The poor performance of African economies and economies where the people are of colour other than whites have prompted people to ask whether poverty is a black or a colour thing.
This question about poverty being a black thing has gained credence in many circles. This question is also asked about Africa because it is the poorest continent on earth. It is a continent where for 30 years there has not been any concrete economic development compared to the rest of the world. It lags behind all the other continents in terms of economic and social development. Most if not all the countries African continent have similar economic problems namely high unemployment, high inflation, higher deficits, poor state of economic and social infrastructures including roads, harbours, education, airports, telecommunication, health and sanitation and rail system. Africa is a continent where people die for lack of food, water, and against common preventable diseases. It is a continent full of misery, desperation and hopelessness. It is a continent where very few children under the age of five survive the menace of the six killer diseases. It is a continent where people have no access to basic necessities of life. It is a continent where people walk several miles for water and children have no access to education and medical services. It is a continent where rural life is nothing but a condemnation to abject poverty. It is a place where people live in mud/thatched houses with bamboo/raffia leaves as roofing sheets. It is a continent full of wars and armed conflicts. It is a continent of dictators and kleptocrats, a continent where corruption is rewarded and achievement is shunned, a continent where entry into public life/service is seen as a means to acquiring wealth and a means of getting top positions. It is a continent where life expectancy is low and corruption very high.
So is it a colour or race thing? I must say that I do not agree or subscribe to the notion that poverty has any colour inferring in it and that the underdevelopment and impoverishment which is prevalent on the African continent is deeply rooted in centuries of slavery and colonialism, coups, armed conflicts, brain drain, endemic corruption and mismanagement, dictatorial rule, Kleptocracy, foreign interventions and the fight for control of the natural resources.
Slavery and Colonialism
Centuries of slavery and colonialism deprived the continent of her able human and economic resources. The able men and women were carried away to work in the plantations of the Americas (in all about 30 – 40 million people) and they helped to make America and Europe what they are today. Millions of young Africans were forced to abandon the continent of their origin and were transported several thousands of miles away unto a land where they had no historical attachment with. They travelled in very deplorable conditions, without adequate food, water and air. When they reached the so called new worlds they were made to work from morning till sun set the only time they had on their own was Sundays in which they had to everything that they needed on their own such planting their crops, repairing their homes. It was a very nasty experience having to work for ours without pay. Some even worked till they dropped dead. The slave trade deprived the continent of her energetic men and women a vital resource in any development process and sunk the continent into intellectual wilderness.
Looting of Resources
About the same time that slavery was being vigorously pursued, the natural resources including timber, gold, diamond, tin ore, ivory and many more were looted in large quantities by the European countries namely Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy. After slavery was abolished the looting of the natural resources continued. The irony is that virtually all the income from these resources was used to finance the economic and the infrastructural development of the European countries with little or nothing at all being used to develop the various countries where these resources came from. A clear example is the case of Democratic Republic of Congo where King Leopold II of Belgium enslaved the Africans, forced them to work without pay, killed about 10 million and looted the country of her resources and virtually nothing was used to invest in the country except guns which the Belgium army used to terrorise and kill the Africans. When the DRC was transferred from Leopold II to the Belgium state the looting and killing continued till DRC gained her independence in the 1960s. In fact DRC (Congo Free State) was the main supplier of rubber a vital raw material for the tyre industry and all the money from the sale of the rubber went to Belgium. King Leopold II was able to transform Belgium as one of the poorest countries in Europe into one of the wealthiest courtesy the enslavement and looting of Africans and their resources.
Belgium was not alone in what she did to the continent. Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy all looted Africa of her gold, diamond, ivory, timber, cobalt, coltan, tin ore, bauxite, manganese and all the minerals you can think of. The Africans who resisted the illegal activities were killed in their millions as happened in South West Africa (now Namibia) where the Germans in 1904 to 1907 committed the first genocide of the 20th Century by killing the Herero and the Namaqua people. While Europe became richer Africa became poorer and the trend continued till the 1950s when the African countries started to gain their ‘independence’ beginning with Libya in 1951, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia all in 1956 and Ghana in 1957.
With little or no investment in the continent the various post colonial governments inherited countries with practically no infrastructure: roads, rails, harbours, telecommunications, education, health and sanitation and airports. The only areas which saw some few infrastructure investments during the colonial days were those where raw materials were heavily extracted. The attainment of independence did not come on silver Plata. Algeria, Zimbabwe, Angola, Kenya, Namibia and to some extent South Africa all attained their independence from their colonial masters through arm struggles and in most cases the few infrastructures that existed were destroyed due to the conflicts.
Foreign Involvement
As if slavery, colonialism and the looting of the continent’s resources were not enough the continent became a battle ground during the Cold War as the two super powers and their allies battled for influence and control on the continent mainly for her resources. As a result many African governments who were deem to be pro-Russia or America were overthrown using the military. A case in point was the overthrow of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana on February 24th, 1966. Another example is the overthrow and assassination of Patrice Lumumba of Congo on January 17th 1961.Other leaders such as Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for either advocating for independence or improvement of conditions of Africans. CIA and the western intelligence community have been implicated for engineering the assassinations and overthrow of elected leaders of Africa. For example Larry Devlin, the CIA Station Chief in Congo during Patrice Lumumba’s days spoke to Washington Post in December 2008 saying he refused an order to assassinate Patrice Lumumba but his refusal did not stop the CIA and the Belgium government from overthrowing and assassinating him. The assassination attempt on Gamal Nasser of Egypt on 24th October 1954 and the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 were alleged to be the work of Britain’s M16 due to their refusal to hand over the administration of the Suez Canal to the British.
The CIA, KGB and their allies encouraged and financed wars and political instabilities throughout the continent. Angola became the battle ground for the CIA, KGB and the Chinese as each tried to gain control over the country, her people and resources. The civil war that engulfed Angola in 1975 only ended in 1991 after 26 years of conflict. When the war ended the few infrastructures that remained after the war of independence (1961-1974) were gone.
On March 7, 2004 Simon Mann a British citizen, a veteran mercenary and former officer of Britain’s elite Special Forces (SAS), and 69 other mercenaries were arrested at a military airfield outside Harare, Zimbabwe .Their destination was Equatorial Guinea in West Africa. Their mission was to overthrow Teodoro Obiang Nguema, president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, a nation of 600,000 people. During his defence he mentioned some powerful members of the British establishment as his financiers and backers including Jack Straw UK Justice Minister, Peter Mandelson former European Union Trade Commissioner and now Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise &Regulatory Reform, Sir Mark Thatcher a businessman and son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Jeffrey Archer a key Tory member who was convicted for perjury and Ely Smelly Calil a Lebanese oil trader accused of bankrolling the plot. Mark Thatcher was arrested in South Africa and charged with supplying the aircraft that carried Simon Mann to Harare. Mr. Thatcher pleaded guilty in South Africa and was later made to pay 300,000 pounds in exchange for a prison sentence. The coup plotters were to put Severo Moto, an opposition leader living in Spain in charge of the country. The coup was to give both the plotters and their backers unquestionable free access to the oil resource in the nation. If the coup had succeeded Mann and his cronies would have turned Equatorial Guinea into one of the usual sad stories in Africa- bloodshed, corruption, mismanagement, poverty and what have you. The governments of Spain, South Africa and others in the west were seriously implicated for being privy to the plot. Thanks to the vigilance of the Robert Mugabe regime the coup was nip in the bud. Unfortunately, most resource rich countries on the continent have not been all that lucky.
Among those mercenaries who sought to return Africa to their former colonial masters was Bob Denard. In fact, Simon Mann is just a small fish compared to Bob Denard, a French who made a career as a mercenary overthrowing leaders in Africa. When Bob Denard died in 2007, he had more than a dozen of coups to his credit. Four of those coups took place in Comoros Island alone. French author Jean Guisner, who has followed Denard’s career and written extensively about the French government, says Denard did nothing that was contrary to French interests – and he allegedly acted in close cooperation with intelligence services. Denard’s mercenary career took place between the 1950s and the 1980s. During that period, he is reported to have been involved in post independence Nigeria, Benin in 1977, Angola, Zaire – now DRC and the former Rhodesia – which is now Zimbabwe. Registering their frustration and lack of justice for the Comorians, Mr. Abdou Soule Elbak, former president of Grande Comoro said “This man sullied our history”, referring to Denard. “I regret he was not made to answer to all the crimes he committed in our country, the murders and the torture which he was guilty of,” said Moustoifa Said Sheikh, leader of the Democratic Front Party. All these mercenary activities took place on the continent because of the natural resources.
The product of all these were the political instabilities and the wanting destruction of lives and property that have bedevilled Africa till today. As the elected leaders of the continent were assassinated, overthrown and subjected to all forms of cold war tactics including bribery, arm twisting and blackmail the continent degenerated and faulted on all aspects of human endeavour. The new crop of leaders who replaced the post colonial independence leaders and who were largely puppets of the European and American governments became increasingly authoritarian and corrupt. Joseph Mobutu Sese Seko who became the choice of the Americans after they help to assassinate Lumumba ruled Congo for 32 years and in those years the country became poorer as Mobutu and his cronies got richer and the western countries notably USA and her allies had free hand looting the mineral resources most importantly cobalt a very important mineral needed for missile development. Little development activities was carried out by Mobutu. As a result Congo today can only be accessed by boats and canoes mainly through the River Congo.
As tyrants and dictators gained the support of western governments and did whatever they wanted with their economies without questions their people became poorer and hopelessness and desperation were the hallmarks of their lives. As the little money that came into government coffers were taken by corrupt government officials and civil servants there were almost no money to carry out infrastructural development and the poverty deepened. Poverty, desperation and hopelessness visited the people and coupled with their inability to change their leaders democratically, dissents were sowed among the population which serve as breeding grounds for more coups, civil wars and civil disturbances. This was evidence in Ghana, Nigeria, Niger, Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Liberia, Mauritania, Algeria, Gabon, Togo, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Central Africa Republic, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and Sierra Leone all experienced coups in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and even in the early 1990s. These waves of coups were followed by civil wars that hit Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Congo, Chad, CAR, Somalia, Uganda, Sudan, Angola, Niger and Guinea. These wars apart from it human cost also contributed to the destruction of roads, harbours, airports, rail lines, telecommunications, hospitals, schools and the livelihoods of the people. With the absence of infrastructures the countries have been unable to make any headway in terms of economic development.
World Bank, IMF & the Role of Foreign Corporations
The World Bank and the IMF (Bretton Wood Institutions) and foreign companies have also played their part in making poverty endemic on the continent. Most African countries incurred billions of debt through loans contracted from the Bank and IMF. Most of these conditional loans were used to service debts already owned by these poor countries. The loans were also used to pay foreign expatriates who came to the continent as ‘technical experts’.
Some of these loans were also used to undertake projects and programmes that benefited only the rich. Again part of the loan was also siphoned away by corrupt politicians and civil servants.
The structural adjustment programme (SAP) forced on the poor African countries by the Bank and the IMF forced the various governments to abandon their support for the public sector with serious consequences. The withdrawal of farm subsidies in particular has made it difficult for farmers to compete with their Western counterparts who receive millions of dollars of government subsidies every year. The unrests and disturbances over food shortage and high food prices that occurred in Egypt, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mauritania, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia and Sierra Leone in 2008 were the direct result of the Bank and IMF bitter pills prescribed to these poor countries.
Due to SAP and other policies of the Bank and IMF investment in education, health, transportation and other sectors of the economy declined considerably. The governments were also forced to privatise state owned companies. The sad aspect of this exercise was that almost all the companies went to foreigners and the proceeds used to settle debts already owned by these poor nations. Unable to pay their debts and more cash trapped these poor countries turned to the bank and IMF for more loans and the Bank response was open up your markets for foreign goods and accept globalisation. As a result the continent has become a dumping ground for foreign goods. Unable to compete with the influx of cheap foreign goods most local firms have no choice but to close down, laying off several millions of workers and devastating many families. Mr. John Jenkins the author of the ‘Confessions of an Economic Hit Man’ has written extensively about how the Bank, IMF and the various big cartels and corporations conspired to keep Africans and the developing world in the state in which they are today. Please watch John Jenkins on youtube as he tells his extraordinary story on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbdnNgqfs8
The presence of companies such as Shell, Mobil, Chevron, BP, Total, Rio Tinto, Texaco, BHP Billiton, Anglo-American and others have contributed to the high poverty levels on the continent. These companies who are mostly resource extraction in nature have destroyed the once rich soils of Africa, forcing many farmers to abandon their farms and loosing their livelihoods. Rivers, wells and streams used by the people for their everyday activities such as washing and drinking have been polluted by these profit making companies. Fishing in most mining and oil drilling communities has ceased as pollution has killed fish stocks in these rivers and lagoons rendering the fishermen unemployed. Communities which were once beaming with life are now ghost communities as land, rivers, lagoons and wells have been destroyed. Respiration, nausea and other mining related diseases are on the increase in many communities where mining and oil drilling are taking place but these profit making companies have abandon their corporate social responsibilities which they owe to the people. In August 2006 a Dutch company called Trafigura dumped highly toxic waste in Abidjan, Ivory Coast killing 17 people and sickening thousands. Such inhumane acts byTrafigura is just a tip of the iceberg.
Brain Drain
The poverty on the continent has also come about as result of serious brain drain that has hit the continent in recent times. The flight of doctors, engineers, architects, lawyers, judges, bankers, accountants, teachers, nurses, planners, agricultural experts and others have limited our ability to implement development projects and programmes. The flight of these intellectuals has rendered many government agencies very weak. In some communities there are hospitals without doctors and nurses. In others there are universities and colleges without lecturers and teachers. Countries like Malawi, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ghana, and Liberia have lost so much of their professionals to the very rich countries of Europe and America so much so that many of their sectors have resorted to hiring foreign expertise in order to cope. For example there are more Malawi doctors in Manchester City alone than the whole of Malawi combined. The irony is that governments use scarce resources to train these intellectuals only for them to leave the country for greener pastures abroad. Britain and the US are major recipient of these brain drain and even though they are aware of the tremendous negative effect it is having on these poor developing countries, they have done nothing to discourage it, in most cases they have encouraged it.
Corruption and Mismanagement
Corruption is another cancer that has tragically made the continent very poor. From South Africa to Egypt there is no country where corruption is not endemic. According to the Africa Union (AU) around $148 billion are stolen from the continent by its leaders and civil servants. In 2006 Forbes’ list of most corrupt nations had 9 out of the first 16 countries coming from Africa. Since oil was first discovered in Nigeria about 50 years ago, several billions of dollars have been realised from its but today the whole population continue to live in abject poverty and the country has nothing to show for it. As a result able men and women are battling dangerous seas just to enter Europe and try their luck. Others have resulted to 419 a popular scam used to trick people into given out their money and valuables. Those who seem to have benefited from the oil are corrupt politicians, civil servants and the big oil corporations such as Shell, Mobil, BP and their American counterparts. In fact Nigeria has consistently featured in the top 1% of the most corrupt nation on the planet. Between 2005 and 2007 several state governors and their immediate families were arrested by Scotlandyard in London on corruption and money laundering charges. Among them are James Ibori of oil rich Delta State and his wife Theresa who had their 35 million dollar asset frozen by the English court. Mr. Ibori earns about a thousand dollars a month but during his eight years as a state governor he managed to acquire wealth to the tune of $35m and was a key financial contributor to the campaign of the current president of Nigeria. He owns a private jet and lavish London home. Another corrupt governor is Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, governor of oil-rich state of Bayelsa who was also arrested in London for money laundering charges. Mr. Alamieyeseigha broke his bail conditions and evaded capture in Britain by dressing up as a woman. When Police conducted a search in his London home they discovered one million pounds worth of cash in his home. Another governor who was arrested in England was Joshua Dariye of Plateau State. He was arrested in a London hotel for stealing money meant for development of his state. In South Africa Jacob Zuma is still battling it out with the court for his part in the multi-billion arms deal in 2001 in South Africa. He was forced to resign as Deputy President of South Africa. The late Mobutu in his 32 years as President of Zaire, now DR Congo amassed several billions of dollars belonging to the Congo people. In 2006 former president of Malawi Bakili Muluzi was arrested for pocketing $12m donated to his poor country by foreign governments. Again former Zambia president Frederick Chiluba was arrested together with two business men Aaron Chungu and Faustin Kabwe and charged with 11 counts of stealing money meant for the Zambia’s development. In Equatorial Guinea where oil export has earned the country billions of dollars, the 600,000 people living in the country continue to live in poverty while Teodoro Obiang Nguema and his cronies continue to siphon the oil revenue with no accountability. Gabon and Angola both Oil exporting countries are no different. In fact, the governments in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea can best be described as Kleptocracy that is government by thieves. In countries such as Nigeria, Egypt, Cameroon, The Gambia, Sudan, Uganda, Libya, Tunisia a Kleptocracy class of people have replaced anything democracy. In these countries very few people continue to remain in power and the people have no say in the way their country is govern or run. For example Gaddafi of Libya has been in power for 39 years now. Omar Bongo of Gabon 31 years, Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea 28 years, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe 28 years, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt 27 years, Paul Biya of Cameroon 26 years, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda 22 years, Omar Al Bashir of Sudan 19 years, Iddriss Derby of Chad 17 years, Yahya Jammeh of Gambia 14 years, and the list is unending. What is clear is that these unelected leaders continue to amass wealth at the expense of their poor countries and continue to mismanage whatever remains of their corrupt acts. Because most of the leaders are former military officers or former rebels with no grasp of economics and management, they are unable to formulate any good economic policies that will make their economies grow hence poverty has become a part of the people but their leaders know not what poverty is. A visit to the Niger Delta region of Nigeria shows that majority of the people are unemployed. Years of oil spills have made the soil unfit for any agricultural activity. Their streams and wells are polluted and the people have no access to basic necessities of life even though billions of dollars is realised from the sale of oil from that region every year. In the 1990s economic hardship, abject poverty, and destruction of the environment forced the people of Ogoniland to demand a say in which Shell operates but the military regime led by Gen. Sani Abacha arrested the environmentalists led by Ken Sorowiwa and executed them. It is these monies meant for the development of the states that these state governors were caught trying to bank away in Europe. Every effort to get the Nigeria government to develop the oil rich areas fell on death ears until the unemployed youth took up arms against the federal state. They kidnapped foreign oil workers and demanded ransom before their victims were released. They disrupted the oil production forcing the oil companies to move several miles offshore for their own safety but they were not safe either. Eventually, the companies had to reduce their output by 25% in 2007-8. These disruptions affected supply of oil in the world market forcing the price to skyrocket to $140 a barrel in the summer of 2008.
In DR Congo it is estimated that gold and diamond deposits alone could fetch the country 23 trillion dollars not to mention the abundance of timber and other several minerals that are found in large quantities such as columbo-tantalite (coltan) and cassiterite (tin ore) yet years of corruption, mismanagement, conflicts and foreign involvement have made this resource rich nation one of the poorest in the world. Coltan for example is used in every mobile phone and a number of electronic devices in the world. Cassiterite used in electronic circuit boards is the most traded metal on the London Stock Exchange. It is often said that western nations cannot maintain their current level of lifestyle without Congo and most corporations in the west can easily go bust without Congo. The question is if Congo is the blood line of the west and the west is rich because of Congo then why is Congo so poor? And where are the billions of dollars from the sale of these minerals? The answer lies in the history of the nation which is corruption, slavery, colonialism, assassinations, armed conflicts and foreign involvements. Since her independence from Belgium in 1960 there has not been peace in the country. Several millions of Congolese have died about 4 million of them in the last eight years alone and most of the dead are civilians. The conflict in Congo is largely about who controls the vast resources in he country. The huge size of the country has made its administration very difficult. And the problem is exacerbated by weak, ill-trained, undisciplined and very corrupt Congolese army who abduct, terrorise, rape and murder the people instead of protecting them.
The various militia groups operating in the east of the country have made life very difficult and unbearable for the civilian population. These armed groups with backing from Rwanda and Uganda have largely operated in the region with impunity – abducting, raping, massacring and stealing from the poor people. Jean Pierre Bemba who is now facing war crimes in The Hague was a notorious warlord whose activities have not escaped the international criminal court (ICC). Another notorious warlord who is still operating with impunity is Laurent Nkunda. A visit to Walikale town in the east of the country explains in vivid terms why the people are so tragically poor. People have abandoned their farms and moved to the mines but whatever is made from the mining is taken away from them by the Congolese army and the ever present predators i.e. the armed groups. These armed groups force the people to mine the minerals without pay. Unable to farm and not paid for their toil, most of them have to credit food in order to survive. Everyday in Walikale about 16 aircraft fly out of the city with loads of minerals bound for Rwanda. These stolen minerals further find their way in the western mineral market in London and Switzerland. The proceeds are shared by the warlords in Congo, the Generals, politicians and the businessmen in Rwanda and the rest is used to acquire weapons that are used to terrorise the people and prolong the war. Please click the link below to watch a video of Congo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io8c81xHLmw
Recommendations and Conclusion
It is clear that several forces within and outside the continent have contributed to making the continent the poorest on earth. But there is no time to look back but a time to look forward and get our acts together, organise ourselves and start doing something. The progress that has been made by China, India, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia the Gulf countries including Bahrain, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia and Qatar over the last 30 to 50 years shows that poverty has got nothing to do with colour or race. Nations become poor because their leaders fail to formulate policies and programmes that address their problems.
To reverse the negative impact of centuries of slavery and colonialism on one hand and decades of coups, civil wars, corruption, mismanagement and foreign interventions on the other hand, the governments should focus their attention on reforming their democratic institutions and allow free and fair elections to be organised. They should do more to fight corruption and mismanagement, establish independent corruption watchdogs, strengthen the judiciary, and be accountable to the people.
They should curtail the power of the army and embark on concrete, sound and result driven policies and provide more incentives to discourage brain drain.
The governments should embark on building social and economic infrastructures – schools, hospitals, roads, rail lines, telecommunications, airports, harbours, markets, that will lay the foundation for economic and social development. They should establish research institutions to find out how best to use the various natural resources to benefit the people. As the saying goes ‘resources are not but they become’ that is to say you may have all the natural resources in the world but if you do not have the ability to convert them into useful commodities/ consumables to benefit the people they are nothing.
The AU should be more concerned about fighting poverty than just been a talking shop for corrupt, kleptocrats and dictators.
Lord Aikins Adusei
http://www.articlesbase.com/education-articles/is-poverty-a-black-thing-728359.html
Republished by Blog Post Promoter
What do conservaitves think the answer is to helping black communities?
many people, like Bill Cosby, think we have some problems with black communities in America…
I’ve heard a lot of the liberal answers…
Reagan spent the 80s saying "get a job" and "don’t do drugs"… that didnt’ seem to work…
so, what are conservatives answer to the inner city plight?
and really, this doesn’t even have to be a black thing, but about poverty in America overall… as there are some poor white communities that need help too…
Worked out great for Obama with his ‘community organizing" didn’t it?
Person of Interest in Murders Barricades Himself With Gun at Chicago Hospital
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,554160,00.html
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Education Secretary Arne Duncan will travel to Chicago on Wednesday to meet with students, community members and officials from the high school attended by a 16-year-old honor student who was beaten to death last week, officials said Thursday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/01/AR2009100105055.html
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BAN RAIL ROAD TIES!
Have we not all been awoken to the dangers of ‘semi-automatic’ rail road ties…?
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Let them help themselves. Handouts don’t work. It’s about time they have some personal responsibility for there own communities.
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Well I know MY answer is that there needs to a serious effort to create ‘incubators’ for Venture Capital firms in black communities. Also, there needs to be a serious effort to ensure that Gentrification keeps Blacks in those communities.
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No Child Left Behind is a crime against humanity and a way to keep Black children down. -Bush
And when Reagen spoke he blamed Blacks for they lives they have…He literally said that if people were hungry its not ’cause they were poor, its ’cause they’re on a diet.
Reagan was an assh*le
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Republicans do not help communities according to their race.
Republicans help all communities regardless of race.
It is the racist democrats that see only race.
Republicans create jobs by opening business.
Because treating people differently because of race gender, or sexual preference, whether for good or bad is wrong.
It is the democrat party that keeps people poor with welfare, and keeps them unemployed with unemployment.
The democrat party encourages teen pregnancy with abortions, condom giveaways, and daycare centers at high schools.
Removing all responsibility for bad behavior.
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Cut off welfare and force them to get a job. Obama said he’d create jobs, go get those.
Reagan was right, and if that doesn’t work that’s not much to do except continue handouts.
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I’m with Reagan– they can get a job and not do drugs– so they can support themselves/family. If they are unable to do these two simple things, then they can just live in poverty without welfare checks.
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i don’t see anything wrong w/ ‘get a job’ and ‘don’t do drugs’….
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If they don’t they are racist.
They always have something to complain about.
I know this for a fact I live in a small southern state and most of the time you can’t win for losing..
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Put a stop to the welfare state. It only keeps people on it from being productive because it makes them dependent on others. The gov’t has been failing to help people through concerted effort since the Great Society in the 60’s. How long should we keep trying to do the same thing before we realize that it doesn’t work?
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The welfare state is a TOTAL disaster, both personally and as a city. The "safety net" has become a "hammock". Libs who believe that it works are more interested in control and keeping votes than they are helping the poor.
Jack Kemp had a great deal of NON GOVERNMENT NANNY STATE success with his "enterprise zones"… Google it for more info
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Why can’t anyone help themselves anymore? Why does everyone depend on the govenrment for everything? Has the government ever been good for anything?
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Lower taxes reduce regulations, allow for school voutures so that failed schools will have to compete for students
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The conservative answer is immigration reform to reduce the ratio of non-white population in the nation.
The conservative answer is no health care so that people expire quickly.
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"so, what are conservatives answer to the inner city plight?"
My guess is that most of them don’t care.
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The real question is, what the hell has liberals and their entitlements done for the black community?
What’s wrong with independence?
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Personal responsibility. It’s pretty simple. Be accountable for yourself. Is that too hard to ask of liberal socialists?
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I’m not really conservative, but I’m not sure there is an answer.
Education is very important, but children do not learn by themselves, they need parental involvement. The problem is with the parents.
I don’t see a big problem with the President (or anyone else) encouraging personal responsibility – though some people seem to think that is downright UNAmerican.
We can’t really cut off welfare and food stamps, but that would certainly encourage people to find a way to earn money.
Drugs are a big problem, and that goes back to personal responsibility also.
I don’t know that there is an answer.
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since neocons dismiss all poor neighborhoods, it is not in their playbook to help anyone other than their own fellow repubes amass even more wealth at the expense of the poor.
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Great question!
#1 problem is no father figure in the house
#2 no positive role models i.e Chris Brown, Snoop Dog …….
and most importantly
#3 Personal accountability
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Black scholars agree welfare is as bad as a drug and keeps their community down….end it in stead give workfare….you want a check…spend time working for the city or state doing menial labor….see how fast an education becomes important to them rather then getting handouts
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Same as it is for white communities; instill a work ethic in your kids and demand they do well in school…it has worked wonders for most americans over the past 60 years…
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Cut welfare.
Since LBJ’s big push to get more people onto welfare, the black communities in the U.S. have collapsed. Where once they were full of intact, blue collar families, today they are full of broken homes and gangs.
Welfare makes it easier for fathers to walk away from their responsibilities and for single mothers to try and rear children on their own.
While liberals claim that a male presence is not needed in the home, history shows that to be a lie. Children raised without fathers are more likely to commit crimes, drop out of school, do drugs, join gangs and become single parents themselves, thus continuing and even growing the cycle.
The lack of responsible men is the biggest problem the American black community faces, followed by the fact that the majority of abortions in the U.S. are done on black women. And, yes, the two are related.
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education is always the answer to most serious problems!
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Cosby also says to stop feeling sorry for yourselves, get an education and get a job ! He also thinks people should pull up their pants and stop acting like children and that parents should marry and stop having babies out of wedlock. YOu don’t see them doing those things do you?
This is a BLACK THING…because you mentioned BLACKS…and not poverty! But to answer THAT question there are a lot of white people that take advantage of the system too and don’t need to. There are a lot of them that are lazy and don’t want to take care of themselves either and make themselves victims instead of solid citizens.
NOW to go further…I realize that these are hard times and now the unemployment is at an almost record high….1.5 million jobs lost and close to 300,000 just last month. The comments I made were for those that use excuses all their lives and don’t try. NOT for those that are unemployed now because the jobs aren’t there.
YOU have bozo to thank for that. If I were you I would be outraged at this…. He is betraying AMERICA AGAIN by allowing this crap to happen and sneak this behind your back. NOW you are paying for Palestines and they get money from the U.S. for having BABIES HERE! NICE of bozo to allow that.
this is going to reduce YOUR unemployment weeks and the help you should get! I am PISSED that he is so damn sneaky that this passes and we don’t know about it. I am sorry…NO ONE should have that much power and I am sick of it. I want to know what bills are out there and we should be able to read them and vote on them. HE SAID HE WOULD BE THE TRANSPARENT PResident…where is that transparency now? WHY does he have to SNEAK things in like this. I am SICK OF THIS!
Do you know about the West Bank’s biggest income producer is? Believe it or not, it is pregnant Palestinain women comming to the US, having their babies, then going back home. This qualifies them to receive child support from the US government entitlement programs.
CHECK IT OUT FOR YOURSELF…..THE WEB SITE IS POSTED!
Subject: Fw: HB 1388 PASSED
Wake Up America !!! Wake Up!! Rome let the barbarians enter freely! and the rest is history! Please pass this on……
This is absolutely appalling!
There is a link at the bottom that shows the executive order.
HB 1388 PASSED
Whether you are an Obama fan, or not, EVERYONE IN THE U. S. needs to know…..
Something happened… H.R. 1388 was passed behind our backs. You may want to read about it.. It wasn ‘ t mentioned on the news… just went by on the ticker tape at the bottom of the CNN screen.
Obama funds $20M in tax payer dollars to immigrate Hamas Refugees to the USA .. This is the news that didn’t make the headlines…
By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in "migration assistance" to the Palestinian refugees and "conflict victims" in Gaza .
The "presidential determination", which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States , was signed on January 27 and appeared in the Federal Register on February 4.
Few on Capitol Hill, or in the media, took note that the order provides a free ticket replete with housing and food allowances to individuals who have displayed their overwhelming support to the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the parliamentary election of January 2006. ;
Let’s review….itemized list of some of Barack Obama’s most recent actions since his inauguration:
His first call to any head of state, as president, was to Mahmoud Abbas, leader of Fatah party in the
Palestinian territory.
His first one-on-one television interview with any news organization was with Al Arabia television.
His first executive order was to fund/facilitate abortion(s) not just here within the U. S. , but within the world, using U. S. tax payer funds.
He ordered Guantanamo Bay closed and all military trials of detainees halted.
He ordered overseas CIA interrogation centers closed.
He withdrew all charges against the masterminds behind the USS Cole and the "terror attack" on 9/11.
Now we learn that he is allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refuges to move to, and live in,
the US at American taxpayer expense.. These important, and insightful, issues are being "lost" in the blinding bail-outs and "stimulation" packages.
Doubtful? To verify this for
yourself:
http://www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-02-04-E9-2488
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It isn’t the governments job to cater and pamper these special needs candidates, if anything, quite pampering them, if they won’t work, don’t feed ’em, if they can fornicate, they can work, end of story! If they murder, they can expect the chair to be their fate!
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The answer to poverty is stop giving people welfare checks and food stamps. By giving people checks every month for sitting at home doing nothing you are doing them a serious disservice. Poverty is not really a problem. In America any race of people can overcome poverty. The people that don’t overcome poverty is because they are too weak to even try. It’s easier to sit at home and collect your free check which is actually less than minimum wage at a full-time job. I know quite a few people on welfare and every single one of them has the internet and cable tv. Glad I paid for these life necessities for them. Poverty is not a condition or problem, it’s a choice in America. It’s not a choice everywhere, but the beauty of capitalism is that if you try to succeed, you will.
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My love for this nation and all Americans
We have had Federal and State programs for years that provide training and life improvement opportunities in lieu of welfare and stagnation. When a woman can benefit in the welfare system by having children to increase benefits, obtain housing, healthcare and be fed on the public dime as long as she is a single mother, acknowledging a man and father in the house is a detriment. Statistically, ethnic minorities make up this welfare population in the US. This is not by chance, it reaps of choice, and there is no incentive by recipients to change the status. Bill Cosby has addressed this very thing, and he is critical of the black community of America. I have heard him say they have to get off their lazy as$ses and take responsibility for life. The man is right, and our Government is a codependent and enabler of poverty and welfare
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The answer is to make the playing field level period. For example we all know that schools in the the inner city are generally crap compared to the schools in suburbs, especially in affluent areas. So when inner city kids can’t compete and need affirmative action just to get into college the conservatives cry correctly this is reverse racism. It’s ridiculous to even think that people asking for a the same quality education many affluent people enjoy is the same as asking for a handout. The secret is that conservatives enjoy having this advantage and anything that threatens that will always be met with false outrage.
Bill Cosby is also right but I think he needs to visit some real inner city schools so he can present both sides of the issue correctly!
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What’s with all these dip-shits that think " education " is the answer to everything ? is that some liberal buzzword for " indoctrination " ?
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