The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    The Thrill Is Gone - But I Have A Dream That Can Sustain The Legacy

    By Wattree on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 9:01am |

    Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

     
    The Thrill Is Gone - But I Have A Dream That Can Sustain The Legacy
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    .
    Yes, the thrill is indeed gone. On Thursday, May 14th of this year, not one, but two Blues legends passed into history - the Great B.B. King, and his ever-loyal companion, "Lucille," slipped silently into the night.. Ironically, B.B.'s health seemed to rapidly fade shortly after his longtime friend, and another Lion of the blues, Bobby "Blue" Bland, passed on June 23rd of 2013.
    .
    But we've lost more than just two giants in these two great men - with every Black person of their generation that passes, the Black community is also losing part of its collective memory of another way of life; a way of life where Black people understood the importance of sticking together, and working together for a common cause.  A lot of people don't know it, but Bobby Bland used to be B.B. King's chauffeur. That's right, but you'd never know it to see them above as peers honoring one another and singing each other's songs. That's the way Black people did when they were coming up - "If I got a job, you got a job"; "If I see your kid getting into something he or she shouldn't, don't worry about it; I'll handle it (I was the victim two of the best whippings I ever had from neighbors)."  Black people had to look out for one another just to survive in the Jim Crow environment that Bobby and B.B. King came up in. That's why even though Bobby was already a well known singer, he doubled as B.B.'s chauffeur.  B.B. was helping to supplement his income - and they were hanging out anyway, so why not pay Bobby to drive?   
    .
    But things are rapidly changing in the Black community, and we're paying a a heavy price for it.  The social manipulators have managed to divided the Black community. They've convinced a segment of the community that they've "arrived" and life is now about class these days, so it's everybody for themselves. They have many Black people looking down their noses at the people in the community who continue to struggle, and that attitude among some of our people is preventing our community from moving forward as a whole. Many seem to equate "having arrived" with getting as far away from other Black people as they can get. Others are lifting boulders to try to find a reason to criticize the first Black President of the United States in order to prove that they've become so far removed from their former "Blackness" that they feel just as comfortable in attacking the most significant symbol of  Black competence in the world as any barefoot Hillbilly. It's sick, and it's an attitude that serves to keep the White supremacist system securely in place all over America.
    .
    A good example of how the Black community is allowing itself to be manipulated can be found in Leimert Park, Ca. Leimert Park has been a premiere center for Black culture and art for decades. It's the home of the late drummer, Billy Higgins' "World Stage," a cultural center that has featured some of the greatest musicians, poets, and artists of all kind in the world today. But with the arrival of the new Metro Rail coming through Leimert Park Village, the powers that be have a vision, and the Black community plays very little part in that vision. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who's predisposed to looking under every rock for instances of racism, but I am a Black man in America, and my experience as such tells me without a bit of uncertainty that these people are not spending all of the money they're spending, and snatching up all of the property in Leimert Park Village (on the down-low in many cases), in order to benefit Black people.  What we're watching take place in Leimert Park is a disgusting stampede of avarice and greed.
    ..

    The Black Community of Baldwin Hills, Ca.

     Leimert Park is perfectly located in one of the most beautiful parts of the city.  It's in the shadow of Baldwin Hills, one of the most prosperous Black communities in Los Angeles, and quite possibly America. It's minutes from the beach, and major freeways going both North and South, and, East and West, It's also within a block or two of the Crenshaw shopping mall. Then when you take into account the hundreds of billions - maybe even trillions - of dollars that can be made by converting the apartments in the "Jungle" and surrounding area into upscale condos, their dream begins to come into focus. 
    ..
    So yes indeed, the powers that be definitely have a dream for Leimert Park, but that dream doesn't have anything to do with the Black people who are currently living in the community or have businesses there . The pattern is already clear. Not even the workman who are working on the various projects in the area are Black - and where are the politicians who are supposed to be looking out for the community's interest!!!?

    So okay, maybe they do intend to keep The Village an art center, but we're not talking about an art center filled with Black people viewing portraits of Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon or Sarah Vaughan, we're talking about art galleries filled with rich White folks viewing pictures of Campbell's soup cans - and in order to pull that off, they're going to have to demolish the park and run off all of the street vendors (and many other Black people) so White folks will feel safe in the area.

    But I Have A Dream Of My Own
    .

    Olvera Street is in the oldest part of
     Downtown Los Angeles, California, USA,
     and is part of the El Pueblo de Los     Angeles Historic Monument.

    .

    It starts with community activists like Najee Ali and Earl Ofari Hutchinson enlisting the local clergy to educate and organize the community to press the city to seize "Billy Higgins' World Stage" through eminent domain and declaring it an historic landmark. In addition, I don’t think it would be too much to ask the powers that be to recognize the community by designating the block of Degnan - between 43rd Place on the South (including the park), 43rd Street on the North, and Leimert Blvd. on the East - be preserved by declaring it a cultural village. After all, it is one of the last - if not THE last - significant Black cultural centers in Los Angeles. Why can't the Black community have their Olvera Street? 

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    Thereafter we should form a Black Cultural Arts Consortium that includes the surrounding businesses, our churches, and the community itself to support Leimert Park Village and help to make it an asset for the community. We can turn it into a world-class Black arts center and tourist attraction. If the people in the community would just invest $10 a month in the Village the consortium would be well endowed. Some of the money could also be used to provide affordable childcare for working mothers. That's one of their biggest expenses. Unemployed mothers and retired professionals within our churches can be hired to help instruct the children in everything from reading, writing and math, to music, poetry, and various other arts and crafts.  We could also help to support the numerous musicians in the community by placing them on salary to teach music and perform in the Village at night, and to hold sessions in the park during the day. That way, when people passed by on the Metro Rail, they'd be encouraged to get off in the Village and shop. The Village would also enhance property values, so the $10 a month would be well worth it.
    .
    The Village could utilize the talents of people like Linda Morgan and Robert Carmack to organize events, and we'll need a citizen's committee to keep the self-serving deadbeats out.  Those are the people who can always be depended on to throw a monkey wrench into anything positive that's trying to be done in the community.  It's rumored, for example, that one musical wannabe that frequents the Village has organized a musical event at a nearby club and demanded that all of the participants who had CDs to sell give him a cut off of every CD that they sold - and he was just paying the performers peanuts to begin with. It has also been suggested that he's also emulating name brands to confuse the public into thinking that his events are being sponsored by a more well-known promoter. The citizen's committee should immediately identify and ostracize such people. In order to ensure this a viable endeavor we must banish these kind of self-servers from our midst. 

    We should also consider trying to enlist the The Nation Of Islam for security.  The Fruit Of Islam would provide a strong incentive for any would-be gangsters to avoid the area, because most gangsters understand that many of the FOI are former OGs themselves. If we did that, we could keep the people's contact with the LAPD to a minimum. Then later, if we're able to brag of zero crime, it would both give us a pride of community, and it would go a long way toward negating the demonization of Black people as a whole. 

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    In addition, we should also encourage our churches to use some of their tithes to create businesses in the community and hire our young people ("They answered and said to Him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham" - John 8:39). This is not a novel idea. The Black community of Greensboro, North Carolina has seen the light, just as we should.  The African Globe reports the following:

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    "Winn Dixie and other large grocery chains had divided up market territory, resulting in the closing of some stores despite their profitability. The loss of this Winn Dixie turned Northeast Greensboro into a food desert . . . For more than 15 years, there were many efforts to lure a new grocery store into the space. However, while the store would be profitable, it wouldn’t be profitable enough to satisfy the demands of the shareholder-based economy of a large corporation. Fed up with essentially begging for access to affordable, quality food,  residents of this predominantly African-American and low-income neighborhood decided to open their own grocery store.
    .

    "After learning about cooperative businesses, they decided to open a community-owned grocery store. The store would meet local residents’ needs for access to quality food and dignified, well-paid jobs. And now it’s going to happen. When the Renaissance Community Cooperative opens in 2015, it will be a conventional grocery store (like a Food Lion or Kroger) where wages start at $10 per hr."
    .
    The Black Community Controls $1.1 Trillion - equal To Germany, The Third Riches Nation In The World
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    The African American community controls more spending power than the Gross National Product of Germany, the third richest industrial nation in the world, so why are we whining to the White man to provide for our needs? Dr. James P. Neelankavil, a professor of marketing and international business at Hofstra University, says in his book, International Business Research, that "Since the output of a country is an indicator of its economic activity, the GNP [Gross National Product] is often used as key factor in evaluating a country’s economic strength. The five largest countries in the world based on their GNP are the United States, $7 trillion; Japan, $2.5 trillion; Germany, $1.1 Trillion; France, $873 billion; and China, $393 billion." 
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    So based on Professor Neelankavil’s data, the African American community’s buying power of $1.1 trillion is equal to the economy of Germany, the third largest industrial economy in the world. We control $127 billion more than France, and $607 billion more than the gross national product of China. But here's the problem. Currently, a dollar circulates in Asian communities for a month, in Jewish communities approximately 20 days and white communities 17 days. How long does a dollar circulate in the black community? 6 hours!!! African American buying power is at 1.1 Trillion, and yet only 2 cents of every dollar an African American spends in this country goes to black owned businesses"(http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2014/02/african-americans-1-1-trillion-dollars-buying-power-putting-good-use/).
    .
    But in spite of the $1.1 trillion passing through the Black community, there are many who still insist on coming up with the excuse that the problem is with the banks - they won’t finance Black businesses. That’s a lame excuse, and we really need to stop trying to make excuses for our condition, because by coming up with all of these excuses, we’re simply giving ourselves a convenient excuse for failure. With all of the money that passes through the Black community, if we came together we could establish our OWN banks. 
    .
    Finally, I'd like to thank the Los Angeles Times for the front page coverage of B.B. King's passing. The Times sent B.B. out like the King he was, and by doing so, they not only honored him, but they honored the entire Black community.  Now it's time for us to honor ourselves.  Let's get on it. Talk to 'em, Bobby.
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    .
    Eric L. Wattree
    Http://wattree.blogspot.com
    [email protected]
    Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
    .
    Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

    Comments

    I love both Bobby "Blue" Bland and B.B. King equally Wattree.


    by HSG on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 2:50pm

    So do I, Hal.  

    They took the blues to another level. I could feel 'em even as a child when my mother used to listen to them.


    by Wattree on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 3:32pm

    One of the major tenets of real estate has been to automatically consider any home owed by a black person as worth less than an equivalent home owned by a black person. This is why the qualifier "wealthy black neighborhood" is used to describe upper class neighborhoods comprised of majority black residents. When we talk of neighborhoods were wealthy blacks live next to wealthy whites, we just say wealthy neighborhood.

    Black enclaves are at risk because they are devalued and dissected as property from the get-go. Devalued black middle class homes and poverty stricken homes are at risk from expansion of white corporate interests. What you describe in LA is just one example. Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore displaces poor blacks in East Baltimore as it expands. The University of Chicago displaces poor and middle class Blacks when it expands.

    President Obama plans to have his library in the black community. Will this project draw in more affluent whites to be near the institution and result in displacing blacks? Can it be used to be a node  for rebuilding black neighborhoods?

    How do we reverse the trend that a home is more valuable because it is in a majority white neighborhood. As you note homes can be valuable as they are in the portions of LA you note, but they are less valuable than in a majority white neighborhood. How do we force real estate interests to place equivalent value on equivalent homes no matter the ethnic makeup off the neighborhood?

    Hospitals, universities, local governments find it easy to direct highways and even waste dumps in areas with devalued homes. Real estate is a gamed system.


    by rmrd0000 on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 3:11pm

    RM,

    We need to do just what I'm suggesting here - come together, develop our neighborhoods, and gather political clout. One of the biggest problems in the Black community is apathy. That frustrates the hell out of me, because when I write an article like this I feel like I'm spitting in the wind - even when I try my best to appeal to the people's emotions. I think a big part of the problem is when people are struggling to live from day to day they're too emotionally exhausted to consider the big picture. That goes for Black, and and White people. That's why so many poor White people simply cave-in to the Republican Party - and that's why the Republican Party keeps them poor. When people are poor they're more responsive to empty promises, anger, and fear.  


    by Wattree on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 2:09pm

    I think the community gets hit in so many areas, that it is hard to focus. Case in point despite the recent turmoil in Baltimore and the attention paid to police brutality, poor housing, poor education, and job loss, the Governor has decided to divert funds from K-12 education. The Governor will fund state pensions and build a new juvenile prison facility that will cost half of what the cost of the requested education funds would have been. A prison for youth can be built, but education is another matter.

    http://www.attn.com/stories/1693/maryland-gov-refuses-68million-educatio...

    The black community is under attack on multiple levels. Displacing communities makes it less likely that a solid response to attacks can be mounted.


    by rmrd0000 on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 4:36pm

    with typical black family wealth of $11K, black wealth is certainly less than 500 billion, while German wealth is roughly up in the $3 trillion range.

    Your numbers are delusional, but they fit an agenda to make blacks think they're doing better than they are. Why exactly, I don't quite understand. And of course discretionary spending power & investment income & self-managed businesses are much more interesting than money that comes in & goes out in one paycheck for needed expenses.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 4:47pm

    The $1.1 trillion is not delusional, it reflects the buying power of blacks I the United States. the number comes from a report by Nielsen.

    http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2013/african-american-consume...

    Obviously, black wealth is a different matter. The automatic association of black homeownership with lower property values. Play a large role in the wealth gap between whites and blacks. Lack of access to capital to create business is another barrier to wealth. These factors are noted by Dr. Jared Ball of Morgan State University in Baltimore on Black Agenda Report.

    Blacks with good credit were targeted for outrageous loans placing them in the firing line for foreclosure and the major loss of black wealth in recent years.

    Edit to add:

    Nielsen notes the buying power

    Ball notes the rigged system 

    Wattree argues that blacks create their own economic system so that more money stays in circulation in black communities.


    by rmrd0000 on Mon, 05/18/2015 - 5:43pm

    And Peracles notes that someone's kidding someone.

    Selig Center: "buying power (or the amount of income left after taxes, not including savings or borrowed money) "

    $1 trillion means $22,300 per black capita (an incrrease to $1.3 trillion means over $30K). Median black family income is $33.5K. 2/3 of blacks live in family households, with 1/2 of those married couples. Median wealth for black households is around $5K. So how does a typical family of say 3 making $33.5K pre-tax translate to a per capita spending power of $22K or $30K (e.g. $66K-$90K spending power per family)?  include received social services & government benefits as "spending power"? or income distribution is horrid and the Jay-Z's/Oprahs of the world can spend but the avg person can't?

    German median household income is $57K, but $218K mean (avg). German population is 80 million, so roughly twice US African-Americans (& likely slightly smaller households). Germany's net national wealth is $14 trillion (not $1.1 trillion as erroneously claimed). Net mean wealth in Germany is $192K per household, certainly far below mean/avg German wealth. Where someone gets off presuming parity between black households and German households, I've no idea, but it's simply nonsense.

    If Tavis Smiley used such crap distortions in one of his Wells Fargo wealth management seminars, I'm sure you'd be all over his sorry ass.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 4:43am

    I pointed you to the Nielsen study pointing out the definition of buying power. If you disagree with the definition, take it up with Nielsen. I linked to an article noting the shortcomings of the term buying power. Apparently, you did not read that article. Your impression seemed to be that Wattree was saying that everything was fine economically in the black community despite the fact that he chided the community for not focusing on intra-community economic power and entrepreneurship.

    I did not focus on the German vs African-American economic data. I do note that generalized economic data for a country may gloss over income disparities within the country. The improvement in the overall U.S. economy hides income gaps. Germany has an East-West income disparity. If we look at the two sections of German we find disparities in income, home ownership, and wealth.

    http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/11/germany-berlin-wallfalluni...

    50% of East German homes have at least one unemployed person. 33% of East German single parents and 25% of all singles have poor buying power.

    http://www.dw.de/east-west-german-income-disparities-still-in-play/a-178...

    The impact of poverty may be less in East Germany because costs are lower in the East and in the Western part of the country. An article in Forbes argues that the East Germans may never catch up to the West.

    http://fortune.com/2014/11/09/germany-east-west-economy/

    A more detailed analysis of Germany at be in order.

     

     


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 8:19am

    I repeated the definition of "buying power" so we're on the same page for the rest of the statistics.

    I don't need to analyze East-West disparities - the figures are for Germany as a whole, and Germany is much wealthier than the African-American sector of the US economy, contrary to Wattree's contention. There simply is no discussion to be had here short of going off on a tangent.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 8:35am

    The GNP number comes from page 66 of the book noted by Wattree above. The author argues that the GNP is a more accurate measure.

    https://books.google.com/books?id=2mGmBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=james...


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 9:07am

    and that's the average GNP per capita for all Americans white/black/brown/yellow multiplied by the black population? certainly misleading.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 10:22am

    Wattree provided the source of his number. He noted that he was using the GNP. No one was mislead on what he wa saying. He noted that blacks needed to do more investment within the black community. You argued that he was presenting a rosy picture. He said blacks should stop making excuses. The truth is that you wanted to argue not matter what Wattree said.

    The call to support black businesses and entrepreneurs is an old one.  "Our Black Year" tells the story of one family who spent a year using only services from African-American businesses. Expanding this to a large scale movement could be one approach to keeping dollars in black hands to create wealth. 

    http://www.amazon.com/Our-Black-Year-Americas-Racially/dp/1610392280/ref...

    Given our current divided government and the open hostility of the GOP,  it is not likely that we will see any innovation coming from government or elsewhere. Thus, it is left up to the community to act.


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 11:01am

    RM,

    You have a lot of patience, but a good rule of thumb is to always ignore trolls, because you're giving them exactly what they want - to make you just as miserable and angry as they are. The adage that "Misery loves company" isn't a myth. So no matter how thoroughly you document they'll choose to ignore the facts just to continue the argument, because they crave acknowledgement - even if it's negative acknowledgement.

    Clear evidence of what I'm saying is, once the average person finds that everything a writer says is poorly thought out and ridiculous, they simply won't waste their time bothering to read that writer. They'll consider their time much too valuable.  But a troll will attack everything a given writer writes, yet he, or she, won't miss one installment. That's sick, and it proves, conclusively, that they don't have a life.  So why give them one?  Let 'em soak in their own obscure misery. That's the way you have to deal with trolls. Then, much like an unrewarded fly, they'll move on to more fertile ground.


    by Wattree on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 2:47pm

    Wattree, I do this because I find him amusing. However, your conclusions are correct. Since this is your blog, I will disengage now.

    If you haven't noticed there is a dagblog discussion about how Noam Chomsky has become stale and only able to direct attacks at the U.S. The arguments are reminiscent of discussions about how another Progressive Professor who can only muster attacks against President Obama.


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 3:04pm

    Well if dealing with trolls amuses you have at it. As long as you're having fun. My strategy is to find some sympathetic stooge to use as a foil so I can make insulting comments about someone without mentioning their name. By speaking about "trolls" in general I can maintain the pretense that I'm above it all even though everyone knows who I'm talking about and who I'm insulting. All the while getting revenge by insulting the un-named person who pissed me off. Some might call this a cowardly and craven strategy but I think it's quite clever. Apparently it's possible to say just about anything about anyone so long as you don't directly confront them and don't mention them by name.


    by ocean-kat on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 4:21pm

    I don't know what set you off.

    Direct confrontation of said trolls, especially use of names, are generally considered violations.


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 4:55pm

    I know!!! That's what makes the strategy of insulting an "unnamed" person through a third party stooge so great. Every body is happy because there are no direct confrontations with named persons, except, I would imagine, the person being obliquely insulted. But they too can find some stooge to use to insult some "unnamed" person in retaliation.

    Wouldn't it be great if everyone used this strategy instead of just one person here? Well two, if you include me.


    by ocean-kat on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 5:46pm

    The problem can be that two people can be addressing a particular troll and a stooge shows up. For example, the troll shows up to argue and then someone shows up to support the troll


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 6:18pm

    How can that possible be a problem? The beauty of this strategy is that it doesn't even matter if a person is actually a troll or has done anything at all. Anybody that's aggrieved by anyone for any reason at all can just find a third party to use to lash out at the unnamed person with a nasty insulting post. Problem solved.

    It's not like this strategy is the personal prerogative of just one person here.


    by ocean-kat on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 9:52pm

    See below


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 10:07pm

    Trust me, I was only really countering your bizarre assertion that black Americans have as much financial clout and "buying power" as 80 million Germans. I'm looking for those black BMW, Audi & VW factories and IG Farber chemical plants and SAP enterprise software houses, and Lufthansa airlines and DHL parcel svc and Deutsche Bank/Commerzbank and RWE Energy consortium, and I just don't see them. Help me, please - I don't want to be blind!

    PS - when Angie Merkel turns down Greece for a bailout again, can we send them to the combined black wealth co-op? would be a great marketing gimmick to let them know you're really in business & flush with cash, that this isn't just a joke.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 5:01pm

    Ocean-kat, Wattree cited buying power numbers provided by Nielsen. He provided GNP numbers from a Hofstra University Professor. They were not made up numbers. The troll said the numbers were delusional. The numbers were as I said numbers from outside sources. The troll came looking for an argument, not a discussion. You are free to support your troll friend. Have at it.

    Edit to add:

    Put on your Don Quixote suit and tell me where I offended your knight in shining armor sensitivity. My responses to the troll always cited links. There was no name-calling. At the end talked about my patience. I admitted that I did get amusement from responding to the guy who came here to argue. Was that what gave offense?

    Second edit to add:

    Note how the person you defend characterizes the black community in his responses.


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 8:26am

    Rmrd, Nielsen didn't provide these numbers - they pointed to the Sander research group that's been pimping this "buying power" idea for years. They are the only ones who do it because it's an ad-man's gimmick - "hey, those black people over there are spending a lot each year on phones, hair irons, etc." You can read it in these articles. Real economists want nothing to do with this as it's not a real meaningful indicator - it's a rousing feel-good data point for salesmen and marketers. Do I feel rich and established because more and more telemarketers have found my number? No, I just feel annoyed - it brings me no value. BTW, you keep using that troll word, but it doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. If you or Wattree toss out easy-to-refute "facts", someone is not a troll for refuting them. Some might even call Wattree a troll because he never responds to these rebuttals but again publishes the same bullshit in a new column, trolling for attention. Someone paying attention to this nonsense is grist for his mill. You might more accurately call me a "patsy".

    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 12:34am

    Sigh, I pointed to Wattree's source of the buying power numbers, Nielsen, and I gave a link noting the problems with using buying  power, remember? 

    You might tell Nielsen that they don't collect Consumer Buying Power because they are selling the product on their website and discuss how they gather the data. 

    http://www.tetrad.com/demographics/usa/nielsen/

    Follow the link and click on Consumer Buying Power Under "Available Data". You will be taken to their product, Nielsen Consumer Buying Power.

    You are incorrect about Nielsen.


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 12:48am

    Nielsen is selling grist for marketers and salespeople. It's collecting data for how what demographics viewers are in - including age, ethnicity, propensity to spend & for what, and a variety of other factors. They're like a spotter checking out a mark before a grifter plays him for his weakest point. Certainly nothing to get excited about for black pride, except "we've got enough money for white people to want to steal it", rather than being so dirt poor no one will want to bother with you. And it certainly doesn't make blacks close to comparable with German consumption. But the Nielsen customers (marketers) are as much concerned with targeting blacks for bling and phones and household items and whatever.

    Anyway, all this is useless - these are marketing industry figures pumped up like the endless Gartner reports about how mobile or cloud or IoT or security or whatever is the next big thing and how much it's supposed to grow and of course the results are never that rosy because of something called the "hype curve" which inevitably leads to the "trough of despair". Unfortunately blacks are pocketing this hype as something that means something, even while black household wealth remains pegged to the pitifully low line, which aside from income growth, job prospects and cost of living are about the only economic indicators worth caring about.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 1:51am

    You were wrong when you said that Nielsen didn't provide the numbers. Now you say that blacks cannot use an economic threat to accomplish anything. You are wrong again. Glenn Beck got pulled off of FoxNews after efforts by ColorOfChange.COC took advantage of an existing rift between Beck and Fox. Buying power played a role in their tactic to get sponsors to abandon the show. COC used buying power as a lever to get some corporations to leave ALEC a Conservative organization supporting voter suppression. 

    http://atlantablackstar.com/2015/02/21/1-trillion-buying-power-black-con...

    Buying power can have impact. Black wealth creation is a separate issue. Wattree notes that the focus should be on wealth creation. Black people are capable in seeing the difference. Politics365 noted the Nielsen study but also pointed to a study by the Urban Institute documenting the drop in black wealth. The Urban Institute report appeared in the NYT

    If anything is delusional, it is your analysis of how the black community looks at buying power and the wealth gap.


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 8:21am

    "It means African-Americans wield tremendous buying power. The Nielsen study showed numerous shopping trends, mostly for household, health and beauty, travel, smart phones and child-related items." - yawn - marketer's wetdream. And the definition of buying power & total numbers are only developed by Singer, not Nielsen who just does their niche market + demographics thing.

    As for the Urban Institute, yes, that's the pessimistic issue of wealth disparity et al that I've been addressing for some time. No, I don't look at wealth gap differently - just "buying power".


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 9:56am

    More humor along with inability to admit error. The report was published by Nielsen

    http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2013/african-american-consume...

    You can download a PDF of the report from Nielsen

    http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2013/resilient--receptive-...

    Payouts said the numbers were not supplied by Nielsen. You are wrong.

    Wattree pointed out the need for wealth development. You ignored that part of his post.

    At any rate, David Letterman as a review show tonight. You are no longer needed to fill my entertainment needs for the day.

    Buh-Bye


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 10:10am

    Yes, the report was published by Nielsen. But they point to Selig as the source (not Singer, my bad...):

    Note

    *Selig Center of Economic Growth, 2012.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 10:15am

    Do as I do, but not as I say.

    http://<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zkrOlsnzUeE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

    Why spend time on Billo?

    This sombitch has gone on and on about how terrible Black culture is. Every damn day for twenty years and more.

    I could point to rush or fox or whatever.

    Nobody plays this song.

    Because it is obvious, I guess.

    I love your blog and all of your blogs.

    But I have to play this here. It is about lost love and lost life and lost...

     

    Except for you, of course.

     

     

     


    by Richard Day on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 1:17am

    Thank you, Richard.

    I appreciate that.


    by Wattree on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 8:59am

    It's all over the city . . .

    This is what the people of "greed and avarice" have envisioned around the Metro platforms in the areas such as Leimert Park, in addition to many of the so-called middle class neighborhoods within walking distance of the platforms in Los Angeles.

    It's sad... But true...

    ~OGD~


    by oldenGoldenDecoy on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 3:33am