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Thursday October, 9th 2008
4 - 8 PM - Hill House Canteen

POST MARK your Voter Registrations by OCTOBER 6
EVERYBODY EAT/B-PEP Monthly meeting

 

Celebrate our voter registration success!  Gear up the Get Out The Vote and Election Protection!

Check out our Community Bulletin for more important events!

Top 10 Reasons to Register and Vote

10.  It's your money. The county commissioners, governor, state officials, legislators, president and members of Congress you vote for will decide how much of our wealth to invest in public services and how to fairly share the tax burden.

9.  It's your children's education. You elect local and state school board members who set public education policy and budgets that will affect how well prepared your children and grandchildren will be for the future. Decisions by our legislators, governor, members of Congress and president also affect the public schools-- and the quality and cost of higher education as well.

8.  It's your job. Congress, the president, the governor and your legislators influence what job training is available, minimum wage, pay equity, fairness in hiring, health insurance through your employer, job and pension security, and workplace safety.

7.  It's your health care. Actions by the governor, legislature and Congress as well as their decisions on Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance laws determine your access to health care.

6.  They're your highways.  Your county commissioners, legislators, governor and members of Congress decide what highways are needed, what alternatives to highways such as public transit to support, and how to pay the bill.

5.  It's your Social Security. The president and your members of Congress decide how much payroll tax you pay, cost of living increases and benefit schedules for your Social Security pension, and what Medicare services you receive and share payment for.

4.  You live in Pennsylvania. Your county, state and national elected officials set standards, enforcement strategies and budgets. They plan and zone where roads and industries will be built and how public lands will be used --decisions that can determine how and where you live and work.

3.  It's your neighborhood. The elected officials and judges you vote to retain make daily decisions about crime prevention, laws and law enforcement, safe and affordable homes, traffic patterns, where to put schools, parks and recreation.

2.  They're our children. We do our best to keep them healthy, fed, safe, educated and cared for. The officials you elect can help or hinder all Pennsylvania families in achieving their goals and dreams.

1. It's your democracy. Make it work. Register and Vote.

 

Did You Know

 
Ten Key Solutions for Black Economic Well-Being
GUEST COLUMN: Phillip Jackson
July 24, 2006
 

A recent report by the Heartland Alliance confirms what much of black America already knows: Black America is in serious trouble economically, and many black people are living in "deep poverty."

Black people in America are not just poor by American standards; many of us are "third-world" poor.

While some economists praise the American economy with talk of low unemployment, record housing starts and a booming gross national product, none of this tells the real story of a quickly declining black economy within America. For instance, 30 percent of black Americans in Illinois live in poverty compared with only 8 percent of white Americans.

According to the Children's Defense Fund, nearly one million black children in the United States are living in extreme poverty. While the official national unemployment rate is 4.4 percent, the official unemployment rate for blacks is 10 percent. Of course, the official unemployment rate does not include people who have given up looking for work and those who are underemployed. In 2003 in New York City, 48.2 percent of black men ages 16 to 64 were officially unemployed!

As American cities become more expensive to live in, black people, with our declining wealth, are forced by economics to leave these cities. Although things might be good economically in America, the majority of black people are living through their worst economic depression since slavery!

Ironically, even as black people earn more money in the United States, the wealth gap between blacks and whites grows dramatically. Misery indices in the Black community -- poor and useless educational preparation, mass unemployment, low-quality housing stock, disintegrating communities, and failing families -- are rising. According to a 2004 study by the Pew Hispanic Trust, between 1996 and 2002, the median net worth of blacks dropped by 16 percent.

Black net worth declined to a paltry $5,998 per household, while the net worth for white households grew by 17 percent during the same period to $88,651. Twenty percent of black median net worth was in cash, approximately $1,200, with the balance comprised of home equity.  The housing foreclosure crisis of the past eight years has caused Black America to lose between $72 billion and $93 billion in housing-equity wealth.  

"Black families lost 25 percent of their wealth during the jobless recovery from the recent recession," said Thomas Shapiro, a Brandeis University professor of law and social policy.

This means that more black people are struggling in 2006 with such basic conditions as securing employment, paying rent or a mortgage, paying utilities and insurance, obtaining affordable health coverage and buying food.

Shapiro also stated that only 26 percent of black families could survive more than three months after a major income interruption. The other 74 percent would be forced to seek government assistance, dip deep into savings, sell off assets, relocate with a friend or relative, file bankruptcy or become homeless!

In this economic depression, college is an unaffordable luxury for many black people. Higher education, once the reliable key to moving from low-income to middle-income status, is no longer an option. The portals that lead away from poverty, crime and despair are closing or have already closed.
Generational poverty is inextricably intertwined with race. Hope for breaking the poverty cycle diminishes and another generation of the impoverished is born. Many blacks in America are slipping from poverty to deep poverty into a third-world status.

We as black American families cannot wait for the government to save us. Annually, black Americans generate about $700 billion within the U.S. economy. However, a 2005 report by the Target Market Group shows that we don't use our dollars wisely to improve our plight in America. For example, in 2004, we had collective purchases that included $22 billion for clothes, $10.7 billion for furniture, $28.7 billion for cars, $14 billion for phone service, $3.7 billion for consumer electronics (not computers) and $2.3 billion on alcoholic beverages.

Unfortunately, the only area where we showed restraint in our spending was on books, where we spent only $257 million, down from $303 million in 2002. We spent more on our fingernails and our hair -- $6.3 billion on personal care -- than on books and reading materials.

We must take control of our economic destinies to improve black personal finances, our family wealth and our community economies, and to help lift many blacks out of deep poverty.

TEN KEY SOLUTIONS FOR BLACK ECONOMIC WELL-BEING:

1. Start your own business. By starting your own business, you can hire family, friends, and community members.
2. Get as much education as you can.
3. Stop renting an apartment. Save enough money to make a down payment on a house. Then buy a house.
4. Open savings accounts for your children, teach your children the value of money and take personal finance classes.
5. First, invest your money and your time in your skills, your knowledge base and your self-improvement. Second, learn how to let big companies work for you rather than you only working for them through stock ownership. And third, invest your money in the U.S. and global stock markets.
6. Manage your credit carefully and avoid unnecessary debt.
7. Get married!  Two-person headed households are more viable economically. Marriage can be an economic advantage when both parties are aligned on financial priorities and fiscal realities.
8. Create a living strategy that includes good nutrition, plenty of exercise and proper rest so that you can share your good fortune in a long and healthy life.  Health is wealth!
9. Contribute to your faith-based institution or invest in a social cause.
10. Create a will to pass on your accumulated wealth.
 



Published on SavannahNow.com (
http://savannahnow.com)

Open the door, I'll get it myself

By Savannah Morning News
Created 2007-08-11 23:30

Writing this particular column has been very distressing for me because I know that to some, this article will be interpreted as "airing dirty laundry" in front of those who are not a part of my "community."

I know there are some who will be outraged at my thoughts and opinions, and normally, I could not care less... normally. But today I am praying that those who are outraged by this column will be so angry that they will finally DO something about an issue that has plagued the black community much too long.

In 1921, Booker T. Washington renamed Tulsa, Oklahoma's Greenwood District "The Negro Wall Street" because of the vast circulation of black dollars within that community.

Although Greenwood was only comprised of 35 square blocks, the 11,000 black people who lived there were able to create a business district that was so successful that it was known around the country. This small group of black people was able to establish one bus line, two high schools, one hospital, two newspapers, two theaters, three drug stores, four hotels, one public library, 13 churches and 150 two-and three-story brick commercial buildings. There were numerous black millionaires who lived in the Greenwood District.

Due to segregation, the blacks banded together to make a better life for themselves; they understood that if they were all on one accord, if they were focused on a common goal, that they could succeed.

They understood the power of unity.

In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the "I Have a Dream Speech" in front of 100,000 people who were fed up with the injustices thrust upon black people in this country.

At that time, the unemployment rate among blacks was 8.2 percent, which was double that of whites. In addition, the unemployment rate of black teens was a whopping 27 percent. Dr. King wrote in his speech that we, black people, were not afforded the privileges outlined in the Declaration of Independence which proclaimed the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to ALL Americans.

His speech, and the fallout that ensued, was the catalyst for the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As in 1921, black people in 1963 came together because they understood that once they were all on one accord, once they were all unified and focused on the issues at hand, change would have to occur.

They understood the power of unity.

In 2007, we are still having marches, but not about the fact that although in 1963 the unemployment rate for blacks was 8.2 percent and today it's 13.2 percent (34 percent for black youth) or that today, according to the Department of Justice, 4.8 percent of ALL BLACK MEN are in prison.

No, our marches are about rap lyrics and Don Imus. When Dr. King gave his "I Have a Dream Speech," 70 percent of all black families were two parent households. Today, according to the U.S. Census, only 34 percent of black families are two-parent households and 43 percent of all blacks have never been married.

Blacks are having discussions about whether or not Barack Obama is black enough, while black college students are being shot in the head execution style.

I know some will instantly blame "whitey" for all of the ills that have befallen Black America, and it would be ignorant of me to say that there has not been black oppression at the hands of some white people. However, I think black people have used this "white guilt" as a crutch for too long.

Because the blacks in Tulsa could not patronize white businesses nor live among them, they had to create their own business district which they did quite successfully, without the aid of anyone other than themselves. There was no affirmative action or any other governmental program set in place to help. They had to do things on their own - which they did.

We can no longer sit back and allow our community to implode. We don't need white people to destroy us because we are doing that to ourselves.

Because we can play the "race card" or the "guilt card" at will, we have almost played ourselves out of the game.

James Brown wrote a song in 1972 titled, "I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open the Door, I'll Get It Myself)," which includes these lyrics:

We got talents we can use/ On our side of town/ Let's get our heads together/ And get it up from the ground

His song was an anthem of black empowerment. If black people are being deprived of opportunities, then we have to create our own opportunities. We have to take control of our own lives, our own destinies. We did it in 1921; We did it in 1963.

We can do it now.

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