In the May 15, 2006 issue of BusinessWeek, there is an article with the same name as this post. It talks about a legal theory that being used quite a bit to win class action discrimination law suits around the country. The theory is called "Unconscious Bias" -- and it basically states that white men are prone to diss women and minorities because the culture, their family and everything else has conditioned (and continues to reinforce) them to hold everyone else in damn near contempt.
So not only when it comes to who gets what promotion, raise and unsaid employment benefit, Unconscious Bias can also be applied to why niggas get treated like they're unwanted stepchilds.
The guy behind the whole thing - a white guy mind you - is University of Pennsylvania Sociology Professor William T. Beibly. i want to buy this can a case of the best scotch I can afford.
I don't think Beibly is suffering from white guilt or anything like that, I think that he's uncovered a mindset and given it qualitative (and perhaps quantitative) evidence, so we people of color can understand the rapacious nature of white men.
After reading Confessions of an Economic Hitman, the true nature of white men and the business empires the serve, work in or run -- it's becoming more and more clear just how bad any body born after 1980 is going to have it over the next 20 to 30 years.
What say you?! Read the article though. It's quite interesting.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Thursday, May 04, 2006
I thought "Brothers were gonna work it out?"
I don't know if this is all true, but it SOUNDS true...
USA Today article on Black Spending Habits: These are tough economic times, especially for African-Americans, for whom the unemployment rate is more than 10%. Alarmingly, rather than belt-tightening, the response has been to spend more. In many poor neighborhoods, one is likely to notice satellite dishes and expensive new cars.
According to Target Market, a company that tracks black consumer spending, blacks spends a significant amount of their income on depreciable products. In 2002, the year the economy nose-dived; we spent $22.9 billion ($22,900,000,000.00) on clothes, $3.2billion ($3,000,000,000.00) on electronics and $11.6 billion ($11,000,000,000.00) on furniture to put into homes that, in >many cases, were rented. Among our favorite purchases are cars and liquor.
Blacks make up only 12% of the US population, yet account for 30% of the country's Scotch consumption. Detroit, which is 80% black, is the world's No. 1 market for Cognac. So impressed was Lincoln with the $46.7 billion ($46,000,000,000) that blacks spent on cars that the automaker commissioned Sean "P.Didy" Combs, the entertainment and fashion mogul, to design a limited-edition Navigator replete with six plasma screens, three DVD players and a Sony PlayStation . Shame Puffy, shame! you're up here murdering your people!
The only area where blacks seem to be cutting back on spending is books; total purchases have gone from a high of $356 million in 2000 to $303 million in 2002. This shortsighted behavior, motivated by a desire for instant gratification and social acceptance, comes at the expense of our future. The National Urban League's "State of Black America 2004" report found that fewer than 50% of black families owned their homes compared with more than 70% of whites. According to published reports, the Ariel Mutual Funds/Charles Schwab 2003 Black Investor Survey found that when comparing households
>where blacks and whites had roughly the same household incomes, whites saved nearly 20% more each month for retirement, and 30% of African-Americans earning $100,000 a year had less than $5,000 in retirement savings. While 79% of whites invest in the stock market, only 61% of African-Americans do.
Certainly, higher rates of unemployment, income disparity and credit discrimination are financial impediments to the economic vitality of blacks, but so are our consumer tastes. By finding the courage to change our spending habits, we might be surprised at how far the $631 billion ($631,000,000,000.00) we now earn take us.
We all send thousands of jokes through e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages regarding life affirming choices, people think twice about sharing. So please pass this on. Knowledge is power!!
USA Today article on Black Spending Habits: These are tough economic times, especially for African-Americans, for whom the unemployment rate is more than 10%. Alarmingly, rather than belt-tightening, the response has been to spend more. In many poor neighborhoods, one is likely to notice satellite dishes and expensive new cars.
According to Target Market, a company that tracks black consumer spending, blacks spends a significant amount of their income on depreciable products. In 2002, the year the economy nose-dived; we spent $22.9 billion ($22,900,000,000.00) on clothes, $3.2billion ($3,000,000,000.00) on electronics and $11.6 billion ($11,000,000,000.00) on furniture to put into homes that, in >many cases, were rented. Among our favorite purchases are cars and liquor.
Blacks make up only 12% of the US population, yet account for 30% of the country's Scotch consumption. Detroit, which is 80% black, is the world's No. 1 market for Cognac. So impressed was Lincoln with the $46.7 billion ($46,000,000,000) that blacks spent on cars that the automaker commissioned Sean "P.Didy" Combs, the entertainment and fashion mogul, to design a limited-edition Navigator replete with six plasma screens, three DVD players and a Sony PlayStation . Shame Puffy, shame! you're up here murdering your people!
The only area where blacks seem to be cutting back on spending is books; total purchases have gone from a high of $356 million in 2000 to $303 million in 2002. This shortsighted behavior, motivated by a desire for instant gratification and social acceptance, comes at the expense of our future. The National Urban League's "State of Black America 2004" report found that fewer than 50% of black families owned their homes compared with more than 70% of whites. According to published reports, the Ariel Mutual Funds/Charles Schwab 2003 Black Investor Survey found that when comparing households
>where blacks and whites had roughly the same household incomes, whites saved nearly 20% more each month for retirement, and 30% of African-Americans earning $100,000 a year had less than $5,000 in retirement savings. While 79% of whites invest in the stock market, only 61% of African-Americans do.
Certainly, higher rates of unemployment, income disparity and credit discrimination are financial impediments to the economic vitality of blacks, but so are our consumer tastes. By finding the courage to change our spending habits, we might be surprised at how far the $631 billion ($631,000,000,000.00) we now earn take us.
We all send thousands of jokes through e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages regarding life affirming choices, people think twice about sharing. So please pass this on. Knowledge is power!!
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