Afro-Netizen

The green collar economy, Blackfolk & America's future

Afro-Netizen has promoted books before. However, the timing of the publication of "The Green Collar Economy" by GreenForAll founder, Van Jones, the presidential campaign and what's going on between Wall Street, Main Street and MLK Boulevard highlights the importance of Jones' book.

You have heard Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi -- even Republican political figures reference "green collar jobs" in the rally cry for a new economy built on energy independence and a heightened environmental stewardship that for the next generation of American voters may become an inviolable non-partisan issue like Social Security or, dare I say, Israel.

Beyond the political rhetoric whose growing lexicon has now subsumed "green collar" this and "green economy that, is the actual substance and context that every voter -- every American -- should understand. Most especially, we as people of color must commit to understand and advocate for our integral inclusion and leadership in the shaping of the social policy and business development in the emerging "green economy".

As Jones articulates so well, the green economy's success depends on our early and broad involvement as people of color to ensure that the fruits of our country's labor in this area produce not just a more vibrant workforce, but secure the type of "eco-equity" that the mainstream American environmental movement has been conspicuously silent on.

So, without further ado, here's a taste of a groundbreaking book we all should read and spread the word about with as much zeal as we do the chain letters that (rightly or wrongly) compel us to think, feel or do something away from our computer screens.

Still not sure what the heck "green collar jobs" are and why we should care?

Read on . . . (and BUY THIS BOOK TODAY!)

The possibilities are endless. Someone says “green jobs,” and our minds go to Buck Rogers.

Let’s be clear, the main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun. Hundreds of thousands of green-collar jobs will be weatherizing and energy-retrofitting every building in the United States. Buildings with leaky windows, ill-fitting doors, poor insulation, and old appliances can gobble up 30 percent more energy.

That means owners are paying 30 percent more on their heating bills. And it often means that 30 percent more coal-fi red carbon is going into the atmosphere. Drafty buildings create broke, chilly people—and an overheated planet.

Another bit of high-tech green technology is the clipboard. That tool is used by energy auditors as they point out energy-saving opportunities to homeowners and renters. This job does not require much training and can be an early entry point into the booming world of energy consultation and efficiency. And one consultation can save an owner hundreds—or even thousands—of dollars annually.

Other green-collar workers can then follow up with other tasks for building owners: wrapping hot-water heaters with blankets, blowing insulation, plugging holes, repairing cracks, hauling out old appliances, replacing old windows with the double-glazed kind.

Other pieces of green tech are ladders, wrenches, hammers, tool belts, and nonslip work boots. Those are the space-age gadgets used by solar-panel installers every day.

The point is this. When you think about the emerging green economy, don’t think of George Jetson with a jet pack. Think of Joe Sixpack with a hard hat and lunch bucket, sleeves rolled up, going off to fix America. Think of Rosie the Riveter, manufacturing parts for hybrid buses or wind turbines. Those images will represent the true face of a green-collar America.

Jena 6, the Black netroots & the importance of media literacy

Recently, a storm has brewed over allegations by popular radio host Michael Baisden that progressive advocacy group, ColorofChange.org, has defrauded one of the Jena 6 families.

It is a serious, unsubstantiated and ridiculous charge from a man who took the lead in the corporate radio  community to advocate for and promote the Jena 6. But that said, while we're all entitled to differing opinions, we're not entitled to different facts.

Afro-Netizen unequivocally supports ColorOfChange.org. They represent the future and power of renewed civic engagement in our communities. They honor the spirit of generations of Blackfolk and other freedom-fighters who organized around the message instead of merely venerating a given messenger.

ColorOfChange.org promotes and thrives on decentralization, diffusing influence and resources to individuals from all walks of life to get involved in ways that the cults of charismatic leadership discourage and corporate media fear.

I do not know Micheal Baisden, nor listen to his show (and rarely listen to corporate radio). So, this is really not a counter-attack. Because, really, this is not about whether Baisden is "good or bad". It's analogous to the common expression, "Do you see the glass as half-full or half-empty?". Because in actuality, any many contexts, the best answers come from related, but unasked questions like, "What's in the glass?" and "Who's glass is it?"

Michael Baisden may not be an employee for ABC Radio, but as long as ABC doesn't kick him off the air, he's doing their bidding. And doing their bidding is essentially producing consistently high ratings to increase their advertising rates and revenues towards maximizing shareholder value for what is a publicly-held media titan -- one of only a handful of such behemoths that is strangling our democracy and so-called "free speech".

ColorOfChange.org is a progressive, independent and under-resourced non-profit. It is a labor of love by its stakeholders, manifested as an innovative civic enterprise whose potential is only limited by the commitment, creativity and energy of its ever-growing membership.

ColorOfChange.org is an honorable and vital member of 21st Century freedom-fighters with whom Afro-Netizen stands shoulder to shoulder.

Interestingly, on Michael Baisden's own website, he chose to highlight his Jena-related activity with a photo of him & Rev. Al Sharpton, while giving no mention to ColorOfChange.org nor the Black netroots community whatsoever who predated his on-air efforts to promote the Jena 6 affair.

But again, this matter is bigger than both Baisden and ColorOfChange.org.

This is about whether we allow corporate media to facilitate COINTELPRO 2.0 to divide and conquer the emerging Black netroots community.

Many entrenched Negroes who have poo-pooed those of us in the Black netroots community as lap dogs of "white liberal activists" (read: MoveOn.org), are afraid that they will have to become accountable to the rhetoric they have almost begun to believe after all these years without the antiseptic of transparency.

The reality is, Afro-Netizen need not name names in this regard. But toward interested readers doing their own research on who's promoting whose agenda, as my late hell-raising activist maternal grandmother (inspiring the moniker "Geronimo" by Baltimore politicos) liked to remind me sternly: "Consider the source!" (Not unlike the ever sanguine pearl: "Follow the money.")

This is why media literacy is so important to disadvantaged communities who do not genuinely control their own media. Because if we knew who owns what and what they are are about, the current and future Baisden-like fiascoes would be taken for what they are: distractions from the much larger threat of media consolidation at the expense of widening and amplifying the diverse, autonomous voices of communities color.

And for all the good things Baisden may have said or done around Jena and other salient issues, if you haven't heard him mention "media literacy", "media consolidation" or "media justice", now you know why.

Stanley O'Neal: Ex-CPL (Chief Predatory Lender)

By Ron Howell
Guest Contributor

There is a side of me that remembers the days when the number of Black CEO’s sat squarely on zero. That side of me moans, softly, over the departure of Stanley O’Neal as Merrill Lynch’s top executive and board chair.

But the unapologizing truth is that I mostly feel anger toward Merrill Lynch, for its role in the sub-prime crisis that has claimed O'Neal's job and, more tragically, the homes and happiness of tens of thousands of foreclosure victims.

My beloved community of Brooklyn – known to many as the center of the African diaspora, because of its hundreds of thousands of residents who are natives of the Caribbean, the United States and the Mother Continent itself – has been a special victim of this crisis created by greed.

Hundreds of Black families there, and countless thousands elsewhere, are bracing for the foreclosure hatchet to come down on the necks of their financial lives.

A bit of history. Going back a few years, money-hungry investors plying Wall Street and Main Street sought other corners on which to place their bets; and they turned to little cubbies inhabited by struggling souls who were, largely, people of color, cash-short workers looking to purchase a home or simply make repairs to one. These loans were “bundled” into packages and passed up the ladder, in schemes in which Merrill Lynch and others were key players.

The evidence of roguishness in this crisis has been mounting.

Recently, the New York State Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, said in a law suit that Washington Mutual schemed to get selected real estate appraisers to put higher price tags on properties to be purchased by “sub-prime” borrowers. And more recently, the New York Times reported that banks and lawyers across the nation have been bilking these borrowers as they crash toward foreclosure.

I, for one, don’t even like to refer to all this as the sub-prime loan crisis. I prefer to call it the predatory loan crisis, because these financial institutions effectively acted as predators, using brokers to find decent but often gullible people willing to take out loans at exorbitant rates and on shylock-like terms that were, too often, way beyond their means to repay.

The result of the predatory loan scandal has been the meltdown that we have seen lately across the country, a broad-based case of things-falling-apart. It is causing deep personal pain in communities like the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn – New York City’s most populous and most Black borough.

In New York City, it is anticipated that about 14,000 homes will have foreclosure actions filed against them by the end of this year, and the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens will account for more than 72 percent of those filings.

The neighborhoods most affected will be the Black areas of those two boroughs, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Flatbush in Brooklyn, and Jamaica and Rochdale in Queens. (These projections were made by the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, or NEDAP, which seeks to “promote community economic justice, and to eliminate discriminatory economic practices that harm communities and perpetuate inequality and poverty.”)

What’s also unsettling here is that there are some who continue to gain from the pain of these victims of predatory lending. In New York City – as overall real estate prices continue to rise – lovely brownstones of Bedford-Stuyvesant are becoming bargains for whites and other upper-middle income workers looking to own a home.

The reason? The newcomers are benefiting from the fact that foreclosures in Bed-Stuy have effectively driven down prices. The headline on the Times article about this was “ Brooklyn: A Bargain Hunter’s Guide” (October 14, 2007).

So I say to Black people in New York and elsewhere, and to housing advocates: Be vigilant and take arms (metaphorical arms!) against this sea of schemers dressed in suits and ties.

As for Stanley O’Neal, his executive sunset will likely be laced with gold. Not to make accusations, but perhaps some act of contrition on his part would be in order, like a contribution to some fund assisting victims of predatory loans.

Just a thought.

Ron Howell is a veteran journalist and neophyte blogger. Over the years, Ron has been a reporter -- domestic and overseas -- for Newsday, The Associated Press, Ebony Magazine, The New York Daily News and The Baltimore Evening Sun.

Bob Johnson banks on Wal-Mart

BET founder, billionaire Bob Johnson, is at it again via his banking venture, Urban Trust Bank.

According to Black Enterprise, Urban Trust Bank may be locating some of its banks in Wal-Mart stores. While such arrangements with banks is not new for Wal-Mart, it would represent a first, as Urban Trust Bank is a Black-owned financial institution.

While this may be a good thing for Bob Johnson, Urban Trust Bank and Wal-Mart, how good will this arrangement be for everyone else -- most notably, the communities who suffer from Wal-Mart's very presence in their neighborhoods?

I'm all for supplier diversity, but at what cost?

Book segregation

In a recent article published in The Wall Street Journal, writer Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg talks about the business of segregating books -- specifically Black books.

Here's a sneak peek:

"You face a double-edged sword," says Mr. Massey, 33 years old. "I'm black and I'm published by a black imprint, so I'm automatically slotted in African-American fiction." That helps black readers to find his books easily and has underpinned his career. At the same time, he says, the placement "limits my sales."

The article goes on . . .

As a practical matter, segregating books by race and culture makes it less likely that black writers will hit the national best-seller lists -- whites make up a majority of book buyers -- limiting their chances of earning bigger paychecks. Nadine Aldred, who writes as Millenia Black, says that writer Jennifer Weiner might not have become a best-selling author if her books had been sold exclusively in a Jewish-American section. Ms. Weiner, whose books include "Good in Bed" and "Little Earthquakes," agrees. "If my books were perceived as Jewish 'chick lit,' there would be a narrower appeal," she says.

Definitely an article well worth reading.

You can read the full article here.

(N.B. This link will be automatically deactivated by WSJ in 7 days or December 14, 2006.)

Black hair, Korean monopoly?

If only it were that simple. Few things are, and the Black haircare market in urban America is no exception.

Watch the following video vignette for yourself and see how this compelling 6-minute documentary directed by high school filmmaker Rebecca Christian for the San Diego Asian Film Foundation's Reel Voices Documentary Project will raise as many questions as it seeks to answer.

Apparently, Cracker Barrel can't tell the difference between . . .

. . . "niggas and Black people", to quote from one of comedian Chris Rock's more popular and controversial stand-up routines, when an employee of this restaurant chain allegedly chose to discriminate against Rock's mother and sister recently.

According the Associated Press, . . .

The mother of black comedian Chris Rock said Tuesday she will sue a restaurant chain after she was seated but ignored for more than a half hour at one of the chain's restaurants along the South Carolina coast.

Rose Rock said she and her 21-year-old daughter were the only blacks at the Cracker Barrel chain's Murrells Inlet restaurant in April. Rock said she asked the manager about the delay and was told she and her daughter could have a free meal.

"He never called over the waitresses and asked why did these people sit here for an hour without service?" she said. "The only thing he said was we could have a free meal and neither of us wanted to eat."

To ensure that this matter will be handled delicatedly in the press, Mrs. Rock will be joined by Rev. Al Sharpton (he says sardonically).

Founded in 1969, Cracker Barrel operates 547 restaurants in 41 states, and has been embattled by a series of racial discrimination lawsuits.

Can Rosa Parks Sell Pickup Trucks?

Chevy's icky, exploitative new ad

By Seth Stevenson
Slate.com

Listen to the author reading this story here, or sign up for Slate's free daily podcast on iTunes.

The spot: Singer John Mellencamp leans on the fender of a Chevy pickup, strumming an acoustic guitar. He sings, among other things, "This is our country." Meanwhile, a montage of American moments flies by: Rosa Parks on a bus. Martin Luther King preaching to a crowd. Soldiers in Vietnam. Richard Nixon waving from his helicopter. And then modern moments: New Orleans buried by Katrina floodwaters. The two towers of light commemorating 9/11. As a big, shiny pickup rolls through an open field of wheat and then slows to a carefully posed stop, the off-screen announcer says, "This is our country. This is our truck. The all-new Chevy Silverado."

This ad makes me—and, judging by my e-mail, some of you—very angry. It's not OK to use images of Rosa Parks, MLK, the Vietnam War, the Katrina disaster, and 9/11 to sell pickup trucks. It's wrong. These images demand a little reverence and quiet contemplation. They are not meant to be backed with a crappy music track and then mushed together in a glib swirl of emotion tied to a product launch. Please, Chevy, have a modicum of shame next time.

I should probably leave it at that (the poor ad is just trying to sell trucks, after all, in its own muddle-headed way). But this isn't your basic flag-waving car commercial. It mixes patriotic images with some heart-rending, shameful episodes from our past. And the ambiguity is furthered by the presence of John Mellencamp—a guy who, in a different incarnation, used to make semipolitical statements about the dark side of the American dream. A guy who wrote an open letter in 2003 arguing that the Iraq war was "solidifying our image as the globe's leading bully" and wondering why President Bush hadn't been "recalled" yet. Mellencamp once sang the line, "Ain't that America" with a decidedly bitter tinge. Now he sings the remarkably similar line, "This is our country," and it's hard not to wonder what he means by it.

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Black folks in ‘Chocolate City’ are still stuck in the mud

By Jamala Rogers
The St. Louis American

NEW ORLEANS - A year after the unthinkable devastation of New Orleans wrought by Hurricane Katrina, progress in reconstruction is slow or non-existent if you’re poor or black. In fact, many observers believe New Orleans is a case study of what those in power would make out of every American city if left alone to execute their plans - urban centers without poor folks.

Katrina left 80 percent of the city flooded, killed more than 1,339 people in Louisiana, displaced 786,372 citizens and has ruined 18,752 businesses, according to the NNPA.

In New Orleans, there are efforts to reassure the people that everything is all right. On WYLD 98.5 FM radio, deejays continuously plug the slogan “Building New Orleans, one day at a time.” A “My Katrina Hero” essay contest is underway by the city government. The French Quarter, which sustained only wind damage, looks like a Hollywood movie set. Rumors still persist that levees were blown up to spare this historic tourist district by redirecting raging waters to the predominantly African-American 9th Ward.

A casual pan of city streets indicates priorities in the rebuilding effort. A gigantic sign graces the top of the New Orleans Astrodome, letting passersby know that the facility re-opens on August 26. The Dome of Death was the shelter of last resort for more than 60,000 stranded victims and the centerpiece for many a reporter’s human interest (or horror) story.

A closer look and a chat with the residents reveals that all is not well, even in the Quarter. Two hostile, hand-written signs were posted on the storefront windows of YesterYears on Bourbon Street, a shop of quaint and quirky novelties. One sign read, “There is no real intention to rebuild New Orleans” and the other lamented “There is no economic recovery money.” The owner had just laid off her last paid employee and was uncertain about her 29-year-old business. Without government assistance, YesterYears was about to become yesterday’s failed business statistic.

The Democratic members of the House Small Business Committee have found that 80 percent of small businesses on the Gulf Coast have not yet received loans promised by the federal government. The Small Business Administration has approved loans of more than $10 billion, but only $2 billion has been loaned to business owners.

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Andy Young’s Truth, America’s Blues

I couldn't have blogged about this better myself . . .

By Terry Smith
BlackProf.com

Imagine a Korean-American neighborhood in which the supplies for Korean restaurants are sold primarily by black merchants.  Imagine a Jewish neighborhood where blacks are most of the property owners and merchants, or an Arab-American neighborhood where primarily blacks sell fried chicken to its inhabitants.  You are unlikely to find any such places in the United States today, but you are sure to find many black neighborhoods where these non-black groups are reaping profits from where they neither reside nor invest.

Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young may not have achieved MLK-like eloquence in his criticism of non-black ethnic groups who do business in black neighborhoods, but the attempt at turnabout in accusing this civil rights hero of racism won’t mask the basic truth of his observations.  Young recently resigned a post at Wal-Mart Stores that he never should have assumed on the heels of his comments that Wal-Mart should drive “mom and pop” stores out of business because such stores had “overcharged blacks” and sold them “stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables.”  Young continued, “I think they’ve ripped off our communities enough.  First it was Jews, then it was Korean, now it’s Arabs; very few black people own these stores.”
Which part of Young’s statement is untrue?  Poor neighborhoods in which blacks are disproportionately concentrated pay a “ghetto tax,” spending more for basic goods and services than most middle-income neighborhoods.  As for quality and price of the food and merchandise sold to the inhabitants of these neighborhoods, suburbanites and residents of white neighborhoods are not rushing to the ghetto for fresh fruit or bargains.  Indeed, if the “mom and pop” stores Young criticized fostered the good-will their names suggests, presumably many of them would be more competitive with larger chains.

That leaves us with Young’s temerity in calling out specific ethnic groups as having engaged in exploitative conduct toward black neighborhoods.  There’s a familiar pattern here.  A black public figure criticizes a particular ethnic group, such as Jews, and his sin of specification, rather than the substance of his charge, becomes the focus of public attention.  It’s the racial equivalent of wag the dog, a perfect deflection of the public’s attention from the real, more serious issue.  And a black public official is the perfect foil because his perceived gaffe dilutes the moral legacy of black people as victims of exploitation by virtually every ethnic group in the United States, including Jews, Koreans and Arabs.

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