Underwriting Marches and Protests with Economic Power

While I disagree, as far as all we have to do is keep our money in our pockets, I agree with the idea of making an economic impact, and using that impact as our voice. This has always been a struggle associated with socioeconomic positioning. Even the term “race,” as it is now used, originated as an economic race between Europeans to create an economic infrastructure in the Americas. It later became associated with ethnicity when certain ethnic groups were distinctly aligned along certain socioeconomic lines that represented specific socioeconomic statuses (i.e. Blacks in the roles of poor servants and slaves, poor whites, wealthy whites and elite wealthy whites). So the way to attack the problem has always been through economic empowerment for blacks, initiated by economic withdrawal from the mainstream, white economy.

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Here is where I disagree with using economic withdrawal as the end game. We must do more than simply withdraw our money from the white economy. While withholding our dollars will have a significant impact on their economy, as proven by the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the 1950s, it does very little for our own economy. We must think more along the line of a long term solution and strategy. Here is why. First, we are the consumers that drive a major portion of this economy, and so we are the most targeted group of people as far as marketing is concerned, which is an indicator of the actual power we have; however, you have to anticipate the next move and the move after that, if we are looking for long term solutions. We are currently unable to function autonomously as a group, because we have not developed an economic infrastructure on which to build, and we also lack a network infrastructure through which to support ourselves, meaning that we could literally be starved out if things became hostile enough.

So then, we must take the money we withhold and invest it in building. We must develop and economic, political and agricultural agenda, and then use our $1.1 trillion to finance a focused spending plan over a specific period of time. We must also create allies within the country and abroad. While our ancestors who built great economies like the ones in Tulsa, OK (also known as Black Wall Street), Rosewood, Slocum, TX, Wilmington, NC and more, understood economic science, they failed to apprehend political science and military science, leaving themselves highly vulnerable to physical attack, which ultimately spelled their demise.

We must learn how to use the political system to our advantage, but the first thing we must learn is that our power is not in voting (ask the Asians), it is in our economic prowess, and how that economic power is invested in the political arena (ask the gay and lesbian community).

Marcus Garvey taught this and modeled it. Malcolm X preached it to the grave, MLK was assassinated because he shifted paradigms from social equality to economic empowerment, and Dr. Claud Anderson has preached it for more than 40 years, modeled it, and wrote the blueprint. All we have to do is follow it.

1. Economic Empowerment through the practice of black group economics on a vertical scale.

2. Invest in the Political arena with economic power to influence the process to act on our behalf.

3. Use our newly created political clout to influence local policy in police departments and court systems.

4. Invest in owning our own media outlet to ensure we are able to influence the information that is disseminated to our people and tell our story our way. The media is the most powerful leverage arm in the world. It controls thought, and Carter G. Woodson told us that if we control what a man thinks, we have no need to worry about controlling his actions.

5. Create our own holistic education system to prepare and empower our youth to focus on ownership and control of resources in lieu of securing employment in an economic system that is hostile toward them — teaching them how to compete and win. Teaching them:

a. Agricultural Science
b. Political science
c. Economic Science
d. Relational science (which is immensely important to the task of closing the gap of hostility between our men and women — something that is essential to restoring the black family nucleus)
e. Entrepreneurial Principles

This is how it is done. Marching and protests mean absolutely nothing, without the economic power to underwrite the threat that the marches and protests represent. Without economic power, marches and protests are tantamount to a collective temper tantrum. ~ Dr. Rick Wallace, Ph.D.

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