Black Diasporic Essentials For "Liberation"

[Poitier]

CAPITAL

1.The Problem: Economic Apartheid. To put it bluntly, White people shut-out Black folk from participation in the economy by limiting access to money and other resources. When they do give us the resources, it often comes with a vicious small print.


Below is a various graphics depicting the denial of credit and credit at high-cost that have made "Black wealth" something more apt for a science fiction novel.

As many states crack down on so-called “payday” loans, a new report reveals that major banks like JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo are behind-the-scenes partners in the practice of giving short-term loans to consumers with interest rates as high as 500 percent.

The lenders who issue the payday loans are trying to avoid the bans currently in effect in 15 states by setting up shop in more hospitable states or beyond the U.S. borders, in countries like Belize and Malta, and in the West Indies, according to a story in The New York Times.

“While the banks, which include giants like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, do not make the loans, they are a critical link for the lenders, enabling the lenders to withdraw payments automatically from borrowers’ bank accounts, even in states where the loans are banned entirely,” Jessica Silver-Greenberg wrote in the Times. “In some cases, the banks allow lenders to tap checking accounts even after the customers have begged them to stop the withdrawals.”

“Without the assistance of the banks in processing and sending electronic funds, these lenders simply couldn’t operate,” Josh Zinner told the Times. Zimmer is co-director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, which works with community groups in New York.

The study by the Safe Small-Dollar Loans Research Project at Pew found that 10 percent of renters have used a payday loan, compared with 4 percent of homeowners; 11 percent of people making between $15,000 and $25,000 have used a payday loan, with the proportion decreasing further up the income ladder; and 12 percent of African-Americans have taken out payday loans, more than twice the figure for whites (4 percent), and twice the figure for Hispanics and other races or ethnicities (both at 6 percent).

“Although payday loans are marketed as short-term emergency loans, in reality, most borrowers used them for recurring living expenses and become indebted for an average of five months,” Nick Bourke, the research project’s director, told USNews.com.

Major Banks Profit from Payday Loans; Blacks More Likely to Use Them

This is the alternative economy of payday loans, which has sprung up where the old economy has died.

In St Louis, a payday loan is something with which you are either intimately familiar or completely oblivious. The locations of payday loan outlets correspond to income: the lower the regional income, the more payday loan centers you will find. The 249 payday lenders in the St Louis metro area are almost entirely absent from wealthy or middle class areas. The outlets supply small loans – usually under $500 – at exorbitant interest rates to be paid off, ideally, with one’s next paycheck.

“You only see them in poor neighborhoods,” says Tishaura Jones, the treasurer of St Louis and an active campaigner to regulate the industry. “They target people who don’t have access to normal banking services or who have low credit scores. It’s very intentional.”


A chart from a publicly available legal brief, Hollins v Capital Solutions Investments Inc, shows how much money a borrower took out and what they ended up owing.

The explosion of payday lending is a recent phenomenon. According to the Better Business Bureau, the number of lenders grew nationally from 2,000 in 1996 to an estimated 22,000 by 2008. In Missouri, there are 958 more payday lenders than there are McDonald’s restaurants, a ratio reflected in most US states. The 2008 economic collapse only increased the outlets’ clientele, particularly in St Louis, which has more unbanked people than any other US city.

“The effects of payday loans on families are tenfold,” explains Jones. “If they can’t pay it back they have two choices. They can roll it over to another one and then pay more, or they can try to pay it back – but then something else goes unpaid. They can’t get out. They’re in a constant cycle of debt. Fifty percent of families are in liquid-asset poverty, which means they lack any sort of savings. The average amount that a family lacks for what they call liquid-asset poverty is $400. It seems insignificant, but $400 can mean life or death.”

“Here’s a client of ours,” he says, showing me a legal brief. “She borrowed $100. She made one instalment payment, couldn’t pay the rest, and was sued. Since then they’ve collected $3,600 in payments by garnishing her wages. That’s 36 times the hundred bucks she owed. They told her she still owes $3,600 more. The wage garnishments are reducing the debt slower than the high interest, which is 200%. She called her attorney and asked ‘When will I be done paying this?’ And he said: ‘Never.’ It’s indentured servitude. You will never, ever be done.”

Vieth’s client is lucky compared with others mentioned in the case file: one borrowed $80 and now owes the payday lender $19,643.48.

Poor Americans no longer live check to check: they live loan to loan, with no end in sight.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ke-ends-meet-owe-36-times-that-sum?CMP=twt_gu

But the report's authors determined the addresses for every single payday loan location in Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, and found that a majority are concentrated in African American and Latino communities.

"Neighborhoods where over fifty percent of the population is black or Latino you have payday loan store concentrations that are twice as large than neighborhoods where less than twenty-five percent of the population is black or Latino," Davis said. "Also low income communities that are eighty percent below Florida's median income level have four times the concentration of payday loan stores than communities that are one hundred twenty percent over the median income level."

Inside the Battle Over Florida's Racially-Charged Payday Loan Racket | VICE | United States

To combat this, many Black folk think the solution is forming an alternate/group economy within the USA to ensure the best use of the capital we do have. While I think this is a piece of the puzzle, this has huge flaws that requires Black folks to look beyond "Black economics" as a means to dismantle White supremacy. As this author puts it more eloquently than I:

Now. The call for moving money to Black Banks. If you wish to do so, you can. But once again, this does not attack the PIC and white supremacy. Everyone, yes including you check account holder, is vulnerable to capitalism. ALL banks, regardless of who owns them, are regulated by the same entity, the FDIC. This institution is set up to make sure that smaller banks never get large and large banks like BoA remain too big too fail. Meaning, moving your money would actually mean nothing to them since they will be bailed out by our government. Also, the FDIC is responsible for shutting down Black owned banks. This isn’t the firebombing of Black Wall Street in 1921, but it’s an attack none the less.

“The Black Dollar”

 

[Poitier]

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2. Multi-faceted Solutions- Access to capital would not eradicate White supremacy alone without addressing things like housing, agriculture, and security but would do much to dismantle it, but the ways to achieve this have to be multifaceted. I've been preaching (for years) the need for African Americans to look globally for investors, bankers and other backers, specifically those in the African continent. Though I think he is a fossil and relic, Farrakhan had the right idea when he sought money from Gaddafi. It was just the two wrong people to attempt it. You have African billionaires like the Dos Santos and Dangotes who invest across the continent but I believe it is in their best interest to push beyond the continent and expand their portfolio into the USA by funding the Black communities here. Not just limited to the exorbitantly wealthy singular figures, the Black-owned African banks also have the opportunity to be lenders to those in the diaspora and fill a need. In addition, we must continue to find ways to pool money and resources to provide for one another.
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A Ghanaian firm stepped in right on time as a Black-owned Bronzeville bank was on the verge of collapsing.
Groupe Nduom of Ghana invested a whopping $9M into the failing Illinois Service Federal Savings and Loan Association, now known as ISF Bank, Ghana Web reports. The bank was in search of capital to revive its struggling operations.

Ghanaian Company Invests $9M in Failing Black Chicago Bank, Urges Africans and African-Americans to Help One Another - Atlanta Black Star

Colonel Qaddafi pledged $1 billion to the Nation of Islam after meeting with Mr. Farrakhan in Libya in January. Mr. Farrakhan has described the pledge as a ''humanitarian'' gesture, and last week he formally asked the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Treasury Department for the necessary permission to receive the money.

Officials to Block Qaddafi Gift to Farrakhan

Isabel dos Santos

Her €200 million ($218.5 million) deal to buy a majority stake in Portuguese power-equipment maker Efacec Power Solutions SGPS last fall prompted a group of European lawmakers to call for an investigation into whether she has channeled public oil revenues into personal investments. She is feuding with partners in an Angolan telecom venture over alleged unpaid dividends. And she is in conflict with Banco BPI SA, Portugal’s second-biggest traded lender, over the fate of its Angolan unit.

Africa’s Richest Woman Draws Scrutiny Over Source of Wealth

Aliko Dangote

The latest commissioned cement plant is part of the ongoing African expansion drive of the Pan-African conglomerate.



Earlier the company has opened its plants in Cameroon, Zambia and Ethiopia. The commissioning of the Senegal and South Africa plants would follow suit according to the company’s president.

Dangote investments stimulating African economy, say Tanzanian, Nigerian presidents


Another well-established way to combat economic apartheid is pooling our money to buy the public goods in our community: the groceries, residential housing and transportation systems that many of us rely on.

For almost two decades, the residents who live in a predominantly African-American Greensboro neighborhood didn’t have a place to shop for food. The community tried to attract the attention of a popular grocery store, but when that plan didn’t work, they decided to open their own store.

Last year, New Economy Week reported on this Greensboro community and the people’s plan to create their own grocery supply. The publication recently reached out to the neighborhood to see how their plans were coming along.

Investing In the Co-op

The co-op initially started selling memberships to raise money. Community members could pay $100 to become member-owners. This fee afforded them voting privileges and give them the power to create a co-op they can be proud of. The RCC currently has around 630 members, and the goal is to have 1,000 residents sign up by the time the store opens its doors.

Of course, the membership fees haven’t paid for all of the costs associated with building a grocery store. In all, the RCC needs to raise about $2.1 million, and they have about 95 percent of what they need. Loans from foundations, grassroots fundraising and city grants have helped to raise money for the co-op, and the organization needs to earn just $100,000 to meet its goal.

Black Community Comes Together to Turn 'Food Desert' Into a $2 Million Co-Op - Atlanta Black Star

A group of neighbors in Northwest D.C. were fed up with what was going on in their building, so they bought it. And part of their inspiration came from 7 ON YOUR SIDE.

ABC7 News reported on conditions at 5751 Colorado Avenue NW in a report seven years ago when tenants told us they had no heat.

The story ended years later not with the landlord cashing in on the building by driving the tenants out, but with the help of the city and the nonprofit, Mi Casa, the tenants were able to get loans to buy out the landlord and renovate the building as a cooperative.

Fourteen of the tenants in the 28-unit building are back in their old units after two years in temporary housing.

On Saturday, they're going to officially celebrate the reopening and take applications for coop members who want to move into the 14 unoccupied units

7 ON YOUR SIDE: Fed up with landlord, tenants buy their own building, make it a coop

Likelemba,Tontine, Susu, Stokvel, Tanda, Shalongo, Ukoob, Ayuuto, Hagbad - Various rotating credit systems that are popular across the Diaspora in which people pool their money and use a fixed lottery to loan money to a segment of the poolers, usually for small purchases. This would be a great alternative to payday loans for those of us in the USA. Legality may be an issue but can be by-passed.


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3.Infrastructure- It minimizes the impact of getting capital via the Diaspora if we are still using White created banks and White created apps to wire and store the money and give them a percentage via fees which they can then use to further discrimination. We must look to things like mobile money in Kenya, the remittances industry in the greater African continent, credit unions, and online banking apps via Black banks to bypass the booby traps by White financial institutions.
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CURRENCY

1. African perspective

Any true autonomy has to come with a currency tied to the high consumer confidence that comes with a strong economy. In a global economy, countries like China, Germany and America can sway the markets due to the sheer volume of their demand for goods and commodities. A decline in demand from these countries has a significant effect on many emerging and developing economies that tend to rely on commodities and thus are sensitive to the ebbs and flows of a volatile market, many of which are African nations. These nations must strive for diversified economies with multiple revenue streams, ideally manufactured goods. In addition, diversification must be the goal in times of commodity boom and not just when there is a lack of plenty.​

Angola To Cut 2015 Oil Benchmark To $40 Per Barrel - Ventures Africa

African energy producers face oil price pressure - GRI Insight

The Impact of the U.S. Shale Boom in Africa - JIA SIPA

Figure 1: Percent decrease in GDP, 2014 to 2015.
OPEC Economies On Their Last Legs | OilPrice.com

To see the impact of relying on commodities and the greater market, one need not look further than the oil glut created by Saudi Arabia in reaction to US shale that has made life hell for nations like Angola, Nigeria, Brazil and Russia with ballooning budget deficits and inflationary currency. There are geopolitical implications to consider with this dynamic. A glance at countries placed under U.S. embargoes and sanctions for human rights violations makes one thing clear: most of the countries on this list are commodity-dependent. We do not want the White supremacist structure to have the ability to sink our global economies and turn our fiat currencies into paper.

2. African American perspective
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African Americans must begin to divest from the dollar or at-least diversify the currencies we deal in. We cannot afford to wholly confide in a currency that the White supremacist print and circulate. That puts us at their mercy. The BREXIT and the British Pound is a lesson in the mirage of currency strength and that was engineered by the European White supremacist structure. Though not perfect and with vulnerabilities, the rise of crypto-currency and mobile money has provided us the opportunity to by-pass our reliance on this structure.





INTRA-TRADE

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Wish feature will come back soon!



But did you need to create another thread? Anyways will read later.

 

[J-Nice]

Great thread. I'm already doing something similar with a co-op here in Philly and I already own land in Africa. I'll have to do some research on African banking on the continent to have a more comprehensive view. But are these African banks IMF or European backed? That could be a future issue to consider.

 

[Poitier]

But are these African banks IMF or European backed? That could be a future issue to consider.

Looking at this my self....information is hard to come by but seems to vary by country.

 

[Elle Driver]

Great thread. I'm already doing something similar with a co-op here in Philly and I already own land in Africa. I'll have to do some research on African banking on the continent to have a more comprehensive view. But are these African banks IMF or European backed? That could be a future issue to consider.

Where in Africa?

 

[J-Nice]

Where in Africa?

Uganda

 

[Elle Driver]

Uganda

Why Uganda may I ask?

 

[J-Nice]

Why Uganda may I ask?

I have two close friends who are Ugandan and one of them invited me to stay with them in Africa for a few weeks 3 years ago. I was looking to buy land in Africa and get my feet wet with investing on the continent so my friend connected to a couple business partners of his and the rest is history.

 

[Houston911]

...

 

[calixprynce]

Great thread. I'm already doing something similar with a co-op here in Philly and I already own land in Africa. I'll have to do some research on African banking on the continent to have a more comprehensive view. But are these African banks IMF or European backed? That could be a future issue to consider.

damn good shyt breh .

 

[BigMan]

Shout all my caribbeans on the susu wave
Dope thread

 

[KOohbt]

We need people who take trips to Africa to make it a priority to find out about lending.
I always look at Africans especially West Africans and wonder why they aren't beating the door down to invest in our communities. You would immediately have a footprint in every major us inner city.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

@Poitier

Okay I just finished reading everything, and I have to say that if you have the time then you should really consider publishing a book. And I mean it. This type of idea should be more mainstream than the "black group economics" school of thinking from Claude Anderson, which in my opinion is a very noble ideas from him, but also it has major flaws that does not dismantle white supremacy in the slightest bit. And blacks technically already practice. It has flaws, because once again like I said before the Chinese in Chinatown who people from Claude Anderson's school of thinking use as the the object example of "group economics" is getting gentrified. Especially in New York City, a place I live right next to.

More white people moving into Chinatown as section sees real estate prices rise: study

The character of Manhattan's Chinatown is changing as new hotels and luxury condos open and the white population grows faster there than in other parts of the city, a new study shows.

"More and more young single people with much more wealth than immigrants are moving into these buildings[/B]," said Bethany Y. Li, a staff attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York.

White populations in the Chinatowns of Boston, Philadelphia and Manhattan are growing faster than in each city overall, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Asian-American organization and local universities.

Researchers analyzed decades of U.S. census data and went block by block and floor by floor to collect information.

"Our most basic goal was to make sure that Chinatowns don't disappear," Li said.

In Manhattan's Chinatown, luxury condos like Hester Gardens - where a three-bedroom recently sold for $1.5 million - are sprouting, and nearly 20 new hotels have opened up, study researchers found.

The Chinese word for "gentrification" was found spray-painted on a boarded-up window as a new Canal St. coffee shop was built, surveyors said.

Some of the condo developers are catering to wealthy Chinese-Americans — but the changes bring in more young professionals, squeezing working-class, immigrant families.

Hong Kong-born Patricia Lau, 40, who owns Solo Boutique on Hester St., said she has seen a big influx of non-Chinese residents. Lau said she thinks new buildings and hotels like the towering 106-room, blue glass Wyndham Garden nearby are a good thing - but she can't afford to make the neighborhood her home.

"I would, but the rent here is so expensive!" she said. "I live in Queens."

Asian-American fund attorney Li said she wants to make sure that Boston, Philadelphia and Manhattan Chinatowns do not end up as places for tourists only - like the former immigrant enclave in Washington, D.C., which has no grocery store but Chinese characters on signs at chains like Hooters and Urban Outfitters.
Changes in Manhattan and Philadelphia have been more subtle. The Asian population in Manhattan's Chinatown has been stable, at about 45%, from 1990 to 2010, according to census data. The white population increased by 19% in the past decade alone, however, as the number of black and Latino residents fell.

Neighborhood dynamics also shifted, as 21.4% more singles moved in and the number of family households shrank by 13%, according to the report.

In Philadelphia's Chinatown, Asians' share of the population has also remained steady, but the neighborhood's overall numbers have skyrocketed during the last 20 years, and the white population more than doubled.

Chinatown increasingly white, wealthy: study

The slow decline of American Chinatowns

Chinatowns are a feature of many US cities, but some of the best known are succumbing to gentrification, campaigners say. Even one of the largest and most vibrant, in Manhattan, is slowly being invaded by luxury shops and apartment buildings.

"Chinatowns are turning into a sanitised ethnic playground for the rich to satisfy their exotic appetite for a dim sum and fortune cookie fix," says Andrew Leong, one of the authors of a recent report that charted gentrification in New York, Boston and Philadelphia's Chinatowns.

The report on gentrification, published by the Asian American Legal Defense Fund, finds that from 2000-2010 the share of the Asian population has fallen from 48%-45% in New York's Chinatown, 57%-46% in Boston's, and 49%-30% in Philadephia's, and that the share of the white population rose in all three cities.

The slow decline of American Chinatowns - BBC News

But yeah you're school of thinking NEEDS to be more mainstream than the ones from Claude Anderson and Jason Black.

Anyways, everything you wrote was not only well written, but also thoroughly researched.

From what I got from read is that you believe globalism will play a big part in our liberation due to us not needing to depend on America, but instead reaching for help beyond America for help/business. And I agree 100% and slowly began hopping on this train. I know Pan-Africanism is a pipe dream in some spiritual unity sense, but in terms of business I believe it can work. But I also believe that its going to take some time and may be very hard. First we're going to have to convince wealthy African-Americans to get aboard, those people being actual businessmen like bankers for example. And then we will have to convince hard nosed rich Africans to do business with us and not just rely on non-blacks. That to me will be the hard part and will have to show these Africans who MAY have a negative stereotype about us that we are really about the business. But if this does work out I can see great things.

I think I also remember you stating that blacks of the diaspora, especially African-Americans can use African banks like how White-Americans use swiss banks in Europe. If those African banks are really good then we can secretly hide our assets from the IRS.

To me, us using African banks would be the next evolution of black banks in America and should be. And speaking of black banks in America, I can we MAY again MAY be on the verge of solving the loan and credit problem if black banks in America gain more steam. Black banks may not give us loans with strings attached.

Anyways this is all I have to say for now. Really good read. Waiting for the currency part though.

 

[BigMan]

^arent there Chinatowns popping up elsewhere tho?