"The middle class trap has us caught up in enslavement!" 

For those new to the blog, please read my other posts by searching under 'buy black'.  Thanks for all your support.

I have received many comments from this blog and I have spoken with many people about our economic enslavement but it doesn't appear that we want to face this reality. Everyone appears to be more concerned with their individual situation not clearly seeing how our collective oppression is impacting our families. Right now, we all know of family and friends that our out of work and how hard it is to find a job.

However what we aren't dealing with is the huge inequity between unemployment among blacks versus whites. We still aren't dealing with the ongoing inequity of those who have jobs and the disparity of pay for white males versus blacks and females for the same job with the same experience and education. These are injustices that are worth fighting for but we hear very little about it.

We have fought  for our freedom to end slavery, we have fought for equal education and we have fought for civil rights, now the time has come to fight for our economic rights to end all the crimes and injustices against us in America and worldwide. The first step is to accept our economic enslavement and then we can begin to transform our minds and our expectations.

We are quick to complain about those who are homeless, those who are unemployed or those who are living in poverty. We speak of their situations as troublesome and a travesty in our society and are ready to organize to help these "less fortunate" through our charity, donations and by giving back to help. However, those of us with jobs, homes and a decent lifestyle that are still struggling to make ends meet each month are quietly overlooked.

We don't see our struggles in the same light as that "other group of people" mistakenly thinking we have it better. Many of us walk around boldly as middle class living paycheck to paycheck heavily burdened by debt. Unfortunately, many of the unemployed and homeless belong to this same group and now realize how fragile their situation was only after losing their jobs. In the book, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," he calls this the rat race. Where you work all your life making ends meet but have very little if any wealth to show for it at the end.

In this blog I have sought to show that supporting black business will not be enough to solve our economic enslavement. I learned from Jawanza Kunjufu's book "Black Ecomonics" that we are dealing with a global problem. Having said that, I have also stated that part of the solution is the support of black business but it is not the total solution.  We shouldn't be surprised by this because our history in solving our problems in the U.S. has shown us that two appraoches are often needed to make progress.

 At the turn of the century when blacks had their new found freedom but we were still confronted with the question of how will we determine our future in a racist America, two leaders with different philosophies emerged. W.E. B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington. Dubois believed in education while Booker T believed in the trades and service professions.

In the sixties, it was Dr. King and Malcolm X. Dr. King was fighting for civil rights through non-violence and Malcom was fighting for self indepence by any means necessary.

The point is that we must first collectively agree on our economic enslavement and begin the transformation process. Then, you must fight for our freedom through the philosophy that makes most sense to you.

I support black business every chance that I get but I am fighting for a global approach that will put our products on the shelves in larger markets. If you have a black business and are serving our community then continue to strive for success. We need every successful business we can find!

Meanwhile, I want to challenge our Urban League and National Action Network to challenge Congress to pass more laws that ensure that we get our equal economic rights to have our fair shair of shelve space in super markets and department stores. We will discuss this later in future blogs.

 Rich Mind 

For those new to the blog, please read my other posts by searching under 'buy black'.  All comments welcome and appreciated. Let's learn and grow together.