Tag Archives: economics

Black-owned Credit Unions

Uncategorized, ,

I’m already over the whole idea of black-owned banks, which duplicate the stratified structure of for-profit banks at the level of ethnic nationalism. Barely interested.

Let’s talk about black-owned credit unions. At least try to make banking more democratic if you want to improve the flow of money within predominantly-black communities.

Here are some examples:

  • Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Federal Credit Union – Lawrenceville, Georgia
  • Phi Beta Sigma Federal Credit Union – Washington, DC
  • FAMU Federal Credit Union – Tallahassee, Florida
  • Credit Union of Atlanta – Atlanta, Georgia
  • Toledo Urban Credit Union – Toledo, Ohio
  • Hill District Credit Union – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  • Urban Upbound Federal Credit Union – New York City
  • St. Louis Community Credit Union – St. Louis, MO

The blog HBCUMoney.com also tracks the state of HBCU credit unions, which are used mostly by employees of HBCUs. https://hbcumoney.com/tag/african-american-credit-unions/

As a reminder:

Twice on video, I’ve seen White people bash another White family on WalMart premises for receiving welfare benefits. The first family was loading their food into a van in the WalMart parking lot at night when the guy rolled up to them and recorded the family on video while he yelled at them for using his “hard-earned money” to buy food. The second family was a father in the checkout lane being bashed by a woman behind him in front of his toddler daughter, for the same reason (“you’re just gaming the system, ain’t ya?”).

You know what? That HURT me to watch.

Because if that’s how White Americans treat worse-off White Americans at WalMart in front of their children for the temerity to receive SNAP and TANF, imagine what mendacious coarsities those same individuals express among their kinfolk about African-Americans who do the same.

#classism #bigotry #welfare

Black America Measured as the Next U.S. State

Politics, Uncategorized, , , ,

I remember reading this article from The Atlantic from a while back which thoroughly measured the economy and infrastructure of Black America as its own nation-state.

However, I don’t know if anyone has ever thought about if Black America were its own state within the Union – a majority-minority state demographically dominated but never self-governed at the state level by people of African descent.

But what if it were? What would be the prevailing politics of this state?

Let’s call it the 52nd state in the Union – the State of New Afrika. The 51st would be Puerto Rico.

In the State of New Afrika, how would Black Democrats govern and represent their districts? How would Black Republicans?

What would be the state of law enforcement in New Afrika? How much control would the majority-Black state government have over its majority-Black cities?

State governments have perhaps more control over the function of cities and their residents than the federal government does. The provision of funding for public schools, for law enforcement, for prisons (public or private), for water resources, for roads, for recreation, for environmental protections and so on. No city in the United States except for the District of Columbia (subject to Congress) has such a broad control over their infrastructure. The federal government is also hobbled in its ability to reach cities because of state government control.

So if Black America lopsidedly dwells in metropolitan areas, but these metropolitan areas’ statuses are ultimately determined at the state level where the majority of leaders are not of the same economic, ethnocultural or regional background, what does that say about how much control we actually have over our local communities and our welfare?

 

African history hypothesis: When better ships made it easier for European states like Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands to navigate their way to the Moluccas in the 1400s-1500s, it was the end of an era when caravan trade routes allowed for kingdoms in both the Sahel and Eurasia to attain prominence in trade while being in the desert or mountains.

Africa, by way of geographically being “in the way” between Europe and Asia, went from being a thoroughfare of trade to being a stumbling block to skip over. The Trans-Saharan and Silk Road routes were both made redundant.

If southern Africa were broken up into archipelagos of islands (a la Indonesia or the West Indies), would those African islands have thrived more from trade in the longer run?

This article goes in-depth on members-only unions, especially in the South. Apparently, they’re far in between, but they exist and are often very civil rights-oriented. Read this:

What is often lost in many of the discussions on workers’ rights is that members-only unions are not a theoretical construct or historical remnant. In fact, beyond UAW Local 42, a variety of public and private-sector locals have operated on a members-only basis for many years, with varying degrees of success. For example, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has approximately 120,000 members in members-only unions spread across Texas, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Virginia.

Most of the existing members-only unions are located in southern states, because legal conditions in those states such as right-to-work laws make it difficult to organize a majority union. Similarly, most members-only unions are public-sector unions, because many states that are inhospitable to labor can easily pass laws that limit collective bargaining rights in the public sector. However, there are members-only unions in the private sector and in other geographic locations as well.

via With Traditional Unions on the Decline, Can Members-Only Unions Breathe Life Back Into Labor? – Working In These Times.

First off, I’m guilty of this.

Second off, right now I’m reading another article on members-only unions and how they fair in very rural, politically anti-union states like Texas and North Carolina. I’m wondering if members-only unionism (aka “minority unions”) are the only sort of unionism that can work here in rural Georgia. But read this, first:

If you spend time among coastal liberals, it’s not unusual to hear denigrating remarks made about poor “middle Americans” slip out of mouths that are otherwise forthcoming about the injustices of poverty and inequality.

Yet, since the 1950s, Americans living in non-metropolitan counties have had a higher rate of poverty than those living in metropolitan areas. According to the 2013 American Community Survey, the poverty rate among rural-dwelling Americans is three percent higher than it is among urban-dwellers. In the South, the poorest region of the country, the rural-urban discrepancy is greatest—around eight percent higher in non-metro areas than metro areas.

So why is the poverty of rural America largely unexamined, even avoided? There are a number of explanations.

via Why the Left Isn’t Talking About Rural American Poverty – Rural America.

On one common objection against #RaiseTheWage: Actually, I don’t mind higher prices for your services or products. I may not be able to access your services or products most of the time, but when I do, I expect to be paying for the experience of making and presenting the product as is. That includes the experience of those who made it and their need for full compensation for their labor. That includes a wage that they can live on. You don’t have to be Wal-Mart. You don’t have to be China. You can aim for better quality, for your products as well as your labor.