Transcription
I uh want to say uh by way of um recapitulation, when you were here last, for those who did or did not see the show, we talked briefly about how American public policy historically has shaped, defined, and cast African-Americans in their role and their place in America. How laws, legislation and uh so much public policy related to politics and economics have held us at bay in a place.
>> Right. >> You assert that we must now take the reins of control economically and politically empower ourselves to come out of that place and do our own thing in a manner of speaking.
Mhm. >> But you also assert that we take what has worked as successful models from white America, superimpose them on black models for success, and do it in a timetable that will have to outrun our own obsolescence in this country. Is that an accurate assessment?
>> That that is very accurate. Then let's start by taking a look at what you have pinned at chapter five of this particular book, Black Labor, White Wealth, >> when you quote historian Dan Lacy. >> Mhm. >> And you write from uh Mr. Lacy, who criticized the hypocrisy of the dominant society's attitude toward blacks, saying that, and I quote, "Whites denounce blacks as lazy and lacking ambition, while they resent black competition. They are angered by taxation for welfare and other social programs, but are equally angered by equal opportunity and affirmative action for jobs and job policies for blacks. They mock the lower academic achievement of black children, then assign the best teachers, materials, and financial resources to white schools in the suburbs. How can blacks take control of their situation when that kind of force is exerted upon them in this society?"
>> Uh, two ways. First of all, let me go back to your your your first point when you indicated that uh racism has in fact locked blacks into their place. It did in fact do that. But what's going to happen now is that automation and new technology is going to wipe that place out. We anticipate Daryl somewhere between about 26 million people in this in this nation becoming obsolete and by that year 2013 and out of that the greater portion going to be blacks. So we got to figure out how do we not get wiped out by automation.
Now go I'm sorry. Go ahead. >> Go ahead. Go ahead please.
>> Now if [clears throat] we're going to become competitive we must go back to the point you just made. The key to black survivalship at this point in time is what I call political economics. Which means we got to figure out how we can start practicing group economics and group politics and do it very successful and effectively quickly. And that means all the way down the line. That means going into the retail industry all the way down to the resource. We got to build we got to become producers instead of consumers. We got to not only have retail outlets, but we must have manufacturers, producers, wholesalers, warehousing, distributors underneath every business that we have. We got to do everything humanly possible to hold our capital in our disposable capital in our communities. We must make it bounce 8 to 12 times before it leaves. Currently, as you know, it doesn't bounce one time. We must learn how to formate capital.
Now, how do we formate capital? There are a lot of ways we can do it. The first way is what I indicated to you on the last show is try to keep that 95% of the disposable income that's currently going into the white community, keep it in our communities. And and since the whites are boycotting our communities and we are boycotting our own communities, we can never recapture that way unless we stop it. Second thing we must do is to try to figure out other creative ways of getting capital, i.e. we have what we call a property confiscation program in this country.
>> Most of that money in that program is coming out of out of activities, illegal activities that blacks were caught in. And uh last time I checked at the federal level, we had approximately $700 million. Okay. Now typically what happens to that money and those properties is that it's given through the good old boy network to their friends and passed on and used for other purposes. Now that money and that and that and that collateral belongs to no one. Now what we should start doing in this country as a black nation start insisting that that money come comes back to the black community in a liqufied form.
>> That is an interesting assertion. Um, >> and one of the points that can be made is is and in everything you're saying and what you point to in this book as solution-oriented.
That's right. For the black political and economic situation in America is to devise a national strategy. All of this you're talking about comes under the guise of formulating a national strategy for economic and self-empowerment.
>> That's right. And and why this is so critically important, Darl, is because if we buy into the current economic philosophies of the mainstream society, we are through. Because they're going to continue to pump new technology into the market and we're going to be the last hired and the first fired and we're going to continue to become obsolete increasingly where our unemployment will continue to escalate and our displacement will continue to escalate. We must come up with a new system that would take us out of that philosophy and build an alternative social economic system for ourselves if we to survive and it must be political econ politically economically based.
>> Okay. >> Does that mean we continue to go begging to the current tax system the the current federal bureaucracy? How can we do it outside that web?
>> Well, we we're going we're going to have to get outside of the web because that's the way they have a schedule per presently. You hear all this talk for instance about reducing the size of government, anti-government. What they really want to do is res reduce the size of government because they know that about 68 to 70% of the black folk that got an education are employed in some level of government either the city level, county level, state level, or federal level. So you start talking about downsizing government. What you're really talking about is disemploying black folk. But you never hear them say, first of all, if we're going to downsize government, why don't we commit a study that would determine the impact on black folk? And we do this since a disproportionate number of black folk are using those kinds of opportunities for income. Secondly, what are we going to do when we in fact displace those black folk? What are we going to do with those monies that we that that we save from from downsizing government? When we kick blacks off the second level out of welfare, what happens to the money that we save from welfare? Why don't you put that money at the top level from downsizing government and downsizing welfare? Why don't you put that money into an alternative economic development system for black folk to do what you have never done for them, to assist them in developing a business structure in this country? But you never hear that as a solution. And I guess you never hear it because in this day and time especially there seems to be a mood and a philosophy being transmitted that the government has given in effect everything black people have by way of positive development and achievement in this country uh everything that black people have that's positive has come from government action. The current administration would certainly seem to want that to be the case.
>> Yeah. Well, yeah. I they they've been trying to perpetuate that myth for years now. As a matter of fact, ironically, I think it's funny that uh after uh see, first of all, we must realize that black folks have only been out of semi-slavery now for about 30 years, only 30 years. Now, we they first came out in the mid 1960s, uh they came into what we call the Great Society programs that were permitted to exist for about three and a half years.
Now, even though those programs were not specifically designed and focused on blacks, blacks were supposed to somehow to have gotten involved in those programs and achieve wealth. And in 300 I mean in three and a half years we're supposed to have corrected 350 years of subordination, exclusion and subjugation.
>> It's all supposed to have worked out in 30 years, >> you know. And and yet by and you look at that in those three and a half years and look how blacks got into that dilemma. Blacks got into that predicament because the entire society was working against them. All levels of government was putting blacks enslaving blacks, segregating and Jim Crowing blacks. All institutions, churches, schools are working against blacks. All aspects of the legal system, the court system was working against black folk and all the major corporations were using the billions of dollars to make sure that black folk were exploited and subjugated. Now, we never had that kind of commitment during the Great Society program, not from corporations, from businesses, from universities, from churches or from government to help blacks and yet somebody said, well, you know, you you supposed to have come out in that three and a half years. So, I think it's ludicrous and uh in some ways it borders on being a little bit insulted.
One of the things that we have to understand is when we start talking about solutions, as you've outlined them in the book, Black Labor, white wealth, certain notions that you propose are going to be unpopular not only with mainstream uh America, whites in particular, >> whites who control economic systems and subsystems, but blacks who think that they by virtue of their intellect acumen and their own financial wherewithal have made it in the society. Not to discredit those who have worked hard and achieved something, but it would sound to some people like so much government handout, so much corporate charity. One of the things that I want to point out is that you you you enumerate that among the very many solutions that are available might be the very controversial reparations route. What's your slant on the reparations, the giving of money to African-Americans in this generation by the government whose forebears were enslaved in America?
I I am 100% supportive of that, Darl. Whether you call it reparations or restitutions, u and not because it's a handout or a give out, it's a fact that something that's owed black folk, but even more importantly, it is what you call equality. It's the equality of restitution. You have given all you gave restitution to all indentured white servants that came in this country. They were contracted with that says after seven years they will receive compensation. They will receive animals. They will receive tools. They receive weapons and they will receive land. Now they were compensated when they were put into slavery. Indians also have been compensated now for the last 260 years with land, with free education, no taxes, free medical care, free food and so on. Uh the Jews have been picked up over over $52 billion from the German government for their for their for restitutions. Uh the Japanese for their interament during for four years during World War II. They picked up $22,000 each. And now we got the uh some of the veterans of World War II now filing suit against the against the Japanese government for compensation for for imprisonment during the war. Now, by the same token, black folk have been done in in every possible political, economic, emotional, psychological, and financial fashion, and no one has issued a apology or a penny to them yet. No, I think blacks are entitled to it. Now, on the other hand, I don't think blacks will ever get it.
>> Mhm. >> You know, because there's no incentive and there's no interest in the white community in giving it to them.
>> Uh, but I still think they need to ask for it and demand it. And uh and moreover, you talk about affirmative action and uh and and quotas. What we have to understand this society is that's how white society got its wealth and power. It got its wealth and power through an affirmative action program through set aides and through quotas that were initiated and maintained by this government. And this government however and many people within this government structure extol the virtues of individual right and liberty. But you point out in the book that those individual so-called individual rights, individual initiative are only afforded individuals who have strong group representation.
>> That's right. And uh and blacks and see the same time they were developing that constitution upon which the the white society is relying on uh the people that were drafting the United States Constitution were the same people that owned 1,400 slaves. And so individualism and and meritocracy does not pertain to black folk because because they you were see racism is a groupto-group issue. It's not an individual issue which means I don't care what I do as a black I can be as successful as as a mountain or I can be an Oprah or or or u Michael Jackson. But unless it's interlin with all black folk that all black folk are lifted by it, it has no importance, no relevance. And that's why when I was a child, they were all pointing to Joe Lewis and and Jackie Robinson. Look at them. They're successful. Why can't you succeed? Because I was not put into slavery as an individual. I went in as a member of a of a group and we can only come out of slavery and out of secondass citizenship and the present day benign elect as a group, not as an individual. And we So everything I do must be interlin to where it benefits all black folk.
>> So black people must then seek to connect themselves with one another one ongoing and conscious effort.
>> That's right. And everything must be interlin in a in a in a common sense of of of of destiny, a common sense of well-being, a common sense of security, and a common sense of accountability.
Does that mean to the exclusion of anyone else?
>> Uh, no. It means that you that you're not against anyone else, but you're for your own.