackson, also fourteen—to murder a narcotics dealer named Leo McClure. McClure was in fact one of three men who were shot. Though he was not, it emerged, the prime target, he was the only one of the three who died. Dennis Jackson was alleged to have done the actual shooting. Hairston, the Ranger president, was kept in jail without bond, and the newspapers printed so many stories about a Teen-age Murder, Inc., and so many details of the case against Hairston, that the first courtroom case ended in a mistrial.

During the same period the activities of Reverend John Fry and the First Presbyterian Church, which served as one of the T.W.O. training centers, were called into question. The church was said to be an arsenal for the Rangers to store their guns and a place where they sold and smoked marijuana, had sexual activity, and held their secret gang meetings. Then Jeff Fort was arrested in October and charged with murdering a Disciple. Both his arrest and the earlier arrest of Hairston encouraged the press to give extensive adverse publicity to The Woodlawn Organization because of their employment by the project. Soon afterward, three of the Main leaders, also members of the T.W.O. staff, were indicted for rape. The detectives of the G.I.U. made extensive visits to the training centers and found, according to their reports, no actual training taking place, the falsification of time sheets, gambling, and evidence that marijuana was being smoked on the premises. Finally, a Disciple was shot in one of the two Disciple Centers with a shotgun. The shooting was said to have been an accident, but the G.I.U. detectives who investigated the shooting found evidence that "light narcotics" (Robitussin) were being used at the Disciple Center. It was about this time that Senator McClellan's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations began to gather evidence in its planned investigation of The Woodlawn Organization's "high-risk" project.
THE investigation began on June 28, 1968, in Washington. There was nationwide television coverage as all those who had connections with the project, official or otherwise, testified before Senators Jacob Javits, Carl Curtis, Fred Harris, Edmund Muskie, Karl Mundt, and of course, Chairman John McClellan, who asked most of the questions.

Reverend Arthur Brazier made a desperate attempt to defend his project, explaining how participation of gang members was necessary for its success and charging that harassment from the Gang Intelligence Unit and explosively adverse news publicity had made it almost impossible for the project to develop as anticipated. Members of the Gang Intelligence Unit testified that they had made extensive visits to the training centers during the period of their operation and had found very little, if any, instruction going on. They also testified to the long list of crimes said to have been committed by gang members while under the sponsorship of T.W.O., especially the murder which was said to have been solicited by Eugene Hairston and Jeff Fort.
Perhaps the most damaging testimony against the program, if not against the Rangers themselves, came from George Rose, a former warlord of the Rangers who had defected from the organization, and a Mrs. Annabelle Martin, a black mother of ten who claimed to have had a very close relationship with the gang. The two Martin boys allegedly solicited by Hairston to commit the murder of Leo McClure were her sons.
Rose testified that the Rangers were involved in the sale of narcotics; that trainees in the program were forced to kick back to the organization from $5 to $25 each week; that the Rangers, from the start, had no interest in job training and that the program was used only to increase the gang's membership and its treasury; and that the First Presbyterian Church and its people—Reverend John Fry, Charles Lapaglia, and Anne Schwalbach, all white—were attempting to control and direct the gang through influence over Jeff Fort.

According to Rose's testimony, Reverend Fry had actually written the proposal for the OEO grant and had turned it over to Reverend Brazier; the church was used for the sale of narcotics, the storage of guns, and a convenient place for the Rangers to engage in sexual activity. He also told the Committee that Lapaglia had taken some of the Main 21 leaders on a trip to Michigan to purchase guns and on another trip to Philadelphia to attend a black-power conference where the murders of certain nonmilitant civil rights leaders were plotted. He said that the Rangers had made it known to Reverend Brazier that they considered the OEO money theirs and would not let outsiders—school dropouts who were not Rangers—into the program And, according to his testimony, Brazier consented to this without informing OEO officials. Rose told the Committee that many of the gang leaders who had been hired as instructors or Center Chiefs had fifth- or sixth-grade educations and that Jeff Fort, who served as a Center Chief, could not read or write. Finally, he stated that students from regular schools were forced to drop out in order to join the program and the gang, and that those who refused were beaten, shot in the arms, forced to keep off the streets, or killed. In this way, he said, the Rangers induced "a couple hundred" students to leave public schools and join the program, and that it was a practice of the Rangers to solicit juveniles to commit murder because they received a lighter sentence if they were caught.

Of special interest was his testimony that the Rangers had offered to help the police, and, in fact, did outfit themselves in black uniforms, called themselves the police of the Blackstone Ranger Nation, policed their neighborhoods, and turned over to the police several non-Rangers in order to clear the name of their organization. He stated that the police accepted them at first, but then, "after we turned a couple of guys in and made it known that they weren't our guys, the police still started cracking our young fellows' heads, just because of the uniforms. They called us storm troopers because we had black jump boots, black pants tucked into. the top of the boots. . . . They didn't like this at all. They called it mob action."
Rose also testified that after the Rangers were rejected by the police, Reverend John Fry advised them to begin extorting merchants. "Since we west being accused of it," he said, "there wasn't anything we could lose by doing it." Rose said that the Rangers got from $5000 to $8000 a week from tavern owners and various sums from shoe stores, clothing stores, food stores, and drugstores through threats of future violence against them. Robert L. Pierson of the Chicago State's Attorney’s Office told the Committee that the Rangers "are the beginning of a Black Mafia." He testified that the Rangers were, in fact, extorting merchants but that the merchants would not complain because of fear of retaliation from the gang. During the April days following the murder of Martin Luther King when the Rangers distributed signs to be displayed in the windows of neighborhood merchants, he said, they charged $50 for their protection.

Jeff Fort, who had assumed leadership of the gang after Hairston was convicted in May of 1968, was subpoenaed to testify before the Committee. He was sworn in but never sat down before Senator McClellan. Marshall Patner, Fort's lawyer, submitted a request that the Committee allow Fort to confront and cross-examine the witnesses who had testified against him. The request was refused by Senator McClellan under authority of the Committee Rules. After a heated exchange between Patner and Senator McClellan during which both the lawyer and Fort were reminded of the possibility of contempt charges if Fort refused to accept protection from the Fifth Amendment and proceed with his testimony, Marshall Patner turned to Fort, still standing beside him, and said: "We really must go." Then they walked out.

Chicago's Blackstone Rangers (II)


Last month Mr. McPherson described how a group of black Chicago street gangs evolved into the controversial "Ranger Nation," funded by the Poverty Program, investigated by the Senate, and hunted by the police. Here he completes his report and explains why—as a onetime Chicago policeman puts it—the Rangers "started as kids, but with all the pressures, they don't even know themselves now."

James Alan McPherson Jun 1 1969, 12:00 PM ET

Few uniformed policemen walk the streets in the Woodlawn area. Those who do are black. Most white policemen drive through the area in cars, usually accompanied by a black officer. Most of the policemen in the area seem to be young. They are, for the most part, polite, and a little cold. On occasion one notices a parked patrol car with two hard-faced white officers in the front seat and the barrel of a shotgun framed in the window between them. Only then does one remember the tension which is supposed to exist between the police and the black community.

It is present, but it is not racial; at least not in the traditional—black-white—sense of the word.

Black people, if Blackstone Rangers can be called representative of black people, feel a tension between black policemen and themselves. It is a feeling of mistrust, of discomfort. Rangers do not seem to be under continual harassment from the police, but it is a fair assumption that they, or at least their leaders, are being watched by other blacks. It one sits too long in a restaurant with a Ranger of any status within the organization, he will eventually become aware of another black sitting in the next booth, sipping an eternal cup of coffee. Perhaps he is merely enjoying his coffee; perhaps he is a plainclothesman on the job. In any case, Rangers find it more relaxing to converse inside the Center or in one of their other meeting places.

"It shouldn't be called the Police Gang Intelligence Unit," says Mickey Cogwell, one of the Main 21 (the leadership of the Blackstone Rangers). "It should be called the Gang Stupid Unit because they are so stupid. If they really wanted to get us, they would wait until we commit crimes and then arrest us. Instead, they try to stop us from doing anything."

Mickey Cogwell is another busy man. Among the Main 21, he is recognized as the Ranger leader with the most business ability. For this reason Ranger president Jeff Fort put him in charge of West Side business operations of the Blackstone Nation. Cogwell is intelligent, and his directness suggests honesty and candor. He wears a black derby and a blue turtleneck sweater and talks very fast. He has had considerable experience with the Gang Intelligence Unit. He has been arrested more than sixty times.

"Every time people do things for us the G.I.U. tries to publicize it so that donators get bad publicity," Cogwell says. "It doesn't want the Rangers and Disciples to have a peace treaty because it threatens the security of their jobs. I feel that the G.I.U.—black men—use the Rangers and the rivalry between us and the D's to make their work more important to the system."

Cogwell believes that the members of the G.I.U. have extra-police powers. According to him, they can go into the Cook County jail whenever they want; they have easy access to the press whenever they want to publicize stories about the Rangers; they have the help of the power structure in Chicago; and they can even influence judges. "Suppose one of the younger cats go out and does something and is put in the Cook County Jail. They will be offered a chance to get out if they swear that they were told to do something by one of the older Rangers, by one of the Main," he says. "The police have realized that they can't break up the Stones now. They might have done it four or five years ago, but now all they can do is arrest the Main. But Stone will still go on. In order to break us up, they will have to arrest everyone from the Main down to the peewees.

"If the police pick up a Stone, we take the number of the car, call a lawyer, and follow the car to the station," Cogwell states. "We wait in the halls until the lawyer comes. Then we try to find out what the bond is. If it's not too high, we try to raise it. But most bonds are set too high." He attributes the high bonds to intervention by members of the G.LU. and the influence they seem to have over judges.

Cogwell denies that there was a payoff behind the November "Don't Vote" campaign. He says that it was an expression of the dissatisfaction of the Rangers with the local political structure. He observes that just after their campaign, G.I.U. chief Edward Buckney was promoted to captain and plans were made to increase the G.I.U. from 38 to 200 men. He believes that the campaign frightened the Chicago power structure. And the Rangers, he says, are now planning for 1971, the year of the next mayoralty election. Winston Moore, the black warden of the Cook County jail and a critic of the Rangers, called the campaign "outright stupid," but whether or not the activity was politically naïve, it seems that the Chicago power structure is presently attempting to tighten up its control of the Blackstone Rangers.

Still, the Rangers appear to be growing, in both number and the scope of their business ventures. Besides the restaurant, they have obtained the use of a building from Humble Oil Company for $1 a year. The building, Co-well says, will be used for Ranger businesses which will be operated by the eight Blackstone Rangers who are presently receiving training from the Chicago Small Businessmen's Association. Also, the Westinghouse Corporation has donated to the Rangers, through the University of Chicago's Firman House, fourteen washers and three dryers. The corporation will teach the Rangers how to operate them so they will be able to start their own laundromat. They have received two car-wash units from other sources, and have been given an interest in the Sammy Davis, Jr. Liquor Store, a pilot project owned by the famous entertainer and managed by the Rangers. The profits from the store go into a "slush fund" against the time when the Rangers are prepared to set up other businesses. Finally, an unnamed manufacturer has supplied them with 20, 000 "All Mighty Black P. Stone" sweat shirts with the phrase "black is beautiful" printed on their backs in every major language. Lamar Bell, a Ranger leader, wears one with the phrase written in Greek.

"We want the Stones to be able to know something when they go into business," Mickey Cogwell says. He is not pleased with his attempts to run the West Side operation, he notes, because of what he calls attempts of the G.I.U. to stop Ranger business development by finding violations of the building and zoning codes, and reporting them to city agencies. At one point, he says, the Rangers had $800 worth of violations against them.

Mickey Cogwell claims that the Rangers made a genuine effort to keep the South Side cool during the April riots. "Jeff sent word out all over the Nation to keep peace," he says, "because King was killed and everybody was hurting. All the Main leaders went out into the streets to keep peace. Plus, the G.I.U. was out too, to provoke the Rangers into rioting. We feel that the city was out to get us to burn down our own community. But since we need the stores—our babies need milk—Jeff decided that all the stores in the area were part of the Ranger Nation."
I asked Mickey Cogwell if the Rangers would like to patrol their neighborhoods as a kind of community police force similar in some respects to the Black Panthers on the West Coast.

"There is quite a difference between the power structure on the West Coast and the power structure in Chicago," he replied. "Mayor Daley is the most powerful man in America. He can tell the President what to do. On the Coast the Panthers can ride around in cars with guns, but not here. Mayor Daley is a powerful cat, very powerful. And dangerous, very dangerous."

While the Rangers can, in many instances, be considered a kind of spontaneous para-police force in their efforts to show the strength of their organization, there is another consideration to place in focus: are the police, specifically the members of the Gang Intelligence Unit, themselves a para-political force? This question is important in a very singular respect. It is evident that the Blackstone Ranger Nation is not interested in voluntarily helping the police: all of their activities which may be called helpful to the police seem to arise, unavoidably, from their efforts to keep the name of the Ranger organization safe from adverse publicity or else to demonstrate the tremendous power and community appeal, at least among the young, of the Blackstone Ranger Nation. In both of these areas the activities of the Gang Intelligence Unit seem to contribute the necessary pressure or motivation. The relative ease with which its members operate within the police department and cooperation they receive from the State's Attorney’s Office and the Cook County jail, the influence they seem to have in the courts, and the easy willingness of the press to publicize incidents about the Rangers all suggest that members of the Unit have more than ordinary police powers.

For example, in December of 1968 after Jeff Fort was found guilty of contempt of Congress and released on $5000 bond, he was arrested by members of the G.I.U. on an old charge: failure to pay a S50 fine for a previous disorderly conduct arrest. The arrest warrant was issued on March 17, 1967. The eight G.I.U. officers who arrested Fort arrived at his home carrying axes, prepared to break down the door. They had no search warrant, but they searched his apartment and found a .22 caliber gun. Fort was charged with failure to register the gun.

Marshall Patner, the white Chicago lawyer who walked out of Senator McClellan's investigation of Poverty Program funding of a Ranger project with his client Jeff Fort last summer, has been in a position which enabled him to observe the activities of the Gang Intelligence Unit firsthand. "The question is," he says, "whether the police run the whole show. The G.I.U. can say 'no bond' to the judges, and no bond is given. Judges listen to them. State's attorneys listen to them."

Patner is paid by the Kettering Foundation to provide legal counsel for Rangers in general and Jeff Fort in particular. A 1956 University of Chicago Law School graduate, he quit his job as head of the appellate and test case division of the Legal Aid Bureau of Chicago to help William W. Brackett, who served as counsel for the Reverend John Fry before the McClellan Committee. Fry is a white clergyman whose church, the First Presbyterian, housed one of the Rangers' training centers funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity through a local grass roots group, The Woodlawn Organization (T.W.O.). The church thought Fort should have a black lawyer, but Fort preferred Marshall Patner.

"As a lawyer," Patner says, "I don't see my function as looking over a client to see what he's doing. I see these people as needing defense because they are being picked on for offenses which other people wouldn't be charged with, and subject to high bond just because they are Rangers." Since the McClellan hearings, Marshall Patner has received angry letters and telephone calls suggesting that he should be put into a concentration camp.

In Ranger cases, according to Patner, the judges set very high bonds. In one arrest for aggravated assault, the night judge set bond at $4000 and the morning judge reset bond at $5000. For a fight in the jail, Fort's bond was set at $10,000, and for a charge of resisting arrest, Jeff Fort's bond was again set at S10, 000. He estimates that Fort has been picked up over one hundred and eighty times. Sometimes he will be arrested, processed, and released in a few minutes. Patner is bringing a suit in federal court for injunctive relief. The suit is against Mayor


Daley, Captain Buckney, the State's Attorney, and certain judges, and is on behalf of Jeff Fort, Mickey Cogwell, and the Black P. Stone Nation.

Marshall Patner feels that the peacekeeping role of the Rangers is a "funny" one. "I would guess that as a matter of defiance and as a show of power Rangers exert all the energy possible to see that police prophecies about them are not fulfilled. In contrast, they do this in areas where interests are common to their own. I believe that they keep a lot of ghetto kids out of trouble by giving them something with which they can identify."

The police are definitely out to get the Stones," Carl Banks, a Ranger teacher, tells me at the Black P. Stone Youth Center, "especially since Nixon got in. Every time a black gets arrested, if he's from this neighborhood he's treated like a Stone. His is bond is hiked up, he's harassed." Banks's voice changes to anger. "They don't want the Stones to have anything." He crushes a cigarette butt with his foot. "They want to keep us right down here on the ground."
"Why do you think they're out to get you?" I ask him.

Banks lights up another cigarette. "Some people in the area are still scared of us. This neighborhood used to be terrible, especially for strangers. Now all that's changed."
"How has it changed?"

"Stone run it," he says. "There's less fighting now. Stones are keeping dope and faggots out of the neighborhood. We even try to keep prostitutes out."

I follow Carl Banks over to the stage where the drums are assembled. It is time for his practice session. We want to represent to the kids that this is our neighborhood," he continues; "we love it, it's all we got. We want the kids to feel the same way. We try to instill some dignity and pride in them. That's what the P. stands for."

"Are the kids forced to join?" I ask.

Carl considers this. He beats out a roll on one of the drums before answering. "It might have been that way in the old days," he admits. "But there's no pressure now. That's why we're going slow now. The older brothers aren't as active as they should be, some of them are drifting away. Having the peewees with us is OK, but we really need the adults to get our program going good."

"How do you get the kids to join?" I ask.

"They just come in," Banks says. "This is the only place open at night for kids to attend. There's nothing else in the area that's open except the Y.M.C.A. on Seventy-first Street."

Black children, at least those from the Woodlawn area, do come to the Center. They wander in and out of the broken door from the time it is unlocked in the morning until after ten every night. Except for the percussion class, there are few organized activities available for them. For the most part, they stand around the office, expectantly, waiting for something to develop; or else they wander back into the main room and sit in the metal chairs against the walls, under the painted faces of Marcus Garvey, Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Muhammad All, Martin Luther King, and Frederick Douglass. All of the walls in the main room are painted black. And the historical faces are on the right wall. On the left wall, also against a black background, there is a skillfully drawn mural of cosmic forces, the universe in motion, flaming comets, and the overall suggestion of pure energy.

The wall has its symbolic significance, although the children seem to favor the right side of the room and the faces on its wall, behind the metal chairs where they sit. Young people are only barred from the back room when the older Rangers come in—Jeff Fort, Edward Bey, Mickey Cogwell, and other Main leaders—and secret meetings are held. At these times the children wait in the small office, under orders to remain silent, or else they go outside. And whenever they do leave the Center, many of them, especially the younger ones, are quick to call back to anyone still standing in the room: "Stone Run It!"

Congressman Abner Mikva, a white reformer who has fought the Daley machine, was elected to his first term in Congress last November from the Second Congressional District of Chicago, which encompasses the Woodlawn part of the South Side. He is considered by many people in Chicago to be something of an expert on Ranger affairs. Over coffee in his home on South Kenwood Avenue, Mikva offers some of his impressions of the group.

"I'm not a pro-Ranger. If someone commits a crime in the area and if he is a kid, the victim will assume that lie's a Ranger, but if the Rangers had committed all the crimes they have been charged with, there would probably have to be at least 100, 000 of them, or they would have to be some of the most energetic criminals who ever lived," he says. "I don't think they are civic-minded young reformers. I think that many of them are so alienated that it will be a hard job trying to bring them back into the mainstream. But even if you could bust up the gang structure, it would cost more to keep these kids apart than it would cost to help them do something constructive."

Unlike most groups of young, organized blacks, the Rangers do not seem to be primarily racially oriented. If they believe in any form of black power at all, it's the physical energy which they are attempting to harness in the black community and the economic power which, they believe, will come through constructive uses of that energy. If they hold any political philosophy at all, it is truly a grass roots one: they want to wrest control of their community not

so much from the power structure as from the control of an older generation of blacks. They have a large number of the young people; now they are attempting to expand their source of energy by moving into the black, middle-class neighborhoods. And it is in such areas that the limitations of the Ranger appeal are tested. It is within these areas that class lines become more apparent.

Abner Mikva admits the reality of these class lines which contribute to polarization in the black community. "In other neighborhoods they really are recruiting, but these are different kinds of kids. They're middle-class, with two parents in the home—home-owning parents—not kids from broken families. The Rangers are scaring the daylights out of them. And unfortunately, some of the white churchmen are helping them. I get violent mail, more from the black community than from the white, asking: 'What are you doing defending the Rangers?'

"Some people in the South Woodlawn and Oakland areas would say that the police are too easy on the Rangers," he observes. "Some parents believe that they should crack some skulls. They're scared to death. And these are black people. This shows that it's not so much a color thing between the police and the Rangers. I can't recall any time over the last two years when I saw two white policemen alone in a car in the community. They're mostly black and white teams now. Or, if there are two white policemen, they don't respond to street calls. A good part of the G.I.U. is black, and some of these men have done community work in Woodlawn or with Operation Breadbasket. Some of them are militant, but they're against the Rangers because they're policemen and for obeying the law." Mikva feels, however, that the police do create a problem in the black community, in spite of the sameness of color. "The police insist on using direct, terrorist, violent methods and only succeed in polarizing people. They force people like myself to come out pro-Ranger because of their tactics. I come out saying more in defense of the Rangers than I would like to. Other people come out being more anti-Ranger than they would ordinarily be."

In spite of whatever constructive things they are attempting to do, Mikva says, the Rangers are unpredictable. He recognizes that the community has to deal with them, but, he says, "If they weren't here, I wouldn't invent them."

There was a birthday party given for Joyce Green at the Black P. Stone Youth Center one Saturday night in late November. The girls brought homemade cake and potato chips, a bowl of punch, balloons, some cookies, and a few records. Fifteen or so boys, ranging in age from nine to fourteen, sat on the metal chairs against the wall, under the pictures of Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Muhammad Au, Martin Luther King, Du Bois, and the others, waiting for the party to start. They sat quietly, waiting for the girls to start the record player. And when the music finally began, the boys cut the lights out and proceeded to select dancing partners.

Art Richardson, director of the Center, put the lights on. One of the boys cut them off again. "The lights have to stay on, little brother," Richardson told him.

"We want them out," some of the other boys said.

Richardson motioned for all the boys to come closer to him. "If it's not worth doing in the light," he said, "then it's not worth doing at all." Then he added: "That's what Stone is all about."
The boys considered this, and when Art left the room again one of them cut the lights off. Art came back into the room, put the lights on again, and stood next to the switch. All of the boys left the Center. And after gathering the cakes and the punch and the chips and records, and after breaking all the balloons, the girls followed them.

On Sunday morning before ten o'clock the boy who had made the last effort to darken the room leaned against the locked door of the Center, waiting for it to open. I waited with him.
"Art will be here in a while," I told him.

"I don't like Art," the boy said. "He's mean."

"Do you know what he was trying to tell you last night?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he said. "I know. But nobody wants to dance with girls with the lights on. If the other guys see it, they'll talk about you."

To get out of the wind, while we waited, we went across Sixty-seventh Street to a restaurant and played records and drank Cokes. The boy's name is Danny Jackson. He is in Carl Banks's percussion class. He is fourteen, an eighth-grader, has semi processed hair, and he never smiles. He wants to be a musician because his father is a musician. He wants to finish high school and then work in a factory because his father works in a factory. He has never thought about college. He does not know much about what it means to be a Blackstone Ranger, but he knows that he is one because he is allowed to walk in and out of the Center whenever he wants. Asked why he likes being a Ranger and living in Woodlawn, he says, "Because Stone Run It!"
Youth Action, a Chicago youth organization funded by the Y.M.C.A. and the Chicago Boys' Club, opened the center on Sixty-seventh and Blackstone as an outpost early in 1968. There was a one-year lease taken on the building. Last September, according to Art Richardson, Youth Action abandoned the outpost. "In October," he says, '1 just walked in the Center off the street, pulled the desks out of the basement, and got the Stones to clean up and paint the place. Then the kids started coming in."

Richardson believes that Youth Action abandoned the outpost because it could not reach the youth in the community. I asked Richardson why he thought the Center was more successful under his direction than it was under the administration of Youth Action.

"I'm a legitimate person from the community," he replied. "They were outsiders. The most important thing in this work is understanding the needs of the community. I don't profess to be able to teach, but I do come from the community. I know the needs. If I had the resources, I would be able to get peoples who are capable of carrying out my program. I'll always welcome agency peoples to come in, and I'll always welcome their ideas, but we have to run it."
"How do you know you can run it?" I asked him.

Art nodded toward the mural of the solar system on the left side of the main room. "That's energy," he said. "It only responds to the right vibrations. It's that way in nature. An outsider comes in projecting an outside vibration, communicating over the heads of the younger, grass roots brothers. That's wrong. You have to relate to young brothers simply, give off simple vibrations. Otherwise, the little brothers will not respond energetically."

I asked him if any black, and not just Rangers, could produce the right vibrations.
"No," he said. "A lot of Afro brothers don't know how to respond on the street level. So a lot of the little brothers here don't relate to and don't respect some of the outside brothers."

When Art Richardson speaks of "universal vibrations," he seems to imply that the Ranger Nation is not necessarily organized along racial lines; and the fact that many black residents of areas in which they operate condemn their activities serves to support this assumption. Subtle, almost imperceptible class lines are slowly being drawn. And the Rangers seem to be aware of this. "The Chief [Jeff Fort] wants to have white Stones and Mexican Stones and any other kind of person who has the ability to be a Stone," Richardson told me. "He's already extended the invitation."

The directors of the Center have worked out a "Performing Arts Program," with a selected schedule of classes running from Monday through Saturday. Among the classes listed are history, job training, dancing, speeches by interested religious leaders, businessmen, teachers, and entertainers, a class in percussion, boxing, current events, and a class in the importance of education. All these classes are still on paper. So far only one class, the percussion class taught by Lamar Bell and Carl Banks, has started. The others are waiting, like the children who come in every evening, perhaps for financial backing, perhaps for the trust and the enthusiasm of the adult community to grow.

In the middle of November Art Richardson and Lamar Bell began to make plans for the Ranger Thanksgiving show, to draw the interest of the Woodlawn communiiy to the Black P. Stone

Youth Center. The floors were cleaned, spotlights were rented or borrowed, posters were distributed over the Woodlawn, Hyde Park, Oakland, and Kenwood areas. Then they went out into the black community to recruit talent.

On the Friday evening just before Thanksgiving the Blackstone Rangers presented their show. It was well attended, but the young people in the audience far outnumbered the adults. A fair contingent of whites from the university areas came, and a TV newsman also came to film the first part of the show. Some of them, the whites, looked puzzled as they tried to comprehend the significance of the mural on the left wall of the auditorium room.

All of those who had volunteered to perform kept their promise. Darlene Blackburn even put on a small fashion show of female African clothing. And although Youth Action provided the microphone and helped the Rangers transport chairs from the Saint Ambrose Church, the show, for the most part, was an independent Ranger accomplishment. Visitors to the Center were asked, but not required, to make a contribution. Raffle tickets for a Thanksgiving turkey were given in exchange for the contributions. The Rangers collected almost seventy dollars.

During the late afternoon and evening there was a steady flow of people in and out of the Center. The Rangers estimate that they had between 300 and 400 people in the Center during the event. The whites who came in the early evening left, almost in a group, when the major part of the show was over. Jeff Fort, Edward Bey, Mickey Cogwell, all in leather jackets, came with some of the other older Rangers, some of them new faces in the Center. They walked, almost nervously, back and forth between the office and the auditorium during most of the show, watching. Occasionally they conferred together at the back of the auditorium, and occasionally they called Art Richardson aside and whispered to him.

Late into the evening, the real Ranger show began.

"We want to present now some Stones who have been on nationwide television," the M. C. said.

"They've been on the Smothers Brothers. And they're here, back with us now: The Blackstone Singers!"

There were cries of Stone! Stone! from the young people in the audience. Most of the adults had already left.

"We haven't appeared much this year," the spokesman for the group began, "because of what went on in Washington, D.C., and because of what's going on with the Gang Intelligence Unit and with Uncle Toms and Aunt Sallys. And because of what Stones are like in the newspapers and radio and TV. We have not appeared."

The young people, who had been noisy all through the performance of a progressive jazz group some five or six minutes before, were silent as the spokesman finished his introduction. Then there were again cries of "Stone! Stone! Stone Run It!" And after the voices had subsided, the spokesman for the Blackstone Singers made the observation that: "They're in trouble, but we're together because Stone is going to run it!" Then he announced their first song, a variation of an old Temptations piece, rewritten by the Blackstone Singers. The song was called "You're in Trouble," and they asked everyone to sing along. Everyone did. The young people in the metal chairs, in the dark room, clapped their hands in time to the music and kept yelling "Stone! Stone!" or "Stone Run It!" during places in the song where they did not know the lyrics. The singing went on a long time.

When Jeff Fort moves around, people scatter to make connections with him. He is always moving. And when the word comes that he will eventually be at a certain place, a crowd of people—Rangers and non-Rangers alike—gather at that point to wait for him. He never arrives on time, but everyone waits. And when he does come, all activities and conversations and eyes stop moving and focus on him. Jeff Fort is a man completely aware of himself, and of what he represents. He is playful, full of laughter and good humor with his men. But there is a tenseness and a seriousness behind it all, and his men seem to guard their laughter and movements when he is about. It is obvious that each Ranger has great respect for him. Even the small boys, the "peewees," imitate his hairstyle and the way he walks.

Fort may call a single man aside to converse in secret, but one is aware that, somehow, he is always conscious of the movements of everyone else in the room. He had been aware of me, of my movements in and out of the Center, for over four months. It was necessary to have his permission to talk with the Rangers. Then, when the talking was done and the Rangers who had spoken had read in type what they had said to me, I waited, patiently like the others in the Center, for Jeff to give me a few minutes of his time.

"What future plans have you made for the Nation?" I asked him when he walked close to me.
"Did you rap to him, Bop?" he said to Lamar Bell:

"Yeah, Chief," Bell said.

"How is it?"

"It's cool, Chief."


"You got everything I have to say," Jeff said to me.

Perhaps one of the few white men who can claim to have some close associations with the Blackstone Rangers is Charles Lapaglia, the youth worker whom McClellan called to testify to certain allegations made against him and the First Presbyterian Church where he is employed. He lives in Hyde Park and is planning to write a book about the Ranger Nation. Lapaglia is not an easy man to talk to because, like Reverend Fry, he has been subjected to adverse publicity and is suspicious of people who take notes of what he says. But when he begins to talk, he can relate a wealth of detail about the Rangers.

On Christmas Eve, in his home on Kimbark Street, Charles Lapaglia begins to talk. He is frequently interrupted by telephone calls from merchants who have unsold Christmas trees they want the Rangers to distribute in the area. He allows me to read something about the Gang Intelligence Unit he has written. "For both black militants and police," the paper states, the issue of who runs it [the black community] is both conscious and immediate.

Traditionally, the black community has been controlled by white institutions who disguise the oppressive methods of control by their own institutional rhetoric. The black community has seen through the rhetoric and is attempting to escape oppression by those institutions by asserting their will to determine their own destiny. The order establishing the G.I.U. is the establishment's response to the black community's attempt to gain control of their own destiny. It gives the G.I.U. the direct authority to exercise political control in the black community. Its scope extends far beyond the generally accepted police functions of apprehending law violators. Nor is the intent primarily to control violence through aggressive police action. Its purpose is to maintain tight control over a potentially rebellious colony, and to eliminate all significant opposition. The order deals directly with who runs it. It gives the G.I.U. the power to determine what is good and bad for the community—what services should be subverted—what laws are to be enforced and what laws are to be ignored—what groups should exist and what groups should be destroyed.
Lapaglia claims that the alleged "raid" on the First Presbyterian Church and the firing of guns in the church vault by members of the G.I.U. were a publicity stunt. He maintains that the Treasury Department had asked the church to act as a repository for the Ranger weapons when. it began its attempt, after the riots in the summer of 1966, to decrease the level of gun ownership in ghettos all over the country. "In that gun affair," he says, "we were actually a third party in gun-collection activities between the police and the Treasury Department and the Rangers."

A few of the older Rangers hang around the Black P. Stone Youth Center. There are no children. Lamar Bell is there. He is upset because, he says, since the first of December, just after the Thanksgiving show, policemen from the Gang Intelligence Unit have come into the

Center at least six times. He says that they park in front of the building from time to time—four men in a car—or else they come in, searching for young boys or for certain of the Main leaders. Bell is worried about the new pop machine which the Center has acquired since the Thanksgiving show, and he says that the policemen have questioned him about it. Bell wants to go to Syracuse, New York, during the Christmas holidays to work with a band there and earn money, but he is reluctant to leave Carl Banks, who is not a union musician and who therefore cannot work with him. Jeff Fort is at home with his wife and two children on Christmas Eve. Some of the other Rangers are said to be out delivering baskets to the poor.

"They are quiet passing out Christmas baskets now," Marshall Patner told me. "At one time it was a famous thing. They solicited funds last year with a card that said 'Please Give to the Christmas Fund: Blackstone Rangers.' Some of them were arrested on an 1890 ordinance saying you can't solicit funds without disclosing the name of the organization. Their lawyer argued that signing 'Blackstone Rangers' was sufficient; The case was dismissed.

"In some areas the Rangers don't even want to take credit for the good that they do," Patner said. "They worry that it may be turned back on them."

Perhaps James Houtsma, a white, former Gang Intelligence Unit detective who gave damaging testimony against the Blackstone Rangers in Washington, was close to accurate in his assessment of the present dilemma of the group. "A lot of confusion is in their minds," he observed, "because of pressures on them from their affiliation with other groups. Organizations use them as guinea pigs in experimental projects and just brought them along too fast. They started as kids, but with all the pressures, they don't even know themselves now."

But again, perhaps the Rangers are now beginning to understand what they are, or better, the potentially creative power which they represent. Early this year Jeff Fort was invited, it is said by certain Illinois politicians, to attend one of the Inaugural Balls given for President Nixon in Washington. Characteristically, Fort did not go himself, but sent two of the Main leaders to represent the Blackstone Ranger Nation. One of the two men who dressed in tails and who mingled with political dignitaries was Mickey Cogwell. While Cogwell was having "a lovely time" at the Ball (as he later told Chicago reporters), detectives from the G.I.U. came to his house in Chicago to arrest him. After returning to Chicago, Cogwell was asked why the Rangers had accepted an invitation to celebrate the election of Richard Nixon, a man, it has been said, who did not actively court the black voter.

"We elected Nixon," Cogwell stated.

"What do you mean?" he was asked. "Do you mean that your 'Don't Vote' campaign helped him to beat Humphrey in Illinois?"

"No," said Mickey Cogwell, who talks very fast. "We are the ones who put crime in the streets."

This is Saishe speaking again:

Now you have some insight as to how the gang problem got it's "foot-hold" in Chicago. The carnage Chicago is experiencing now in the year 2013 was by design beginning in the 1960's--and African-American businessmen, preachers, police, and politicians--some of whom were/are [still] a part of it. And to this day in the year 2013[they] never rallied against the [new] devastating social order created in the early 1960's in Chicago that spreaded around the nation.

I'm just sharing, and I'm ashamed, saddened, sickened, and shocked beyond belief.

Saishe!

African-American Women's Economic Movement in USA

The Covenant:
A Paradigm Shift of Economic Behavior
Of African-American Women (Men and Children)
By Karen Sommerfield, Community/Political Activist
Chicago, IL karenks@sbcglobal.net

MISSION STATEMENT

The goal is to inspire African-American women to initiate a cohesive proactive strategy to improve the abysmal social and economic conditions that have virtually turned our communities into “killing fields.” The extreme and soaring level of poverty and despair, especially among our men and youth, demands our immediate action.

Our failure to effectively address the dangerous socio-economic issues/structures confronting us today guarantees a future for our children that will be far worse than our foremothers and forefathers ever experienced. In fact, we’re already there because our children are killing one another! How worse does it have to get before we act to help one another help our children? It cannot get any worse than our children killing us and one another.

Economic Summit of Minds
The first “question” is: Who must initiate key processes to effectively reconcile the spiraling/out-of-control economic and social devastation permeating the core of African-American’s societal existence?

The true answer: Us.

It is our responsibility to improve the ghastly social and staggering economic conditions among African-Americans, and there should be absolutely no vacillation in acknowledging our responsibility to do so. Starting right now we must collectively agree to be of “one-mind” with the same goal(s), and without further delay, develop/refine and implement “The Covenant.” Godspeed!

As women, we are definers of our destiny as demonstrated by our foremothers, and the finest among us—the economic and social engineers—who understand the complexities we face, and are quite capable of planning, implementing, and spearheading strategies to alleviate the saturating socio-economic degradation plaguing our communities must answer the “call” to step forward and take the lead in advocating and guiding our people on to a path of social tranquility and economic prosperity where our sons and daughters will and must become—in many areas—majority beneficiaries of our efforts and the billions of dollars that we contribute to America’s economy. It’s that simple.

It is our responsibility, as women, to rekindle the practices of our foremothers who courageously battled endless naysayers, oppressors, and degrading circumstances. Many of whom sacrificed their dignity and lives so that we—their descendants—could have opportunities to live far better lives than they ever imagined. We dropped the ball long time ago. But now we must pick it up and run with it so that our descendants will be granted the same opportunities provided to us through the struggles and victories of our foremothers. We must commit for the sake of our offspring, especially our sons—who desperately deserve unalienable rights to become responsible, self-reliant men who can and want to meet the challenges of supporting their families and raising their children. There should not ever be an instance where we are not willing to make that possible for them.

The Paradigm Shift of Economic Behavior
We must cease financing our economic oppression by largely changing how, where, and with/through whom we shop thereby transferring a great percentage of the “half-trillion-dollars+” we contribute to America’s economy to African-American owned businesses, [professional] service providers, and salespeople.

The second question is: How do we parlay our contributions to the economy to achieve meaningful and successful economic development, i.e., business and employment opportunities?

The only feasible answer right now is: Shifting our collective economic behavior in ways that will immediately contribute to the economic sustainment, expansion, and creation of African-American businesses, including immediately start utilizing [professional] service providers such as doctors, attorneys, accountants, tax preparers, investment advisers, insurance agents/brokers, salons, department store and car salesmen/women, lawn care/home repair contractors, etc. Only spend our money where African-Americans are employed--and when we spend our money, utilize African-American salespeople whether we are purchasing clothes, cars, appliances, homes, insurance, or whatever. Do not patronize restaurants or fast-food establishments that do not hire African-Americans--neighborhood, regional, or national chains.

A considerable portion of capital that African-American [small] business owners require to expand their products/services and create jobs can be derived via revenues generated by our consumerism—making those businesses more attractive to lending/investment institutions.

The people who own the entities where we currently spend our money enjoy the economic benefits of our patronage, i.e., create jobs for their people, ability to purchase whatever they require to live comfortably, have savings accounts, send their kids to the best schools, take vacations—all the things many of our people only dream about. We contribute handsomely to the economic upward mobility and sustainment of non-African Americans. The billions of dollars that we spend help create millions of jobs that our sons and daughters do not receive. Wake-up everybody!

We have to start making adjustments and sacrifices in every facet of our lives in order to improve the economic conditions of our people. In addition, our children mimic our economic behavior, and therefore we must change the manner in which we indoctrinate their economic behavior.

For example: Approximately 20 years ago, an Italian male Allstate insurance agent inherited my account from my African-American agent (Charles Henre' who left Allstate to join Aflac). Mr. Henre called to advise me accordingly and that he had been gone from Allstate for more than a year. He asked had I heard from his ex-partner from Allstate. Of course I had not. So I called Allstate (my home and car insurance provider) and shifted my account from the Italian agent to a female African-American Allstate agent by the name Cheryl Kirkland (now in South Holland, Illinois).

I shifted my account to her because my goal is and always will be to contribute to the economic upward mobility of my people; and Cheryl is providing jobs for African-Americans. This was a no-brainer economic decision. All of my friends and family did the same. We created a movement by successfully convincing many other African-Americans to shift there accounts to African-American agents with their insurance providers. These types of strategic economic shifts can make significant differences in the lives of millions of African-Americans who are struggling to make a living/stay in business and provide employment.

Many of us in Chicago use African-American lawn care contractors to give jobs to African-American men. It is imperative that we abandon advocating “black business/service providers are not reliable...it’s hard doing business with blacks…” Providing economic opportunities for our people should never “be hard.”

Most African-Americans around the nation use Hispanics for lawn care and home repairs—and none of them hire African-Americans. Yet far too many of us are okay with that while our sons and husbands lack jobs, and the basic requirements to sustain as a human-beings. Rather, millions of our fathers, sons, and husbands are forced into the life of vices because they lack jobs.

Daily—around the nation—our sons hopelessly drift/stand on street corners selling drugs/dodging bullets, robbing and killing us and our children—and we are burying them by the hundreds, monthly. This is maddening! Our children have an inherent right to be recipients of the wealth we generate [for others]in America. Personally, I am OUTRAGED about it. And I cannot wrap my senses around the fact that despite the fact that we spend trillions of dollars, we have hundreds-of-thousands of the most talented, intellectual, successful, audacious people in our race we simply refuse to unite to re-direct our economic strength to benefit our people. Around this very issue is where a paradigm shift must occur. We are socio-economically worse-off than any other race on earth.

Take a focused look at other races doing business in our communities, and you will recognize practiced economic indoctrinations in full play among whites, Hispanics, Koreans, Egyptians, Arabs, Indians, etc. and their refusal to hire our African-American sons and daughters. It’s happening every day throughout America—and we make it possible for them to succeed at it.

Next, take the time to visit any Hispanic community or other non-white ethnic communities, and I guarantee you will not find one African-American working in their neighborhood businesses—not one! This should be an “Aha!” moment for you, as well as a motivating factor to shift our money from them to/through us.

Again: Other races of people come from afar to open small businesses in our communities, positioning themselves to reap the receipts from our reckless-to-the-detriment-to-ourselves spending habits; and these people—99.9% of the time—do not hire from, shop or bank in our communities. Every dollar we spend with non-African-Americans leaves our communities—never to return. And what's even more disheartening than that is: We willing, with conditions take our money to them. We are the only race of people--ON EARTH-- that largely fail to indoctrinate our offspring with the concept of economically supporting our people first no matter what.

The third question is: When do we start?

The only logical answer is: Now! In order to achieve immediate and long-range economic success, we must not delay making an economic commitment to one another today. The economic paradigm shift must begin now.

Based on the economic strength of African-Americans and the combined trillons of dollars we spend, there should not be one African-American child lacking in the basics such as food, safe housing, and clothes; unemployed black men should be at a minimum; black children and young adults should be able to get jobs (summer and otherwise); black women and their families should be able to live comfortably, safely, and wherever we want to. But we are not in a position to do this, nor are we any where near being able to achieve this because despite the trillions of dollars we contribute to the wealthy living of other races of people, they do not extend the same economic considerations and opportunities to African-Americans—and neither do we.

Economics: The Institution of Racism
Among the sciences of economics and politics, which of the two sciences truly influence behavior (i.e., actions, conduct, deeds, activities, performance, manners)?

Do you know?

The answer is: Economics!

The science of economics is the primary behavior influence—no matter whose it is. Economic position or the lack there of influences what, when, where, how and how much a person, a people, a country, or any entity can do.

There are political scientists that argue the two sciences (economics and politics) are synonymous. They are not. Period!


Why do politicians spend hundreds of millions of dollars to be elected to [high] government offices?

Once again, it’s economics and the influence thereof. Politics is a paradigm by which economic factors are consigned.

What is the “driving” force of racism? Again, it’s economics.

We have spent immeasurable amounts of time being confused and upset about racism and race relations in America, not realizing there is a subtle difference between “race relations” and “racism.”

We (blacks, whites, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians, and others) formed a coalition that elected America’s first African-American President). So improving “race relations” is no longer a “real pressing issue” for us. Mind you: It was "economic" hope that galvanized the multi-racial/multi-cultural/multi-gender coalition to elect President Obama.

Racism: We'll never be able to cure racism. It is outside of our collective "Circle of Influence," and always will be. So our time and energy would be best utilized focusing on our real "Circle of Influence," i.e., an economic paradigm shift and upward mobility.

The real issue before us now is “economics” and the development thereof—not just for African-Americans, but for America as a whole. But more importantly is whether or not we—as African-Americans—are willing to cease economic behavior that has contributed to, and in most instances, kept us at a status of “the economically disadvantaged.”

We will never be able to truly cure racism, race relations, or sustain political gains unless we effectively address/take control/address our overall economic condition(s). If we take the time to understand that economics is the foundation of racism, and racism is “driven” by others’ fear of our economic potential, we would in fact put greater emphasis on economics rather than race and politics—which would ultimately guarantee us a “place at the table--any table: Economic, Political, Social.”

Awakening of the “Sleeping Economic Giant”
We are a “Sleeping Economic Giant”--an economic transformation waiting to happen. Non-African-Americans recognize this fact far better than we do. They fear that if the “Sleeping Economic Giant” is ever awakened, and we implement a massively coordinated and indoctrinated paradigm shift our money away from "their" businesses, services to African-Americans entities and individuals, the economic impact [on them] would be nothing sort of cataclysmic. And we would witness a change in "their" behavior(s). A strategy of this magnitude would be a scary global economic proposition.

The irrefutable foundation of entrenched institutionalized, white male dominated racism is their fear of our economic potential. The greatest fear of non-African-American men is African-American men attaining and sustaining economic parity because the latter’s economic salvation would result in the others’ economic sacrifice. By-in-large, this is the motivation of covert and overt racism, which serves to especially and disproportionately exclude our fathers, sons, and husbands from employment opportunities and access to capital to start/expand/sustain businesses. The black man’s economic salvation is the white man’s economic sacrifice.

Financing Our Own Oppression
We literally finance our own oppression via how, where, and with whom we spend our money—most of which (trillions of dollars) is not spent with African-American owned businesses or through African-American professional service providers and salespeople. If we are to truly improve our economic position in a “land of prosperity,” we must change our economic behavior, i.e., how, where, and with and through whom we spend our money.

According to Target Market News, and published by Ebony Magazine (May, 2012), Black America’s Half-Trillion-Dollar Consumer Market, we spend the following dollar amounts in America on:

Category/Spent Annually (Billions)
Food: $65.2B
Apparel Products & Services $29.3B
Cars & Trucks (new and used) $29.1B
Insurance $21.3B
Telephone Services $18.6B
Household Furnishings and Equipment $16.5B
Personal Products and Services $7.4B
Housewares $1.1B
Gifts $9.6B
Computers $3.6B
Consumer Electronics $6.1B
Travel, Transportation and Lodging $6B
Education $7.5B
Healthcare $23.6 B;
Housing and Related Charges $203.8B;
Media $8.8B
Miscellaneous $8.3B
Contributions $17.3

September 19, 2013 Nielsen Update of African-Americans' spending habits; and according to "Resilient, Receptive, and Relevant: The African-American Consumer 2013 Report' forecast black buying power will rise to $1.3 trillion by 2017, finding 53 percent of the nation's 43 million blacks currently are under the age of 35, with the black population growing 40 percent faster than the general market population. The study also found that blacks watch more TV than the general population, 37 percent more; read more financial magazines, 28 percent more; and surpass the general population in smartphone ownership--71 percent verse 62 percent.

"It also found that blacks make eight more shopping trips per year than the general population; purchase nine times more ethnic beauty and grooming products; and spend more than twice the time at personal websites than any other group.

"According to the report, 81 percent of black consumers believe products advertised in black media are more relevant to them."

This validates the theory of African-Americans being a sleeping economic giant, and decisively predicates that African-Americans implement a paradigm shift in our economic behavior to uplift of people for generations to come. What is so excruciatingly hideous about where, with, and through whom we trillions of dollars is that 90+ percent of the hundreds of billions of dollars we spend is not spent with or through African-Americans.

Given the magnitude of our “buying power,” it seems logical for us to begin spending our money with and through African-Americans.

The Paradigm Shift:
Support African-American businesses, sales and professional service providers whenever possible. When purchasing big ticket items such as homes, cars, appliance/furnishings, etc. by-pass the non-African-American salesperson and seek out the African-American salesperson and contribute to that individual’s [family] economic upward mobility. This is not “rocket-science.” This is common-sense economic behavior in practice—just like all other races of people do. This is an example of shifting our economic behavior to expand/create businesses and jobs to improve our overall economic conditions.

It is imperative that we spread and indoctrinate this paradigm shift if we are to save our race and uplift "the black man"--our fathers, sons, and husbands.

African-American Women's Economic Movement in USA

The Covenant:
A Paradigm Shift of Economic Behavior
Of African-American Women (Men and Children)
By Karen Sommerfield, Community/Political Activist
Chicago, IL karenks@sbcglobal.net

MISSION STATEMENT

The goal is to inspire African-American women to initiate a cohesive proactive strategy to improve the abysmal social and economic conditions that have virtually turned our communities into “killing fields.” The extreme and soaring level of poverty and despair, especially among our men and youth, demands our immediate action.

Our failure to effectively address the dangerous socio-economic issues/structures confronting us today guarantees a future for our children that will be far worse than our foremothers and forefathers ever experienced. In fact, we’re already there because our children are killing one another! How worse does it have to get before we act to help one another help our children? It cannot get any worse than our children killing us and one another.

Economic Summit of Minds
The first “question” is: Who must initiate key processes to effectively reconcile the spiraling/out-of-control economic and social devastation permeating the core of African-American’s societal existence?

The true answer: Us.

It is our responsibility to improve the ghastly social and staggering economic conditions among African-Americans, and there should be absolutely no vacillation in acknowledging our responsibility to do so. Starting right now we must collectively agree to be of “one-mind” with the same goal(s), and without further delay, develop/refine and implement “The Covenant.” Godspeed!

As women, we are definers of our destiny as demonstrated by our foremothers, and the finest among us—the economic and social engineers—who understand the complexities we face, and are quite capable of planning, implementing, and spearheading strategies to alleviate the saturating socio-economic degradation plaguing our communities must answer the “call” to step forward and take the lead in advocating and guiding our people on to a path of social tranquility and economic prosperity where our sons and daughters will and must become—in many areas—majority beneficiaries of our efforts and the billions of dollars that we contribute to America’s economy. It’s that simple.

It is our responsibility, as women, to rekindle the practices of our foremothers who courageously battled endless naysayers, oppressors, and degrading circumstances. Many of whom sacrificed their dignity and lives so that we—their descendants—could have opportunities to live far better lives than they ever imagined. We dropped the ball long time ago. But now we must pick it up and run with it so that our descendants will be granted the same opportunities provided to us through the struggles and victories of our foremothers. We must commit for the sake of our offspring, especially our sons—who desperately deserve unalienable rights to become responsible, self-reliant men who can and want to meet the challenges of supporting their families and raising their children. There should not ever be an instance where we are not willing to make that possible for them.

The Paradigm Shift of Economic Behavior
We must cease financing our economic oppression by largely changing how, where, and with/through whom we shop thereby transferring a great percentage of the “half-trillion-dollars+” we contribute to America’s economy to African-American owned businesses, [professional] service providers, and salespeople.

The second question is: How do we parlay our contributions to the economy to achieve meaningful and successful economic development, i.e., business and employment opportunities?

The only feasible answer right now is: Shifting our collective economic behavior in ways that will immediately contribute to the economic sustainment, expansion, and creation of African-American businesses, including immediately start utilizing [professional] service providers such as doctors, attorneys, accountants, tax preparers, investment advisers, insurance agents/brokers, salons, department store and car salesmen/women, lawn care/home repair contractors, etc. Only spend our money where African-Americans are employed--and when we spend our money, utilize African-American salespeople whether we are purchasing clothes, cars, appliances, homes, insurance, or whatever. Do not patronize restaurants or fast-food establishments that do not hire African-Americans--neighborhood, regional, or national chains.

A considerable portion of capital that African-American [small] business owners require to expand their products/services and create jobs can be derived via revenues generated by our consumerism—making those businesses more attractive to lending/investment institutions.

The people who own the entities where we currently spend our money enjoy the economic benefits of our patronage, i.e., create jobs for their people, ability to purchase whatever they require to live comfortably, have savings accounts, send their kids to the best schools, take vacations—all the things many of our people only dream about. We contribute handsomely to the economic upward mobility and sustainment of non-African Americans. The billions of dollars that we spend help create millions of jobs that our sons and daughters do not receive. Wake-up everybody!

We have to start making adjustments and sacrifices in every facet of our lives in order to improve the economic conditions of our people. In addition, our children mimic our economic behavior, and therefore we must change the manner in which we indoctrinate their economic behavior.

For example: Approximately 20 years ago, an Italian male Allstate insurance agent inherited my account from my African-American agent (Charles Henre who left Allstate to join Aflac). Mr. Henre called to advise me accordingly and that he had been gone from Allstate for more than a year. He asked had I heard from his ex-partner from Allstate. Of course I had not. So I called Allstate (my home and car insurance provider) and shifted my account from the Italian agent to a female African-American Allstate agent by the name Cheryl Kirkland (now in South Holland, Illinois). I shifted my account to her because my goal is and always will be to contribute to the economic upward mobility of my people; and Cheryl is providing jobs for African-Americans. This was a no-brainer economic decision. All of my friends and family did the same. We created a movement by successfully convincing many other African-Americans to shift there accounts to African-American agents with their insurance providers. These types of strategic economic shifts can make significant differences in the lives of millions of African-Americans who are struggling to make a living/stay in business and provide employment.

Many of us in Chicago use African-American lawn care contractors to give jobs to African-American men. It is imperative that we abandon advocating “black business/service providers are not reliable...it’s hard doing business with blacks…” Providing economic opportunities for our people should never “be hard.”

Most African-Americans around the nation use Hispanics for lawn care and home repairs—and none of them hire African-Americans. Yet far too many of us are okay with that while our sons and husbands lack jobs, and the basic requirements to sustain as human-beings. Rather, millions of our fathers, sons, and husbands are forced into the life of vices because they lack jobs.

Daily—around the nation—our sons hopelessly drift/stand on street corners selling drugs/dodging bullets, robbing and killing us and our children—and we are burying them by the hundreds, monthly. This is maddening! Our children have an inherent right to be recipients of the wealth we generate [for others] in America. Personally, I am OUTRAGED about it. And I cannot wrap my senses around the fact that despite the fact that we spend trillions of dollars, we have hundreds-of-thousands of the most talented, intellectual, successful, audacious people in our race we simply refuse to unite to re-direct our economic strength to benefit our people. Around this very issue is where a paradigm shift must occur. We are socio-economically worse-off than any other race on earth.

Take a focused look at other races doing business in our communities, and you will recognize practiced economic indoctrinations in full play among whites, Hispanics, Koreans, Egyptians, Arabs, Indians, etc. and their refusal to hire our African-American sons and daughters. It’s happening every day throughout America—and we make it possible for them to succeed at it.

Next, take the time to visit any Hispanic community or other non-white ethnic communities, and I guarantee you will not find one African-American working in their neighborhood businesses—not one! This should be an “Aha!” moment for you, as well as a motivating factor to shift our money from them to/through us.

Again: Other races of people come from afar to open small businesses in our communities, positioning themselves to reap the receipts from our reckless-to-the-detriment-to-ourselves spending habits; and these people—99.9% of the time—do not hire from, shop or bank in our communities. Every dollar we spend with non-African-Americans leaves our communities—never to return. And what's even more disheartening than that is: We willing, with conditions take our money to them. We are the only race of people--ON EARTH-- that largely fail to indoctrinate our offspring with the concept of economically supporting our people first no matter what.

The third question is: When do we start?

The only logical answer is: Now! In order to achieve immediate and long-range economic success, we must not delay making an economic commitment to one another today. The economic paradigm shift must begin now.

Based on the economic strength of African-Americans and the combined trillions of dollars we spend, there should not be one African-American child lacking in the basics such as food, safe housing, and clothes; unemployed black men should be at a minimum; black children and young adults should be able to get jobs (summer and otherwise); black women and their families should be able to live comfortably, safely, and wherever we want to. But we are not in a position to do this, nor are we any where near being able to achieve this because despite the trillions of dollars we contribute to the wealthy living of other races of people, they do not extend the same economic considerations and opportunities to African-Americans—and neither do we.

Economics: The Institution of Racism
Among the sciences of economics and politics, which of the two sciences truly influence behavior (i.e., actions, conduct, deeds, activities, performance, manners)?

Do you know?

The answer is: Economics!

The science of economics is the primary behavior influence—no matter whose it is. Economic position or the lack there of influences what, when, where, how and how much a person, a people, a country, or any entity can do.

There are political scientists that argue the two sciences (economics and politics) are synonymous. They are not. Period!


Why do politicians spend hundreds of millions of dollars to be elected to [high] government offices?

Once again, it’s economics and the influence thereof. Politics is a paradigm by which economic factors are consigned.

What is the “driving” force of racism? Again, it’s economics.

We have spent immeasurable amounts of time being confused and upset about racism and race relations in America, not realizing there is a subtle difference between “race relations” and “racism.”

We (blacks, whites, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians, and others) formed a coalition that elected America’s first African-American President). So improving “race relations” is no longer a “real pressing issue” for us. Mind you: It was "economic" hope that galvanized the multi-racial/multi-cultural/multi-gender coalition to elect President Obama.

Racism: We'll never be able to cure racism. It is outside of our collective "Circle of Influence," and always will be. So our time and energy would be best utilized focusing on our real "Circle of Influence," i.e., an economic paradigm shift and upward mobility.

The real issue before us now is “economics” and the development thereof—not just for African-Americans, but for America as a whole. But more importantly is whether or not we—as African-Americans—are willing to cease economic behavior that has contributed to, and in most instances, kept us at a status of “the economically disadvantaged.”

We will never be able to truly cure racism, race relations, or sustain political gains unless we effectively address/take control/address our overall economic condition(s). If we take the time to understand that economics is the foundation of racism, and racism is “driven” by others’ fear of our economic potential, we would in fact put greater emphasis on economics rather than race and politics—which would ultimately guarantee us a “place at the table--any table: Economic, Political, Social.”

Awakening of the “Sleeping Economic Giant”
We are a “Sleeping Economic Giant”--an economic transformation waiting to happen. Non-African-Americans recognize this fact far better than we do. They fear that if the “Sleeping Economic Giant” is ever awakened, and we implement a massively coordinated and indoctrinated paradigm shift our money away from "their" businesses, services to African-Americans entities and individuals, the economic impact [on them] would be nothing sort of cataclysmic. And we would witness a change in "their" behavior(s). A strategy of this magnitude would be a scary global economic proposition.

The irrefutable foundation of entrenched institutionalized, white male dominated racism is their fear of our economic potential. The greatest fear of non-African-American men is African-American men attaining and sustaining economic parity because the latter’s economic salvation would result in the others’ economic sacrifice. By-in-large, this is the motivation of covert and overt racism, which serves to especially and disproportionately exclude our fathers, sons, and husbands from employment opportunities and access to capital to start/expand/sustain businesses. The black man’s economic salvation is the white man’s economic sacrifice.

Financing Our Own Oppression
We literally finance our own oppression via how, where, and with whom we spend our money—most of which (trillions of dollars) is not spent with African-American owned businesses or through African-American professional service providers and salespeople. If we are to truly improve our economic position in a “land of prosperity,” we must change our economic behavior, i.e., how, where, and with and through whom we spend our money.

According to Target Market News, and published by Ebony Magazine (May, 2012), Black America’s Half-Trillion-Dollar Consumer Market, we spend the following dollar amounts in America on:

Category/Spent Annually (Billions)
Food: $65.2B
Apparel Products Services $29.3B
Cars & Trucks (new and used) $29.1B
Insurance $21.3B
Telephone Services $18.6B
Household Furnishings and Equipment $16.5B
Personal Products and Services $7.4B
Housewares $1.1B
Gifts $9.6B
Computers $3.6B
Consumer Electronics $6.1B
Travel, Transportation and Lodging $6B
Education $7.5B
Healthcare $23.6 B;
Housing and Related Charges $203.8B;
Media $8.8B
Miscellaneous $8.3B
Contributions $17.3

September 19, 2013 Nielsen Update of African-Americans' spending habits; and according to "Resilient, Receptive, and Relevant: The African-American Consumer 2013 Report' forecast black buying power will rise to $1.3 trillion by 2017, finding 53 percent of the nation's 43 million blacks currently are under the age of 35, with the black population growing 40 percent faster than the general market population. The study also found that blacks watch more TV than the general population, 37 percent more; read more financial magazines, 28 percent more; and surpass the general population in smartphone ownership--71 percent verse 62 percent.

"It also found that blacks make eight more shopping trips per year than the general population; purchase nine times more ethnic beauty and grooming products; and spend more than twice the time at personal websites than any other group.

"According to the report, 81 percent of black consumers believe products advertised in black media are more relevant to them."

This validates the theory of African-Americans being a sleeping economic giant, and decisively predicates that African-Americans implement a paradigm shift in our economic behavior to uplift of people for generations to come. What is so excruciatingly hideous about where, with, and through whom we trillions of dollars is that 90+ percent of the hundreds of billions of dollars we spend is not spent with or through African-Americans.


Given the magnitude of our “buying power,” it seems logical for us to begin spending our money with and through African-Americans.

Implementation of the Paradigm Shift:
Support African-American businesses, sales and professional service providers whenever possible. When purchasing big ticket items such as homes, cars, appliance/furnishings, etc. by-pass the non-African-American salesperson and seek out the African-American salesperson and contribute to that individual’s [family] economic upward mobility. This is not “rocket-science.” This is common-sense economic behavior in practice—just like all other races of people do. This is an example of shifting our economic behavior to expand/create businesses and jobs to improve our overall economic conditions.

It is imperative that we spread and indoctrinate this paradigm shift if we are to save our race and uplift "the black man"--our fathers, sons, and husbands.

From A Dog, I Learned Discipline, Humility & Love Renewed

That's right! I learned discipline and humility from a dog--a black labrador retriever.

During a time in my life, when I was questioning my faith and whether or not being a kind, loving, and generous person was the right way to be with people (because I was constantly being hurt by peoples' disregard for genuine caring and assistance), God sent a beautiful homeless 14-month old black Labrador Retriever to my front yard.

He came into my life immediately after I recognized that I had become resentful, mean-spirited, totally out-of-character, and loving the effectiveness of people backing-up off of me with their ungrateful, evil, and high-altitude attitudes. I started falling backwards into an abyss of sharp-tongued annihilation, even feeling hatred for certain people, places, and things. I began waiting on moments to swash-buckle my boss who was an arrogant demon--and I enjoyed every second of doing verbal battle with him. I would go as far as to invite him to terminate me. I sought-out the worst-of-the-worst to give them a taste of their own medicine--and it wasn't nice. Certain situations got so intense that I even called the police on myself. I had reached a point in my life of believing that everything about mankind and family was not good because no matter how kind and patient I was, I was constantly kicked in the heart and head, and otherwise mentally and emotionally beat-down. I gave up and started fighting back.

At the time the black labrador retriever came into my life, I had a 6-week old German Shepherd puppy, and early (6:00 a.m.) one morning, I was out in front of my house training him. He was a smart little puppy, but extremely independent. He constantly pranced, high-stepping and kicking like a show horse--he was definitely an alpha male puppy. I had my back to the street and my puppy was facing me. Suddenly he became distracted. Then I felt something bump me--ever so lightly--dead center of my butt. I slightly glanced over my left shoulder; saw something big and shiny black; and me and my puppy took off running. I ran for one solid block, never looking back, praying that whatever that was wasn't chasing us. Finally, I looked back and nothing was there.

I walked to a park near home, where we stayed for about an hour. When I returned home and as we approached, I saw a big black dog laying on my lawn near the front steps. My heart raced when he stood-up. I stopped. He paused just looking at me, swishing his tail from side-to-side; then it started moving in a circular motion. His ears went forward and he cocked his head to the left as if he was wondering why I was scared. I had just moved into my home and did not know any of my neighbors. I panicked not knowing what to do. After about a 30 to 40-minute stand-off, I got the nerve to knock on a neighbors door who called my husband for me and asked him to open the back door so I could get in the house out of range of the dog.

My husband opened the back gate, and as I (and my neighbor, Mr. Mayes) moved towards the gate, the black lab moved with us. Then he looked up and saw my husband and his tail went berserkly in 360-rotation--his whole back-end was wagging. We could tell he was happy, but my husband ran and slammed the gate closed. With my puppy tucked in my bra, me and Mr. Mayes climbed a van parked across the alley from my back gate. We were out-of-control laughing because the black lab was standing at the gate working his head inquisitively while whipping his tail waiting for my husband to open the gate.

My husband went to the front yard and called the dog--who dashed to the front yard--and I leaped from the van and ran into the back yard.


This dog stayed in front of my house all day. He would get up to chase people. My husband would go out front and call him back to get him to stop chasing people--walking, on bikes, or getting in and out of their cars. I called animal control all day. It was a hot August day and we knew the dog needed help, but he was so big and tall, we were afraid of him, especially after he started chasing people. Each time he chased somebody, he always returned to my front lawn and laid down--this went on all day. At one point, when my husband had to leave home, he waited until the dog chased somebody then he ran to his car.

By 5:00 p.m., I called the police because my husband had left home, and I didn't know what this dog would do. He had been lounging on the lawn and chasing people all day.

The police arrived and tried to lure him into a squad car. The dog started running back and forth from the police. He came back to my front yard every time. Then a policeman asked me to give him some water and food. I filled a quart-pot with water and gave the policeman a Subway turkey sandwich. The dog drank two quarts pot of water then gobbled down the sandwich. By now, about 5 squad cars had arrived and blocked off the streets in all directions because they thought he'd really start running after he got food and water. (Neighbors were everywhere.)

A few minutes later, my husband drove up. The dog ran straight-away to my husband; sat at attention at his feet for about 5 seconds; jumped him licking him to the ground. It was a Kodak moment.

A policewoman asked my husband to cokes him into getting into the squad car. My husband slid into the car and called to the dog. The dog cocked his head to the left, swirled around, and ran straight to me, and I ran straight into the arms of the closest policeman. The dog skidded to a halt. He was a thinking dog; very strategic.

A policeman stated to my husband: He's made his decision. You got yourself dog. Let's put in your yard. As soon as the policeman said that, the dog sat down close to me and the policeman who I was hiding behind, allowing the other officer to grab him by the flea collar he was wearing and lead him to my back yard.

Right away, I noticed that the dog was gorgeous. His coat was jet-black, swirled close-cropped hair. He was shiny--simply elegant. Very well-behaved; a very loving dog; and he was very patient and loving with my puppy--who was trying to bite his throat out as soon as he moved into the yard.

My yard was full of police and neighbors, and everybody wanted him. I informed everyone I would try to locate the owner. Everyone left.

Then, about 30 minutes later, policemen in all types of vehicles--marked/unmarked cars, uniform and plain clothes; paramedics in ambulances, and even a couple fire trucks showed up at the front-door and back yard. When we got outside, a female paramedic by the name of Collette was parked next to my six-foot fence standing atop her ambulance talking to the dog--and he was standing there listening to her. The policemen, paramedics, and firemen that were at the front door ran to the back yard--all of them shouting they wanted the dog if we didn't. It was a circus. There were so many law enforcement and first-responders at my house, Leroy Martin, Chicago's Superintendent of Police [at the time] who lived around the corner from me, showed up to see what was going on.

As I opened the back gate for everybody--approximtely 25-30 people, Collette jumped from atop the ambulance over the fence into the yard announcing she was in vetenarian school, asking if she could examine him.

The dog greeted her and every single person in the yard very lovingly. The dog was especially friendly with all the males--responding to any command given him by anybody. The dog was well-trained to voice and hand signals.

Collette commanded him to lay and roll-over onto his side. The dog complied. She gloved-up and began examining him: Mouth, teeth, paws, belly, skin, rectum, penis, ears, eyes, etc.--and the dog allowed all of it. After the 20-minute exam, Collette announced the dog was in excellent health, as well as sporting a pedicure. She cried while begging us for him. Several policemen offered to pay us to mate him with other pure labs. Others offered as much as $1,500.00 for the dog. We were overwhelmed with request.

Over the following 3 weeks, contacted a vetenarian clinics, and all reported after several days that all their owners of black labs had not lost their dog. And every day for 3 weeks, Collette visited the dog. She really wanted him. But also over that 3-week period, the dog grew on me. He was so well-behaved and had the patience of a saint with my puppy who was trying to kill him.

My new black lab walked around almost every minute of the day with a puppy hanging from his throat--twisting and turning until he got tired and dropped to the floor or ground. My puppy would bite him. Kick his food and water over. Attack! Attack! Attack! But my new dog never laid a tooth or paw on him. Rather, he would lick my puppy to calm him down or lick him until he fell asleep.

By the second week of having him, I recognized my new dog was an extremely humble and tolerant a dog. His loving ways constantly reduced me to tears. Then one night, I was looking at him and he was looking at me. I said to him: "You're my new baby. God sent you to me, didn't he?" He rose up onto my lap and placed him huge head on my chest, and started making a throaty sound as though he was answering me in the affirmative. I said to him: "Now I know why you wouldn't go with the police." Then he licked me like crazy.

By week-three, Collette asked again to take possession of him. But by now, my husband made it clear he was keeping the dog.

Over the next several weeks, I noticed the dog remained consistently loving and tolerant of my puppy. He was very disciplined, well-trained to a science--he understood everything. He even created his own job: Sniffing every inch of my car whenever I returned home. When he was done, he wanted to be paid with a treat. He waited for our elderly neighbor to arrive home from work around 11:00 p.m. (She worked at Walgreens.) He would announce her arrival and demanded that we let him out so that he could escort her to her door--every night! So that he could see her in her yard without obstruction, he tore-out the top half of a plank of wood dead-center of the fence so that he could see her and she could touch him--and nobody was permitted to be in her yard or touch her garbage can except her. He would snap on us if we entered her yard or touched her garbage can.

In fact, the dog tore out planks of wood from the fence in every direction so that he could see outside the yard. When my husband repaired the fence in each direction, the dog removed the new planks and put them on the patio. He acted more like a person than a dog.

I, without a doubt, knew God sent him to me to restore my faith, and to teach me discipline and humility. He renewed/restored my natural ability to love. He taught me many things over the course of 14.5 years he was with me. He lived far beyond the life-span of a Labrador Retriever, and he remained true to his nature: The epitome of love, discipline, humility, tolerance, and a fierce protector.

In previous postings, I've already shared how I used "love" to help change my mother's abusive ways; and how I used "love" to reach and teach troubled kids in my life. Now I going to share with you how I used "love" to capture the trust and eventual "love" of my current German Shepherd that I adopted from the Anti-Cruelty Society ("ACS").

In December, 2010 I was cruising the ACS website, shopping for a puppy as I was ready for another dog after my labrador and sheperd two died in 2007 and 2008, respectively. They were both 14.5 years old when they died.

While cruising looking at many different dogs, I came across a picture/profile of a 6-month old German Shepherd named "Camila." She was plastered in a corner of her kennel with an expression on her face that shouted: "Oh no! Please don't hurt me. I'm so scared." And the caption under her picture read: "This is Camila. She recently came to us as an abused animal. While she is sweet, she is shy and does not trust anyone. But we believe an ideal loving home would be great for her." Her eyes beckoned me.

It was a cold and snowy Friday evening, but that didn't stop me from going to get her.

When I arrived, she was still available. She was terrified of me; thin as a pencil; and her coat was dull and drier than a power house.

We started the paperwork immediately. When the associate asked me what her new name would be, we both said at the same time "Rendy"--that was amazing to us. She actually read my mind. We laughed and agreed on the name. But, I couldn't take her home until the following Monday because she had to be spaded.

I picked her up that following Monday. When I got her home. She instantly could smell the scent of my previous dogs, and her terror intensified. She was afraid of everything, including sounds.

My family looked at one another, then at me, but they didn't say anything to me about her. But I knew what they were thinking: "Why in the hell would you go get a dog like this?" We all laugh about it now, and they all confirmed that that is exactly what they were thinking when I brought her home, but did not want to hurt my feelings.

For months that followed, I constantly talked to her. I showered her with lots of love, rubbed and hugged her endlessly each time learned a new command. Finally, she began to trust us, especially me. Now, she's still a little skittish, but trusting. She's a great watchdog, and most importantly, she is a prissy, loving diva who demonstrates "love." She even offers to share a treats with anyone. She's another example of "Love can fix it."

If you ever wonder[ed] why your parent(s), your spouse, or a friend never tell you or show you that they love you, perhaps it is due to the fact that they never experienced/received love and affection themselves. A person cannot give that which they have not received.

If you are familiar with "love," share it. All of us need it.

Stay strong! Love long!

Love, Saishe! Holla-back!

If You're the Wiser: The Burden Rest With You To Do Right

When you're the wiser, the burden rest with you to do the right thing. This is what my father constantly preached. Adeptly, what he meant was: No matter how wrong the other person/entity is during heated moments or moments during which rationale discourse isn't attainable, and you know better as to how the situation should be handled, or you have sufficient facts that could possibly quell [the emotionally-charged] situation, it is your responsibility to take-low, stand-down, be patient, and tolerant enough to add a positive spin to achieve peace and harmony. Even when your feelings have been clobbered the burden rest with you to do/say the right thing or whatever is required to fix a situation. (I know: It's tough until you get the hang of it. I use to always say damn before I ventured to do or say what was right for the moment. Now that I have perfected getting my ass kicked without reacting, I no longer have a need to say damn beforehand. I'm now like Nike: I just do it! Naturally!)

During my hot-headed youth, such wisdom did not rest well with me because my natural reaction was to challenge evil, be blunt about it, psychologically destroy the enemy, and otherwise have zero tolerance for ignorance (one not knowing what's expected of them to know). Boy, oh boy! Back then, I just could not understand the extent and weightiness of my father's wisdom. I deemed him to be a punk about certain situation. But of course I was immature and wrong about most things.

My father, on numerous occasions, conveyed to us--even had us to write essays over-and-over again about the following advise until we grasped the essence of what he was telling us.

He would say: "The only thing you will ever truly own is your integrity. The only thing you will ever be able to completely control is your mouth. And there are no words that should ever entice or invite your temper to rear its ugly self to argue or fight. The sole issue for which you should engage an uprising for is your integrity because it is all you will ever own, and it is structured by how you live your life. Act good; do good; and praise good. Your integrity is your legacy and it is the only thing you must protect besides your physical-self. I first encourgage you to walk away/run if necessary--if you can--in defense of your physical-self; and provide proof in defense of your integrity--nothing more is required; nothing less is to be accepted.

"If you fail to control what comes out of your mouth, or your attempts to control others and situations can make you a ghost. Words create wars. Words anger and destroy. Words are dangerous because they maim the heart, mind, and spirit; and once they're unleashed you can never retrieve or erase them. Trying to control someone or something is stressful harmfully so and can cause strokes, heart-attacks, or provoke unintended consequences that could prove to be deadly. Either way: Not controlling your mouth or trying to control someone/something that you absolutely cannot and do not control can turn you into a ghost--in an instant."

Now that I am older and wiser, my father's wisdom--to this day/to this very second--humbes me. I carry his countless words of wisdom like a badge of honor, and often refer/utilize them in my everyday life experiences. Reaching back and latching on to his wisdom gives me peace, strength, and courage to keep it moving, while ignoring and dodging the scorns of life.

Decades ago, I abandoned my attack method of communicating or dealing with the evil, not-so-wise, or menacing individuals and situations. Rather, I now employ a tactic that my father use to frequently joke about--and made us laugh heartedly every time he said it. He would say: "When they come after you, for aero-dynamic affect, lower your neck, tuck your head between your shoulder blades and run like hell ducking and weaving in a serpentine fashion, and keep running and never look back because looking back kills the aero-dynamics of your get-away by slowing you down." Now, I do exactly that--figuratively.

In retrospect, me and my siblings could not stand it whenever our father cornered us to lecture us about conduct and life, especially when he showed up with pencils and paper. If we demonstrated any semblance of boredom or intolerance, he reached down and smacked us without ever skipping a syllable in his unyielding commentary. He would go on for hours--honestly! Hours!. Whenever our friends showed up, they were held captive and made to listen and participate. They quickly learned my father's body language and tone to know when one of his life-lessons was about to begin, and they made all kinds of excuses to leave--each one invoking what their mother said they had to do. But over the many decades since my childhood, many of our friends recalled the wisdom my father forced upon them, and how it helps them navigate life's sometimes rugged terrain.

I encourage you to impart my father's shared wisdom on your children, family, friends, and perhaps yourself. It works! Take it from a former hot-head who believed I had to verbally and psychologically fight for the world.

Saishe!

The Arrogant Prey on the Humble

Over the course of my life, I've been a "watcher" of interactions among human-beings. And based on my observations and experience it is innate of humans to demonstate a profound disrespect for humility.

My foremothers were all practitioners of "do unto others as you will have them do unto you (treat others like you want to be treated)." We were taught to never be arrogant because being arrogant in itself is disdainful and incendiary.

In observing human behavior from the sidelines of life, I noticed that in many instances that no matter how kind a person is to, considerate of, and/or patient with a scornfully arrogant (egotistical, conceited, haughty, superior, self-important, condescending, supercilious, disdainful, belittling, demeaning, egocentric, insensitive, careless of the feelings of others, inconsiderate, self-aggrandizing) individual, the arrogant individual presents as wholly intolerant and derisive of the good-natured person. I was pepetually baffled by such behavior until I began observing animals (the "law of the jungle").

Among animals, I noticed that if a humble, fearful, sick, old, weak, or injured animal failed to defend itself, its honor or position, it was disrespected, abused, or inevitably eradicated. And this is very much true as to how an arrogant individual behaves.

To the arrogant individual you are "weak" if you are humble and respectful. And is there better prey than the "humble?" No! There is none. A humble is a "feast" for the arrogant.

There is absolutely no reasoning with an arrogant individual. At all times, they must have someone to victimize in order to feed their narcissism. They are never wrong about anything. Rather, it is you who "made the mistake(s)...misunderstood what was said/failed to listen...cannot do/get it right...causes [all] the arguments...caused them to hurt/disrespect you, etc." And if you attempt to refute them in any manner or defend yourself against their scornful and incendiary accusations and remarks, they will make it an occupation to hurt and destroy you in a public manner--the more witnesses, the better. Believe me. I know. I've been a fight-back-at-any-cost victim of an arrogant individual.

The arrogant individual will hate you for having the wisdom and courage to tell them about their disparagement of you and/or others, or when they are wrong about something because to them they inherently do not make mistakes. They will repeatedly bring-up everything they ever thought you did stupid, wrong, or otherwise, and will never admit to the errors of their ways--or any character flaws they have. They honestly believe hurting you is helping "you see yourself for who you really are." They pretend there is nothing good about you, and will give you point-and-case, even going as far as to make-up situations/instances. And for Godsakes, to be in the crosshairs of an arrogant individual who is a pathological liar is an experience that is diabolical and life-changing in a not-go-good kind of way.

The arrogant individual is [sociopathic] cold, insensitive, and incapable of showing feelings towards others, but demand that you be sensitive to their demands while being humble and showing them that you revere them. No matter how often they are cruel to you, they expect you to endure it without rebelling or so much as "talking back to them;" and if you say anything in your defense, they accuse you of being confrontational and uncooperative.

They are experts a "flipping the script," i.e., after they, without provocation cause a scene, start a verbal or physical fight, or are heart-stopping insulting, they will try to convince you that you are the perpatrator, you caused the situation to happen when in reality, you said nothing or did nothing--you were just simply there as an unwilling victim of what occurred.

The arrogant individual will badger you with excruciating verbal abuse until they make you cry, run away, or [want to] physically attack. They "grandstand" and get an ardenaline-rush from verbally and emotionally vilifying their victim(s). And they never apologize for the horrid things they do and say--and you better not ever bring them up in the future. And they never remember any of the disgusting and unforgivable things they do and say--yet they remember every detail that ever made-up about you.

Please note that the possibility of the arrogant individual changing his/her demeaning ways is slim-to-none. However, over the course of my life, I've witnessed near-death experiences humble the arrogant and strengten the weak.

Just sharing!

Love, Saishe!

A Girl Abused: A Woman Lost Forever

Let me tell you a story about a girl I know.

As a young girl, she was very smart— a “STRAIGHT-A” student; very pretty and very out going.

In the beginning, she did everything her mother asked her to do—never waivered. Unfortunately, she looked just like her father [whom the mother hated with a passion], in concert, the girl possessed all of his traits—the good and the bad.

She was a person anchored in emotion, looking for someone who truly loved her—looking for the love she believed she should receive from the woman who birthed her. This girl started lying about little, insignificant things. She lied to her mother because first and foremost, she feared her mother because her mother constantly called her horrible names and would beat her violently for the slightest infraction or for no reason at all, or simply because she was angry about something or at someone else.

When the girl got to the age of 12 or so, the berating and emotional damage that had been heaped upon her had solidified, manifested, and infused her heart, mind, and soul; and therefore, she begin to lie [more and more] thinking lies would save her from being berated and abused, not knowing that her mother was far more experienced at life, and naturally knew when she was being lied to.

The girl began to feel hopeless. Her grades began to suffer. Like never before, she started staying away from home; attempted to run away; sought refuge and comfort among people she thought cared more about her.

Later in her life—say her late teen/early twenty-something years—she started drinking heavily, trying to drown-out the emotional pain caused by the abusive language and physical assaults about the head, face, and body—not understanding that her lies, in most cases, contributed to the hard-core abuse inflicted upon her.

The only aspect of life she clung to was the abuse itself—IT WAS UNIMAGINABLE TO HER THAT HER MOTHER COULD HURT HER SO READILY AND DEEPLY WITHOUT CONSICIOUS. At times, the abuse would be so horrific that her sisters would intercede to get their mother off of her and switch the beating from her to them—they would take beatings for their emotionally/physically abused sister because they understood that their mother had zero tolerance for her daughter’s lies and was enraged by blind anger because of her own abusive up-bringing. The girl’s mother did not know how to guide her daughter towards the truth, nor could she see the permanent damage she had done to this girl long before the girl started telling lies.

After getting married and leaving home at an early age, and having children, the girl started doing drugs, drinking more, constantly running from one affair to another looking for the emotional support/love she so desperately craved. She became the same type of abuser as her mother, i.e., she verbally abused her children whenever she became angry at them or anybody else. She beat and berated them, all the while lost within herself because she had been stripped of her self-esteem decades prior. She had been subjected to such profound verbal and physical humiliation that she eventually suffered a mental breakdown, enhanced by the use of drugs and alcohol. Her whole understanding of life had been scarred by a mother who was doing her best to provide, but was otherwise destructively abusive.

To this date, that girl [woman] is a mentally scarred mess caused mostly by verbal assaults, accented by physical abuse from the one person she thought could/should never do that to her. That girl is my sister.

Chicago Sun-Times Reporter Mary Mitchell Should Be Ashamed Re: President Obama

The day after President Obama was re-elected to office (11/07/2012) I read an article written by Chicago Sun-Times newspaper reporter Mary Mitchell and the caption read: “Will Obama do more for African Americans?” I started not to read it because I knew it would be a complaint about our dreadful conditions, and a query as to what [he] is going to do about it. But I read it any way.

Mary went to say in her article “…Yet in urban areas, too many children are still getting killed. Too many fathers are still trying to make a living selling drugs on the corner. Too many mothers still worry more about their kids walking down the street safely than about eating fresh vegetables. Frankly, black people have paid a hefty price for their loyalty…Now I hope he (Obama) will do more for the group that helped him get elected in the first place.”

I was embarrassed for Mary because she knows better, and she failed to mention exactly what it is President Obama should or could do for us. Not once did Mary, in her reprimand of President Obama, place responsibility on black people—where it rightfully belong—for what is going on in our communities (children getting killed; fathers selling drugs on street corners—everyday; mothers worrying about their kids walking safely down the streets that we live on).

Rather, Mary perpetuated the same ridiculous ideology that most black people invoke: “The government, the police, and the President aren’t doing enough to help black people to stop the killing in our communities and provide jobs and fresh vegetables…blah, blah, blah.”

I have yet to witness Mary putting forth any effort to help solve the problems she mentioned [above] in her article other than reporting on it.

Several years ago, because Mary is a high-profile and respected reporter in Chicago, I personally appealed to her to help bring women together to address the problems in our community and I have yet to hear from her.

As a reporter, Mary—to my knowledge—has not attempted to engage in dialogue with gang members in an effort to glean insight as to what is fueling the carnage in our communities, or how to solve it. Rather, [white] reporters Walter Jacobson of CBS [News] and [ABC national news anchor] Diane Sawyer came into our community to engage in dialogue with actual gangbangers to pin-point the anatomy of their murderous behavior. It should have been Mary [and us].

Mary failed to mention that we—black people—aren’t doing anything collectively to improve our dreadful social and economic conditions. I want to know what is it that Mary Mitchell and black people expect President Obama to do for us that we refuse to do for ourselves.

Keep in mind that African-Americans—just like everyone else—live in a land of prosperity, i.e., America, a capitalistic society where free enterprise is accessible to everyone with no restrictions on getting an education or starting a business.

African-Americans refuse to come together to collectively develop a plan to combine our resources and spending strength to support, expand, and create black enterprises. Neither President Obama, nor any form of government should be expected to bear sole responsibility for improving our local-level economic disparities and social atrocities.

What responsibility should we bear?

I cannot resist reminding [Mary Mitchell and] black people of just a few government financial entitlements (help from government) that black people—like every other race—already receive and have been receiving every month, every year for decades that are meant to be and should be used by [black] people to help improve their quality of life:

Section 8 Housing:
This federally-funded entitlement program pays all or a substantial portion of rent for no-to-low-income [black] people monthly/annually.

Example: A high-end monthly rent subsidy for a single mother with 3 or more children for up to $1,500 for a decent 3-4 bedroom apartment amounts to $18,000 annually; and many black people (mothers) have been receiving Section 8 government-financed housing for decades. $18,000 annually multiplied by 10 years is $180,000—then multiply that by 2 decades ($360,000). Now multiple this figure by millions of black people.

Link Program:
This federally-funded entitlement program titled “Link” gives hundreds of dollars in [cash and] food stamps to millions of no-to-low-income [black] people monthly.

Disgrace:
There are millions of mothers (and fathers) that do not use their Link food stamps to buy food for their kids. The kids go hungry while their mothers’ sell the Link provision to other people for cash—every month.

Example: A single mother with 2 to 3 kids receives this government entitlement for just food purchases alone. A monthly $500+ Link provision amounts to $6,000 annually, multiplied by 10 years = $60,000. Yet the babies are starving. The “Link Card” is the real American Express Card.

Recommendation: The physical "Link" card should have a recipient's picture ID, and recipients should be required to show the Link ID prior to cashiers completing purchase transactions.

WIC:
This government entitlement program—in addition to Link—provides money for single mothers to purchase milk, juice, cereal, etc. for babies they are continuously having that they cannot financially take care of.

Medicaid:
Free healthcare paid for by State government(s). What more can I say?!

Earned Income Tax Credit:
Federal government help that enables millions of low-income people receive thousands of dollars in annual federal income tax credits that renders hefty tax refunds every year. The more children a “worrying” mother has, the higher her federal tax refund is.

Example: Every year, low-income parents receive two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine-thousand dollars (or more) in federal tax refunds via the “earned income tax credit." And every year—most if not all—tax credit recipients never spend their sizeable tax refunds in ways that will surely enhance their educational or economic conditions. Instead they go buy used cars just about every year; or new TV’s/furniture, expensive hair weaves—ultimately spending the money in ways that do not meaningfully benefit them or their children.

Recommendation:
Earned income tax credits should be tied to a mandatory requirement to obtain higher education, with an eligibility period of every other year. Eligibility would be stipulated on having to submit official documented proof of attendance/completion of an accredited degree or trade program; or proof of payment of tuition or tutoring lessons, etc. for their children.

The tax credit recipient should only be eligible for tax credits every two years after providing said proof for each 2-year eligibility period up to 6 years.

Eligibility for earned income tax credits should expire in 6 years.

Example:
1. In order to be eligible for earned income tax credits every two years, the low-income qualifier would have to obtain an associates degree during eligibility years one through 2;

2. For eligibility for years three through four, the low-income qualifier would have to successfully obtain a Bachelor’s degree, and;

3. In order to qualify for eligibility years five through six, the low income qualifier should be required to obtain a Masters degree.

After a 4 to 6-year eligibility period, a low-income qualifier would no longer qualify for the earned income tax credit; and would have not only moved up academically, but would qualify to obtain a higher-paying job, thereby being able to relinquish dependency on government entitlement programs.

If a person does not engage the mandatory requirement to obtain higher education, they should not be eligible to take advantage of earned income tax credits, period!

Cell Phones:
The federal government provides no-to-low-income people with free cell phones and free cell phone service.

Disgrace:
I know people who are abusing this (luxury) government-financed privilege by having two and three free (government provided) cell phones. How is that for making an ass out of the sporting life?

Recommendation:
The government’s program of free cell phone service is a luxury and should be an entitlement exclusively for senior citizens.

No-to-low-income people who spend money to get their hair and nails done every week and are already receiving tens of thousands of dollars in government “help” every month/every year should not be entitled to receive free cell phones and cell phone services.

The U.S Congress should immediately revoke this costly luxury entitlement.

Public Education:
Free education: K-12th Grade. What more could you ask for? Um?

Pell Grants:
This government entitlement gives money to no-to-low-income individuals to attend college or universities to receive higher education as a means to achieve greater earning potential, or learn how to start their own businesses.

Disgrace:
Black people should be breaking the government bank with this entitlement, especially the fathers that Mary Mitchell mentioned who are selling drugs on the corners [everyday].

I could go on and on, but you get the picture, right? Right!

Now tell me this: What the heck more could President Obama do to help black people when black people have access to all the resources they need to help themselves but are not [largely] doing so. What gosh darn it!?

Tell me, Mary (black people)! What do you want President Obama to do that you and mostly everybody in the black community are not doing? Why didn’t you ask former President Bill Clinton the same question? Why haven’t you asked Mayor Emmanuel the same question? And Rahm Emmanuel was [also] elected to office with the majority vote of black people and he has no blacks in his cabinet—you’re not grinding him about that! Mary should be ashamed of herself. I know I am. I’m ashamed for/of all of us.

I'm simply saying!

Saishe Brokesom