Thanks you all for giving your feedback. Where as I would like to take credit for this information, I cannot. Mr. Tavis Smiley gave out this info on his show Think Tank that airs on CSPAN!
William,
I am not sure about the Recidivism rates; I would have to look into that.
Oh and yes Rev. Jackson is a wealthy man. When he opens his mouth to speak, unless it is a worthy cause that he has decided to stand up for and fight for…he is paid. He is probably also paid a salary from the non-profit work that he has done or is currently involved with. Oh and please forward me the information on that article about Mase. I knew that he had joined forces with G-unit, but I had no idea that Creflo Dollar and TD Jakes were backing him.
Candice (I spelled that right this time),
Thanks for the information about Kathy Hughes….she probably sold the radio station to start the TV station. I am also familiar with the black family channel…we have that here in Memphis and they have MBC in Jackson, Ms. I hope that they will become large contenders with BET to bring back positive images to our community!!
Mr. Foster,
As for your comments on blacks calling themselves ‘African Americans’, I totally understand where you are coming from, but I do not think that Mr. Smiley was saying to abandon our history, I think he was just saying that we should not identify with the term. Instead of African-American, I used to say American-African because I was born in America but descended from Africa.
As for the comment about Bill Gates and Larry Elison, I am inclined to agree with Mr. Smiley on this, because whereas we may gross the 400 million that you state..we spend it and do not put it back into our communities. Mr. Gates and Mr. Elison probably did not go out and buy Cadillac Escalades and put TV’s and Rims in and on them and they probably shop at JCPenny instead of trying to keep up with the Stars and stay iced out and Dolce and Gabbanaed-up. In essence what I am saying is that money we spend is not ours, because it is going into the pocket of the designer and retailer. This is money that Mr. Gates and Mr. Elison have in their possession. Oh and whose fault is it for not educating us on investing and stocks, etc….it is OURS, because our population as a whole won’t stop to pick up a book and read it. We are not interested in taking classes to better ourselves, even some college graduates are caught!
As for your comment on the black owned companies not owning stock….there may be black-owned companies, but as you stated yourself they would need to merge to form power……Mr. Smiley also did not say that it is impossible, he just stated a fact. It may be hard but guess what those companies that are on the right track to making it happen nine times out of ten will. I have Faith in their potential.
I totally agree with your statement about voting, etc. Let me just touch on a few things, yes we as a community have a ‘Slave mentality’ that was inflicted from “Slavery” however it is up to us to change OUR mentality, no other race can do this for US. This is why I believe education is so important. And as for Bobby Brown starting the my prerogative thing about voting……I also think that this is a slave mentality mindset that started when the fight for Voter’s Rights for blacks began. There were black people fighting there own over the subject in the 50’s and 60s and not only that so many of our black men cannot vote because they may have a felony on their record. Oh and the reason why black people have more driver’s licenses than library cards is because of what we are teaching our children at home and this also goes back to the slave mentality.
I totally agree to your comment to ‘Blacks don’t own anything’ I think this ties into what the statement that Mr. Smiley made about keeping money in the community. We have the ‘Me and Mine’ Syndrome in our neighborhoods and we don’t support our black businesses, we would rather go to McDonalds instead of the neighborhood restaurant….you are spending the same amount of money in MC D’s that you would on a plate and I bet you would be full after eating at the neighborhood restaurant than you would at McDonalds.
Anyway thank you so much for your comments, I will subscribe to your blog so that I can reply to you posts!!!! Thanks!!!!
One Love,
Vicskeyas
Posted By: VICSKEYAS MOORE
Friday, March 24th 2006 at 10:18AM
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