Month: July 2016

“Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.” Matthew 25:21

In recent days we have heard much about efforts to demonstrate our frustration and anger about the killing of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Boycotting malls and various stores, depositing funds into black-owned banks, are important and have had some positive effects. We must do more of the same, but in a more strategic and organized manner.

Are black folks, the recipients of $1.2 trillion annually, poor stewards of this tremendous amount of money and, thus, unable to obtain economic empowerment because of our slothfulness? Is that why we find ourselves in “outer darkness,” continuously attempting to “show” others how much money we spend instead of redirecting more of our money to ourselves?

The Parable of the Talents is quite fitting for black people, in general; of course we fit the description of the last steward who buried his talent in the ground and did not multiply it. Unfortunately, we have used our billions in income to buy everything someone else makes, no matter the cost.

If we cannot demonstrate our ability to manage the resources we have— the small things— how will we ever gain authority over the larger things? How will we ever change the behavior of corporations when it comes to supporting us the way they do other groups? If we refuse to shop at Target, for instance, but go to Walmart instead, what’s the gain? What’s the impact of staying away from the mall for a day or two, or even a week, and then return to spend all the money we withheld?

Martin Luther King, Jr., stated in his final speech, “I call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your money in Tri-State Bank. We want a ‘bank-in’ movement in Memphis.” That was 1968. Here in 2016, in response to the murders of two black men some of us are finally getting it. In Atlanta, there was a call for black folks to open accounts at Citizens Trust Bank. My question was: Why would it take two dead brothers to get black people in a majority black city to put their money in a black bank that has been in their community since 1921?

Don’t get me wrong; I am glad to see the effort, and I trust the bank will not be used as an ATM machine where folks put money in on Friday and take it all out on Monday. I am, however, bewildered over someone having to die before we followed through on such a practical solution by Martin Luther King, Jr., nearly fifty years ago. Is this just another fad, another temporary gesture of outrage, or just another feel-good sign of our frustration?

Additionally, I know “for everything there is a season,” and the efforts taking place now in Atlanta at Citizens Bank, started by noted entrepreneur and rapper, Killer Mike, is the right message. Yes, there have been other messengers, but if he is the one that gets our people to respond, not only do I applaud our people, I also applaud Killer Mike. I had a chance to speak with him on the Carl Nelson radio show and he impressed me as a brother who is not egotistical and not concerned about being the HNIC in this issue. He was very respectful, and open to learning more about the history of his efforts and willing to listen to recommendations. I appreciated that and look forward to working with him.

Back to the stewardship issue and how it relates to our reactions not only to police shootings of black people, but also to our overall position in this country. Boycotts, if sustained, can work, but “work” to do what? Yes, they may turn the tide of recalcitrant corporations that only care about our dollars, which we give to them without reciprocity.

However, the “work” that any economic sanction effort should and must produce is economic empowerment for black people. Our efforts cannot be centered on hurting someone else; they must be done in an effort to help ourselves. Thus, we must have a strategic plan, and an organized movement to redirect the money we withhold back to our own businesses as much as possible.

As for depositing our money in black banks, we must do our due diligence, meet and develop relationships with bank managers, and I would recommend doing what the Collective Banking Group (Now called the “Collective

Empowerment Group”) did back in 1995 up to this present day. The group wrote covenant agreements with the banks and held them accountable for what they said they would do for their members in return for their deposits.

We must practice good stewardship if we want to be empowered.

James Clingman is the nation’s most prolific writer on economic empowerment for black people. His latest book, “Black Dollars Matter! Teach your dollars how to make more sense,” is available at www.Blackonomics.com.

(NNPA) — As I boarded my return flight to D.C. from last week’s Republican convention in Cleveland, Ohio, I began to reflect on what I saw and I began to ponder how I could put to paper my experiences in this column.

Out of nowhere, the words of Charles Dickens from his novel “A Tale of Two Cities,” popped into my head:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Once again the Republican Party should be thoroughly ashamed at having only about 18 and 50 Black and Hispanic delegates, respectively (less than five percent), at the convention; though the party has not released any official numbers.

This was by far the “Whitest” convention I have ever attended; but the party seems to care very little about this fact.

I attended several Latino sponsored breakfasts and luncheons with members of Congress or top aides from the Trump campaign as speakers. There were zero Black Republican hosted breakfasts or luncheons, but there was an evening party hosted by Black Republicans.

This again shows the weakness of Black Republicans within the party. This can’t be blamed on White folks in the party. This is an indictment of how little juice and foresight Blacks have within the party.

Under the current party leadership, I would prefer to have no Blacks on staff because the few they have are totally incapable of producing any results. So why waste the money to hire people who are totally incompetent?

But, then again, this is exactly the result the party wants. So they hire Blacks who have no connection to the Black community, or any interest in the Black community, or any understanding of strategic communications. Thus, they get the results they wanted all along—nothing. But since they hired a few Blacks, in the party’s mind, they can’t be called racist. I call this buying “race insurance.”

I had several well-known Blacks from sports, entertainment, Hollywood, and business interested in attending the convention,; but I decided not to bring them because the party had no interest in receiving them properly.

The last time I checked, I was not an employee of the RNC, but yet I had tons of media outlets calling me because they couldn’t get Black staffers to return their calls or help them resolve logistical issues they encountered at the convention, but yet they had time to hang out at several parties until the wee hours of the morning.

I arranged for many of the Black delegates to be interviewed by major media outlets, because the RNC staff proved yet again to be non-responsive to media inquiries. Black surrogates during the convention were almost non-existent and Republican party leaders continue to wonder why they get no traction in the Black community.

I challenge the RNC to produce clippings of all interviews of Black surrogates from last week. There was absolutely no media strategy leading into the convention, during the convention or post-convention. This is media relations 101 and the party failed the course miserably.

The Black staffers at the RNC are so incompetent that last month they sent out an e-mail to reporters bragging about the diversity of the delegates at this year’s convention, highlighting the whopping 18 total Black delegates out of a total of 2,472. I am not joking. This actually happened.

Do Black Republicans have no pride at all? I would be ashamed to be paid for a job and deliver nothing of any substance.

If there is to be a shift in Black loyalties within the body politic, it won’t be because of the RNC. The RNC has no interest and to be honest, no capacity to substantively engage with the Black community.

Any meaningful change in the participation rate of Blacks within the party will be forced upon the RNC from the outside.

If the RNC were run like a business, the whole staff would be summarily fired for total incompetence. The astonishing thing is that none of our party leadership even publically acknowledged the “Whiteness” of our convention.

Out of an arena capacity of approximately 20,000 people, you probably had fewer than 200 Blacks and Latinos, that includes delegates and spectators.

Trump has a window of about 30 days to address the issue of the Black voter. If he doesn’t, he will definitely have a more difficult path to victory come November.

It is truly the best of times and the worst of times for Black Republicans.

Raynard Jackson is founder and chairman of Black Americans for a Better Future (BAFBF), a federally registered 527 Super PAC established to get more Blacks involved in the Republican Party. BAFBF focuses on the Black entrepreneur. For more information about BAFBF, visit www.bafbf.org. You can follow Raynard on Twitter @Raynard1223.