Based on reading this, very few of my book patrons will be black like me. And this only confirms my conclusion as an author is as it has always been: "I really don't care what shade of melanin a person is, I want to know, "do you have a soul?"
The info is from my east-side counterpart in community activism, cousin Audrey. To me, (and my opinion ain't gospel)it almost makes me wish the country would just do away with the racial profiles on the census reports, and just categorized all Americans as "Intelligent" and "Indescribably Stupid", of which
I'm sure more than a few politicians would be placed in the last category.
Read below, I just want to slap P.Diddy upside the head along with all those other so called rappers. Have they seen what kind of effect they have on the children? Oh, probably not since they have so much bling-bling goin' on that it's impossible to see they are killing off would-be intelligent people.
We all send thousands of jokes through e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages regarding life choices, people think twice about sharing. Please share this with your friends and family. By finding the courage to change our spending habits, we might be surprised at how far the $631 billion we now earn might take us.
Tough choices for tough times (USA Today) By Yolanda Young .
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 spend a significant amount of their income on depreciable products. In 2002, the year the economy nose-dived; we spent $22.9 billion on clothes, $3.2 billion on electronics and $11.6 billion 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 U.S. 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 that blacks spent on cars that the automaker commissioned Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, the entertainment and fashion mogul, to design a limited-edition Navigator replete with six plasma screens, three DVD players and a Sony PlayStation 2.
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.
Yolanda Young''s next book is SPADE: A Critical Look at Black America.
We all send thousands of jokes through e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages regarding life choices, people think twice about sharing. Please share this with your friends and family. By finding the courage to change our spending habits, we might be surprised at how far the $631 billion we now earn might take us.
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