Unite Black dollars to ward off poverty

The old adage, "When white America catches a cold, Black America catches pneumonia," must become a thing of the past, particularly with regard to the American economy. It is routinely cited that Black America draws upwards of $500 billion annually from the American economy, but we foolishly let these valuable resources slip through our hands because we have no united economic policy to uplift our nation.

This is unlike other ethnic groups that unite their resources to start their relatives or newly arrived immigrant neighbor into business. They place their stores in their own communities and employ many of their own. How many Black businesses, or white-owned ones for that matter, are in Chinatown?

On the other hand, stores owned by other ethnic groups saturate our communities. In fact, our reckless spending habits have attained international acclaim. Foreign entrepreneurs who go nearly shoeless in their own countries, plan their escape from poverty by targeting the Black community to set up shop. Several year after going into business in our neighborhoods, they�re driving better automobiles than we do.

The problem is not the aggressive entrepreneur from outside our community. The fault lies within ourselves�disunity and self-hatred.

The enemies of our rise are much smarter today. While "house Negro" and "field Negro" status was used to openly keep us divided, today they plant newspaper stories and television reports to foster envy and jealousy. They send in infiltrators and agent provocateurs to keep chaos going, and corporate America finances many of our leading groups so they can control them.

But nobody forces us as individuals to line up at shops owned by those other than our own to get our nails and hair done or to buy our groceries. We don�t even inebriate ourselves with death-dealing liquor from stores owned by our own. The problem is our individual choices.

As we enter Black history month, it would be wise to revisit the words of a man who set us on the path of Black history�the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, whom many scholars have tried to write out of history.

In "Message to the Blackman in America," he writes: "We trust everyone but ourselves. We, therefore, have to build or produce trust in ourselves in order to do something for self and kind. We cannot depend upon the white man to continue to care for us and build a future of good for us and our children. �

"I am sure that the white people would have more respect for us after giving us a job and salary, if we would try saving some of that salary to help ourselves in that which we could do for ourselves. If they give us jobs and pay us living wages, we should do more for ourselves than we are doing with high wages and salary that we are receiving today. If the wages were rightly distributed, they would prevent our begging for food and shelter."

His top student, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, who is on the scene today as a physical reminder of how we have neglected the message of Mr. Muhammad, says this in "Torchlight for America": "Black leadership cannot go to the government to beg it to provide a future for us. Putting the beg on America is not a wise program for our leaders to advance on behalf of the people. The old slave mentality that keeps us at odds with one another and dependent on white people has to be broken."

The controversy over the recent election (some say selection) of President George W. Bush has many established Black leaders concerned about a right wing agenda that will eliminate the progress of the civil rights struggle. They fear that there is a higher power than the power of our unity, which if realized would be more powerful than their atomic bombs.

We don�t have to worry so much about an external enemy if we would get our own feet out of the way and stop tripping over our internal differences. We must unite to build a strong Black economy. That means investing in our own community, educating our people on the importance of saving and spending wisely amongst ourselves as much as possible.

Min. Farrakhan again has set an example of what we must do through the establishment of the Million Family March Economic Development Fund. It�s a workable plan that takes into account the Black community as a whole.

As Min. Farrakhan continues to reminds us: We must stop being like Lazarus and get up and "Do for self."